Black History
Over the past month, we have had great discussions around Black History, read many picture books about the richness and diversities of the black culture that goes beyond their enslavement, and talked about some of the systemic issues that still exists to this day such as racism. The Grade 8 students in Ms. Hill's class facilitated their learning of Black History which includes African Empires. We also looked at the Carnival display which provides information of how Carnival is related to Black History. The Grade 3 students were deeply engaged and enjoyed listening to the intermediate students share their work. This also weaved seamlessly into our previous unit in social studies and the Black Loyalists who immigrated to Canada as a result of the American Revolution.
We also had a special guest visitor this week. Emerita Emerencia came to perform for the students. Originally from Aruba, Emerita is multilingual and speaks 5 languages fluently.
Emerita shared her talents through storytelling, drama, dance, music, and song with the students. She also taught the grade 3 students some cool ways to share pleasantries in Dutch, Spanish, English, French, and Papiamento.
Literacy
Students have been working hard on their non-fiction books. They have been working towards refining their topics and looking at ways of re-organizing their written work into subtopics which they can expand upon. The range of topics, interests, and expertise in this class is simply amazing!
Please visit the community library if you have not already done so or if your child's topic or focus has changed. The librarians are happy to assist with finding books that are age appropriate. All children need resources to help them with their research as our school library may not have (enough) books on your child's topic or on more specialized interests. If your child has books in their personal library at home, they may bring it to class on Monday.
Math
In math we have been continuing our unit on multiplication. Students are developing an understanding of what it means to multiply. Constructing the understanding rather than just memorizing the multiplication table helps children develop strategies and a deeper understanding of some big ideas such as unitizing, which requires that children use numbers to count not only objects, but also groups.The charts below shows different strings of related multiplication facts during our mini lessons. Each question is recorded one at a time while students do the mental math calculations. As students' orally share their solutions, their processes is recorded onto the chart paper. During this time, students engage in math talk and then we examine the efficacy of strategies.
As you can see, students were initially counting by ones and skip counting. Then moved onto the concept of doubling. Some have developed a deeper level of understanding and are exploring associative, distributive, and commutative property which can be written algebraically. More importantly, students have constructed this idea themselves and are expanding what they know and understand about number sense!
Social Studies
We have started our unit on Living and Working in Ontario. This week students have learned about the different landforms in our province, where they are located in the Ontario, and their distinct and unique characteristics.
A fun activity to try at home is to have your child choose a city, town, reservation or community in Ontario using Google Earth on their tablet or device. Drag and drop the human figure down and have them investigate the area and paying attention to the natural resources, what the land and its surrounding areas look like, and how the land is used.
Elder Dillen Sugar Water Woman
We have the great honour and privilege of welcoming Elder Joyce Heather Dillen/Sugar Water Woman, Ojibwe, Bear Clan from Serpent River First Nation and her daughter Dakota Dillen-Toulousse Gary, Ojibwe, Bear Clan, Serpent River First Nation to our class. Our students are familiar with Ms. Gary who has been completing her practicum placement in our classroom since January.
Elder Dillen is a traditional healer and both her and her daughter will be sharing their traditional Indigenous practices and knowledges with the students and be preparing some cedar tea (simmered cedar branches in water). The entire First Nations, Metis, Inuit Education Team who are consultants in our school board will also be joining us tomorrow as part of the incredible learning session.
