Beginning to learn about the people of the North

We spent a lovely morning having a lady from the Strathcona Wilderness Centre

introduce us to artifacts, lifestyle, and interesting facts about the indigenous people living in the northern part of Canada.  Our social studies curriculum ask the students to compare and contrast their own life with that of a child living on the East coast, in the Territories and on the prairies.

Our guide brought us many artifacts, and explained their use, how they were made and their importance in everyday life and survival.

We had the opportunity to see and touch the actual fur of many of the animals that are native to that part of our country.

No zippers or buttons...you have to slip right in..

this is a sealskin jacket with a fox collar.

We used our tallest boy to understand the size of a wolf...even with hands up, the wolf won!

Look at the size of the paw!

The students had an opportunity to work at four stations and this little guy tried on the fox tails and the kamiks, which are the waterproof footwear found in the eastern territories.  No beads were used because that was not part of their trading practise.

One of the centres involved spinning tops.  In the real life of the Inuit, the tops would have been bones.

Another centre was much like our game of tic tac toe, but again, the Inuit would not have had a cloth game card.

This group was very focused on using the rocks to try and create inukshuks.

Outside, the students tried out some of the games that are part of the Northern games, all involving strength and skill.  They loved them all!

Thanks for sending the kiddos with warm clothing!  It made them have more fun!

Over the last few weeks, we have been preparing for one of our math strategies for adding and subtracting larger numbers.  Here we were recognizing where the numbers would be on a number line.

Notice that there are no numbers below.  In the open number line, the students will choose to write the numbers and then make the 'jumps' based on their own number plans.  In this example, the students were starting at a point, then recognizing the numbers it would take to get to the next ten.  All of the students finished Grade One knowing which two numbers were 'friends' to make ten.

Expect to see an explanation sheet in this coming Friday's folder for the different strategies that we will explore.  Only once the students understand the process of addition and subtraction we will introduce the algorithm that is typically taught in North American schools.  It is fascinating to know that other countries don't all teach the same algorithm as we do.  There are many ways to get to that mathematical solution!

Celebrating the 80th Day of School in 80's Style!

The students met the group Tommy TuTones via Youtube, who were 'one hit wonders' with the song

867-5309 (Jenny I've Got Your Number)  Here they are doing 'air guitar' to the song.  There are some potential drummers in this group!

The numbers were used in a variety on math activities on this 80th day of school.

The students paired up to play a dice game using the numbers (except 0 became a 10)

Why?  One smart cookie told me there was no way to roll 0 with two dice!  Great thinking!

I loved the variety of outfits that showed up....here are the 'preppy' boys.

Here's RunDMC himself....sporting all of his gold!

I am trying to use the iPad to take photos as my trusty camera has decided that 15 years of taking photos was enough.  It is taking me some time to figure out how to upload/download/get quality, etc. so sorry about the fuzziness of this photo of the cutest neon and jewelry wearing girls ever!  

The students wrote about what they will still care about when they are 80 years old, used their senses to write adjectives when they tried a little bit of the candy called PopRocks, explored the digits 8,6,7,5,3,0 and 9 using them in a variety of activities.  It was really totally awesome tubular day!

I appreciated getting all of these ideas from Mrs. VanMeter

BUILDING Compound words....

The cones and caution tape created quite the 'buzz' in the hallway before school on Tuesday morning. I could hear the whispers..."What do you think happened?"  "Did the classroom flood?"  "Why can't we go in?"  "Are we going to have to go home?"

When the students came in look at what was waiting for them at their table spot!

A huge thank you to Home Depot for donating the aprons, gloves, safety goggles, pipe pieces and couplings and the tool boxes for our special day.

The students helped each other gear up and then they all 'met' the site foreman

who explained that the regular workers had called in sick and there were over 100 compound words that needed to be built.

Here's a crew ready and willing to get to work!

The four construction crews worked collaboratively to build the compound words at one of four construction sites, rotating through so that each crew got a chance to work at each site.

At this site, they dug through the tool box to find the two blocks that could be fitted together to create a new word.

This tool box was filled with pipe sections with words affixed to them.  Using the couplings, there were twenty compound words to make.  There were a few heads being scratched as errors were made.

Is there really a word made home?  OOPS!  if the two words are switched, there is a word homemade!

This was a very challenging site.  First you had to come up with a sentence that had at least one noun, verb, adjective and compound word.  Once that was written, you could create a tower with the right blocks.  Finally the sentence words had to be traced in the right colours to show how the sentence was 'built.'  Not the easiest thing for an apprentice carpenter.

Everyone loves puzzles and the 4th construction site had many to put together but surprise!!, the picture wouldn't help because the puzzles had words and had to make sense if they were going to be put together correctly.

Success is worth a hug!

By the end of the morning all of the crew members really understood how compound words are made.  It was a great time!

Let us know if you need something built....we are ready and willing!

(Thanks to Catherine Reed for sharing this wonderful idea with me)

All about a bear....

This week Frank Asch's bear has been keeping us entertained.  This bear does not understand how many science ideas work, so his adventures lead to giggles in the silly way he interacts with the moon, with echoes and with shadows.

In Happy Birthday Moon Bear climbs a tree and puts a hat in the branches.

As the moon travels across the night sky, Bear thinks that the moon is coming to get his birthday gift, the hat.

The students used their imagination to decide what birthday gift they might choose to give the moon, if they were the Bear.   I appreciated the variety of ideas!!

Bear wants to get rid of his shadow in Bear Shadow. He tries a variety of methods including trying to nail it to the ground and bury it in a hole.  The discussion of how a shadow is created showed the students' understanding.  It was impressive to hear that they understood that a shadow can be created in the night!  They used a sun to determine which side the shadow should be on.  Not all of them understood that the shadow  should be feet to feet with Bear, but we will revisit this when the weather warms up and we can try to make our own shadows outside.

The students are just starting to take two large numbers and put them together.  Today, the students were using manipulatives, the base ten blocks to put two parts to create the whole.  For example, they might be putting 17 together with 12 to create the sum of 29.  At this early stage of understanding, most are putting the groups of 10s together first and then putting the ones together.  They will be working with this for a while, so eventually we will discover that when putting larger numbers together, it might be easier to start with the ones first.  They won't be using paper and pencil or the usually accepted algorithm for quite a while, so don't be concern that they will be learning 'the wrong way'.  Right now it is exploration time, and understanding of the concept that is most important.