Our culminating project for our community unit is in full swing!

First we drew some maps to plan out the community.  Students needed to consider what would be in the community and then prioritize all of their ideas.  A map was drawn!

Then students needed to decide on the order of events.  They used ordinal numbers to think about first, second, next, then, last. They also had to divide up the work.  What a learning experience it was to accept that not everyone could build roads. Some people needed to make buildings, some needed to make signs, and many needed to wait for a turn to do a job.

Next came the name.  There were many ideas, so we decided that a  vote would be best.  So much learning happened as students engaged in the voting process and accepted the majority’s decision!

The name chosen was, “Danger Town”.  A sign  was  made  and  posted.

Students are really enjoying their play and discovery in the community they created.

Three new provocations were set out this week.

Provocations allow and encourage children to experience the world for themselves through open-ended activities without being overtly guided by a teacher or parent. The idea behind provocations is to encourage children to think independently by encouraging their interests and the exploration of those interests.

Can you make a poppy?

What can you build?

What community will you build?

We have had a couple of weeks filled with pumpkins!

First we started out observing a variety of pumpkins and use descriptive language to talk about them. Students used all of their senses to talk about the pumpkins. Next we recorded what we noticed about the pumpkins as well things we wondered. Add a pumpkin drawing and our anchor chart was very attractive.

Next came the pumpkin patch! This experience included a read aloud, a virtual field trip, and the creation of our own pumpkin patch!

Some bigger pumpkins arrived in our class and as we cut them open we learned about the parts of a pumpkin and developed oral and written language as we labelled a picture and talked about the real pumpkins.

Math happened as we scooped out the seeds and made predictions about which pumpkin contained the most seeds. We used a balance scale to help with our predictions and then began making rows of seeds to count.

There were lots of stories read and songs sang, all about pumpkins! Here are some of our favourites:

Our classroom is a very busy place during afternoon inquiry time.  Here is a sampling of the activities that are happening this week!