Where Would You Prefer To Live?

We have been exploring the various land regions throughout Canada.  Students have watched videos, looked at pictures and read articles about the regions.  Grade 4’s looked at the whole of Canada and Grade 3’s focused on Ontario. As a culminating project students chose 2 regions to compare.  They started with Venn diagrams and then used a T-chart to generate ideas about areas they would enjoy and those that they would not.  All of this was then put together in paragraph format and published on Google Slides.

 

People and Environments

We have begun a new social studies unit: People and Environments. While we are learning together and blending the two programs, the grade 4’s are focusing on The Political and Physical Regions of Canada and the grade 3’s are focusing on Living and Working in Ontario.
Over this past week we have been looking at how Canada is divided, first by provinces and territories and then by physical regions.
Students worked on looking critically at pictures and describing the land.

Creating Okies

This art project started out with a social studies lesson courtesy of the Simcoe County Museum:

The Wendat believed that everything in the world around them, from trees to
lakes to rivers to animals, possessed a soul or spirit, called an oki. Different okies
could bring good or bad luck in different human activities, from travel to war to
hunting or fishing to farming to gambling to relationships.
• Wendat people enlisted help from a particular oki by carrying a charm dedicated
to them. These charms could be highly valued and could be passed on from one
generation to the next. Charms could be made or could be found in the woods,
where it was believed that they had been lost by the spirit that made them.
Charms could also be obtained through trade from the Algonquins, who were
such good hunters and fishermen that they were considered very lucky people.
• Wendat people carried their good luck charms around with them. If they needed
help from their charm’s oki, they would speak to the charm and offer it beads or
pieces of tobacco as presents. They could also hold feasts for their okies to
make them more powerful.
• These charms will be made from clay. Clay was one material that the Wendat
used often to make important items like pipes and pots. They could embellish
clay objects by drawing designs on them using wooden sticks.

Then it was on to creating our own okies! Students learned how to start with a ball and use a pinch method to form features. They learned how to use slip to repair/prevent cracks. Students discovered that while an artist may start with one idea for a sculpture the project may turn into something completely different as the clay starts to form.

These charms are wonderful!

A 3D Community Map

Last week we read some books about communities. Below are 2 of our favourites.

Then we brainstormed all the places we might find in a community.

Students had some time to explore a variety of materials to create a 3D map of a community independently.  Today, we tried it as a whole class and used our carpet as a boundary.  Having a bigger space to work motivated the students to work together as they built a variety of pieces of the 3D map.  They designed the road network, chose appropriate blocks to represent buildings, created a river and pond, built hills and bridges, and a clock tower. It was fantastic to see the cooperative skills in play during this project!

Land Use Projects

Students worked extremely hard to complete these culminating projects.

  1. First they came up with the following inquiry questions:

a)  What is the land use?

b)  Does it meet a need or a want or both?

c)  How does it impact the environment? Positive? Negative?

d)  What can we do to lessen the negative  impacts?

2.  Then students chose topics they were interested and began to find answers with their group in both print and digital resources.  They learned how to take jot notes – a challenge for many!

3.  Once the notes were all taken it was time to move to Google Slides and create a presentation.

4.  The last step was to orally present to the class.

This project encompassed many skills from social studies, language arts, and character education. Below are the finished products!





The Teddy Bear Adventure Returns!

Our class has begun a new adventure – a teddy bear adventure!  This is a global project that we will be participating in all year.  Last summer I met a new friend from Argentina – Ms. Kaczorkiewicz.  She gave me a teddy bear from her class – Alicia Felpudita.  This teddy bear learned a lot about Canada and our Wyevale community as she traveled to many of our homes last year.  She would like to learn a lot more and bring that knowledge back to the students in Argentina!

In return we will be sending our teddy bear – Maple the Moose to Argentina to learn all about life in that country. Last year Maple had a very difficult time traveling to Argentina. It turns out that it is not an easy place to get to. Derrick the Dear had to go and find Maple and bring him home.  Hopefully Maple will have better travels this year!

Throughout this project students will be writing from the point of view of Alicia, conducting inquiries about various countries and making comparisons to our community, interacting with students from around the world, and building global awareness.

We have set up a blog to document this project and will be adding to it weekly.  You can access the blog from the page at the top of this blog titled, “A Teddy Bear Adventure”. You may access it directly by going to the following web address:  maplemoose.edublogs.org

Quilt Blocks

Sometimes a project that was supposed to teach one concept ends up covering multiple concepts.  This was one such project.

We started out looking at a variety of shapes and how we can move them. Students identified flips, slides and turns.  We then talked about language and learned to use the terms: reflections, translations, and rotations.

Students thought about where these concepts would be used in the real world.  One idea was in quilts.  This sparked a discussion about quilts and how important they were in the early settlers’ lives.

We decided to design our own quilt blocks. Students started with squares and began to fold along lines of symmetry to create new shapes.  They put these shapes together to create a quarter of a quilt block. This turned into a discussion about fractions.  Students identified fractions in their colours and shapes.

Students created 3 more identical squares and put them together using reflections, translations and rotations to create their own quilt blocks.

 

A Voyage To Upper Canada

Our unit about the Early Settlers has begun with the realization that the boundaries of Canada were very different 200 years ago.  We compared maps from then and now and talked about where the early settlers of Simcoe County came from.  Looking at a map students realized that they must have gotten here by boat.  The questions began, wondering what that would have been like.

We began the exploration with a bit of drama, using the carpet as a boat and chairs as travelling trunks so that students could gain a sense of just how crowded steerage class would have been.

Then, students listened to an “imagery” reading and recorded their thoughts.

 

 

 

 

To show their understanding in a creative way, students created a tableau representing the boat trip.  While students were frozen in their tableau, their shoulders were tapped one at a time. This is when they brought their characters to life, making comments in role.

Look at each tableau below.  Can you guess what each character said as he/she came to life?

A Teddy Bear Adventure

Our class has begun a new adventure – a teddy bear adventure!  This is a global project that we will be participating in all year.  In the summer I met a new friend from Argentina – Ms. Kaczorkiewicz.  She gave me a teddy bear from her class – Alicia Felpudita.  This teddy bear would like to learn all about Canada and our Wyevale community.

In return we will be sending our teddy bear – Maple the Moose to Argentina to learn all about life in that country.

Throughout this project students will be writing from the point of view of Alicia, conducting inquiries about various countries and making comparisons to our community, interacting with students from around the world, and building global awareness.

We have set up a blog to document this project and will be adding to it weekly.  You can access the blog from the page at the top of this blog titled, “A Teddy Bear Adventure”. You may access it directly by going to the following web address:  maplemoose.edublogs.org

Connecting reading and drama

Today students had the opportunity to connect the ideas they discussed during reading with some drama.  First, students examined two pictures of a lacrosse game-one from the 1800’s and one from present day. They read captions attached to each and made comparisons.

Then, students teamed up and used drama to present their ideas about the role of sports in communities.