Drumming and Exploring on Wondering Wednesday and Thinking Thursday

Oki,

Wow what an amazing week, hard to believe we are so close to the end of the year! This week we continued working on our Nose Hill slide shows:

We have been practicing our oral stories for the Learning Assembly, there are some amazing actors, drummers and story tellers in our class!  Here we are outside in what we've called our outdoor amphitheatre.  You've heard of Shakespeare in the park, well how about sharing circles in the park?

Here are some wonderful shots from our final community walk.  Thank you again to our wonderful volunteers, you made it possible for us to continue our exploration.   We couldn't have picked a better morning.  The sun was shining and we were hungry for data nuggets.  Amazing connections and real examples from our science curriculum, Plant Growth and Change:  

Pond exploration - connections to filtration and aquaponics.  

What is amazing about cattails?  Just about everything!

We took the opportunity to rehearse our Trembling Aspen Story on the land.  The birds were most appreciative!

The drum is the heartbeat of the land and has become the heartbeat of our class!

gathering for a class photo 

Mindful discussion.  

Our friend the Wild Rose 

Check out the specimen that Ben found.  What is your inference about the creature this belongs to?  

Shubhangi's notes from the field, a curious observer who is always pushing herself to transform her thinking!

Indigenous Drumming with Darcy Turning robe. 
Wow!  Darcy was absolutely inspirational, we had such a deep conversation with him on Wednesday about the land that Evanston is built on.  Ella and Chloe offered him the sage that we had found on our community walk and this set off a stream of stories connected to our learning.  He shared with us that sage was the favourite food of the bison and this is why they were so abundant here in the past.  It has many medicinal uses too, just ask your child about it.

This afternoon we were experiment with MIRAs to explore symmetry.

Learning Highlights for week June 3-7

Oki,

This week we have been focused on our Humanities Research.  Students are using their research skills to find data nuggets as well as their background knowledge connecting all of our learning around the knowledge from the land to  create a google slide show to represent their learning about Nose Hill Park and how connected it is to the history of Alberta and the stories of the land.

I know some of your children have shared their work with you and this is the great thing about google drive, you can check in any time to see their work.  Here are a couple of sample pages for you to view:

Here is the rubric for the slide show:  

We are also writing scripts, rehearsing and drumming to get ready for our sharing circle that we want to perform at  Learning Assembly on June 21.  I'm seeing amazing acting skills and story telling skills.  We are excited to share this with you and the rest of the school!  We are using our growth mindset and it's paying off because each time we rehearse there is improvement.  Here are some photos:  

We have finished our Prairie Crocus art and wrote some six word stories to represent this powerful producer.  

Six word stories on Prairie Crocus.

By:Shubhangi

Prairie Crocus, peaceful calm, purple photosynthesis.

Prairie Crocus, peaceful calm, knowledge keeper.

Powerful graceful, mindful spirit, Prairie Crocus.

Prairie Crocus, wise native, species groups.

06/06/19

By: Sara N

Small sounding spiritual flowers

Prairie Crocus, whispering, voice, wise, knowledge keeper.

Small, quiet, gentlel, colorful, story teller.

Spring blooming Canadian Blackfoot native species.

Bundles, prairies, native, North American, flowers.  

Prairie, crocus Persist Producer

by ryker

June 6, 2019

Crocus, Calm Voice

  Purple, yellow, knowledge-keeper, prairie crocus

  Spring, blooming, North, American, Prairie crocus

   

In Math we have been learning about data and probability as well as writing some assessments on different multiplication strategies and comparing and ordering fractions.

Indigenous Drumming with Darcy Turning Robe – June 12

Indigenous Drumming with Darcy Turning Robe – June 12

Wednesday, June  - 12:15 - 12:40  in our music room.

Here are some images from April 29th when Darcy met us up on Nose Hill for our  field trip.  

Darcy is a master drummer we are very lucky to be learning along side him.

An exciting opportunity for us to continue our journey with stories from the land, using the drum to tell it's story.


 Every student will have the opportunity to sing and drum with their own indigenous drum during this time.

Important Dates to Remember

Our Grade 4 Learning Celebration and send on  is on June 21 in the morning at 8:30 - 9:45 so you can mark your calendars. 

June, 2019 




 Jun 10 – DrumFit Begins - our time is 12:15 - 12:40
 Jun 12 – Vaccinations…if required
 Jun 20 – Fun Lunch
 Jun 21 - Grade 4 Send On/Learning Celebration
 Jun 21 – Indigenous Games Day
 Jun 26 – Year End Assembly
 Early Dismissal
 Last Day of Classes
 Jun 27 – Appeals Day
 Jun 28 – Org Day

Makerspace Supplies Restocking Request

Oki, 

Here is a request for recycle supplies for our Makerspace.  

In order to continue to enjoy this space, we would like to collect a few items that we are low on.  If you have any items that you can donate to the school, please send your child with them in a sealed Ziploc bag. We will be collecting from June 10 - 14.   Please note that all students at Kenneth D. Taylor School will use these materials and they will not be returned.

• corks
• marbles
• shells
• packaging such as bubble wrap
• egg cartons
• toilet paper rolls/paper towel rolls
• water bottle lids
• buttons
• empty thread spools
• tinfoil
• wax paper
• paper plates of all sizes
• scrapbooking scissors
• paper/plastic cups
• toothpicks
• wooden skewers

Thank you in advance for your help and support with this with this!

Mindfulness Shared

On Friday we had the pleasure of a visit from a student in Mrs. Sayani's class.  She shared her mindful spinner, that she had created using scratch.  We were very intrigued and have decided to incorporate it into our mindful menu.  Thanks to this KT Ambassador!

Here is a video of the spinner in action.

May Learning Highlights

Oki,

Here are some highlights from our learning for the last couple of weeks of May:

Science and 30 X 30  Heading outside to find examples of biodiversity in plants in the school ground:

 photo capture of species in flower beds.

Hmmm ... what is this interesting specimen? 

Exploring the plants app to extend our learning about plant diversity in diverse ecosystems.  Here is a link to a video showing the app features. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtrlnqVBteA

Math outside - practicing our long division and multiplication outside.  

Art, Science and Social Studies connections: the Prairie Crocus -  stories of the land, an indigenous species, and important plant for early pollinators, painting with acrylic paints, using recycled paper and pulp board.  3D techniques for presentation.  

Watch this space for the final painting.

 retelling the story of raven and lightning god. Have your child teach you this story of the land and see if you can figure out the embedded message.  

Space Tomato observations - venn diagram to compare L seeds to M seeds.  How are they the same/different?  

We did some inferencing to answer why Ms. Willis's class has much bigger M Plants than us.  Here are some of our ideas why: 

 supposed to say droopy : )

Grade 3 Learning Assembly:  Choir Singing

Our notes of gratitude for the transformational performance.  We were so moved by the grade 3 learning that we wanted to tell them how they had inspired us to spread the ripple effect.  Thanks grade 3's!  We secretly posted these on the classroom doors for the grade 3's to read.  They were very moved by our kindness.  

Our Third Community Walk, it was a very warm afternoon, but we enjoyed the experience and the changes in this ecosystem:  

Wolf Willow  http://plantwatch.naturealberta.ca/choose-your-plants/wolf-willow/ - the specimen of the day.  Students were asked to locate this important native species and also to find other examples of biodiversity and photosynthesis in this pond ecosystem.  The coulee is the perfect location for wolf willow, rose hips and Aspen.  We notice how important the cat tails are for the pond.  Ask your child why?  

 Sit Spot to listen for the story from the land.  

 we took the drum this time to feel the heartbeat of the land.  

 mindful focus and quiet contemplation 

Walking back after a very hot exploration.  

Language Arts:  Communicating to give feedback.  

 Our grade 2 buddies were so excited to share their amazing stories with us.  We listened and gave them formative feedback.  They certainly wrote some entertaining stories.  Global mind - we learn from each other.