Tuesday October 8, 2019

Today was another busy day:

-Field trip forms for our Glenbow Ranch trip on Thursday October 17th went home.  They are due back completed by Friday October 11th.
-Scholastic book orders are due Friday October 11th.
-Several kids today did not have snow pants or gloves.  Outside time was not very fun for them as they could not play in the snow the same way as other kids could that had snow pants-they were very disappointed.  Please send your child with appropriate clothing for the weather.
-Please check your child's snow pants to make sure they have names on them.  We have several students who are missing their black snow pants and feel they were taken home/worn home by someone else.
-Please see the Monday Connect for more important school information.
-No school on Friday or Monday.

Math:
-Today we worked in our 3 different Math groups building on our number sense (numbers to 100):

Mrs. Shepherd's Group:  We used a number line to identify one more and one less.

Ms. Disher's Group:  Today we worked on representing numbers to 100 in a variety of ways using mathematical language to identify numbers.  Ask your child if they are in Ms. Disher's group about the Mystery Pictures we started (hint: Each child was given a list of clues and a 100's chart.  They had to read the clues or work with Ms. Disher to read the clues.  For example:  Find the number that is 2 less than 30.  Find the number that is 10 more than 30.  We were working on using the following words to describe and find numbers: more, less, greater than, less than, in between)

Mr. Kai's Group: Students had 20 blocks and found different ways of separating 20 blocks into 2 groups.

Have a great day!
From the Peace Pod

Monday October 8, 2019

Today we started with our IGNITE centers and some of us went to the gym for SPARK.  On Mondays the whole school is invited to SPARK as one of our IGNITE choices.  Next we had a morning meeting and practiced Read to Self to build our stamina.  Today we were able to read for just over 8 minutes.

We continued with our Friendship Journals.  Some kids are moving into creating their own sentences based on key words provided.  For example, 5 kids still ask one student questions to help us all get to know them better.  Instead of the classroom teachers writing out the sentences, we are writing out the key words:
Question asked: What are your favorite colors?  Key words provided to students to start building their own sentences: purple, blue, pink, favorite.

Some groups went to Music.

Making Words:  Today we worked with the letters /pinrt/.  We practiced making one, two, three letter words as well as trying to find out what the word is using all five letters.  We were able to make over 8 words!  Ask your child about the words they were able to make (hint: print, tip, rip, in, it, pin, tin...).

Today we had discussions in our homeroom groups about appropriate places to draw and color.  We are very sad that some students are drawing on the floor and on furniture.  If you could remind your child about appropriate places to draw would be really helpful.  We also sent home student photos which are due back by the 15th of this month or you can order online.  Book orders are due on the 11th to your child's homeroom teacher.

Math: Ask your child about the Connect 4 game we played today.  Some groups were able to challenge themselves and change the rules of the game.  This game helps us to work on our numeracy skills (subitizing and addition).  We are also learning mathematical language such as "sum" (ask your child about this word).

Have a fantastic day!
From the Peace Pod

Friday, October 4, 2019

Today our MRU student teachers joined us, Mr. Wensrich and Mr. McCambly, and we enjoyed some creative work during Ignite, building patterns and structures.

We also continued with our Friendship Journals and worked on reading over our written work to ensure our sentences make sense and they include the correct punctuation.

As a Pod, we have been discussing what our School Community looks like and what are the important components and physical attributes of Eric Harvie School. Today we reflected on our loose parts community maps and took time to label the different parts that we represented on our map.  

We attended our first Peace assembly, hosted by the Harmony Pod.  It was a beautiful presentation with messages of friendship and songs. 

Have a fantastic weekend!

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Today with we read from our Novel "The Wishtree" and sketched a picture of what we thought the Wishtree looks like.  A few comments from students about the book so far:

"The Wishtree is in the city and people put wishes on him"
"They tie on a piece of cloth with a wish on it and your wish might come true"
"The tree is old and wise and there is a crow who visits him"

In Phys Ed we played 4 corner soccer with one big team and 4 nets.  It was such a fun collaborative game.

In the afternoon, we rebuilt our loose parts school community.  We used recommendations from our classmates and a list of criteria to add more detail to our maps.  We will have a chance to label our maps and discuss how we represented each important part of the school community.

Ms Disher led us in a poppy art project.  We have started by painting the sky using only blue and white.   The Peace pod will be presenting the Rememberance Day Assembly and hope to display our artwork then.

Book orders are coming home today.  They are due back Oct 11, 2019.  Also, a EHS Enhancement Fund fundraiser form went home.

*There were two EHS Yearbooks left in the classroom during the Open House.  If you believe that these may be yours please contact Mrs. Bates*

Wednesday, October 2nd

Today was a fantastic day with two wonderful guest teachers joining us, Mr. Kai and Ms. M.

We worked hard on our friendship journals, building sentences while practicing to use capital letters and periods.  It is always great to learn interesting new things about our friends in Peace Pod.

Each season group read a different story.  Summer read 'Schools First Day of School' and looked for things in the story that match our own school community.  Autumn read 'I Can't Believe You Said That!' which taught us about how to make good choices when speaking to our classmates and Winter read "Creepy pair of Underwear" which really made us laugh!

Today, Ms. M taught us a new math game called 'Last Turn Wins' using Tangrams.  Ask me what the challenge was.  Math games are a great way to practice our math skills while having lots of fun.

We also spend a bit of time looking at our Loose Parts School Communities.  Some groups showed us their creations and explained how they represented different aspects of the school community.  Other students had the opportunity to give positive feedback.

Looks like the snow is melting quickly... enjoy the sunshine!

Tuesday October 1st

Today was another busy day...
-we had Roots of Empathy and learned about the needs of babies and why they cry (ask your child about what they did specifically in their half hour session)
-we worked on building our reading stamina again, our goal is to get to 10 minutes
-we read a story called There's An Ant In Anthony (we read it to learn about making words and that smaller words can be found in larger words like the word "ant" in: Anthony, Santa, cantalope, pants, etc.)
-we split into 2 groups and 1 group learned more about Terry Fox while the other did their art inspired by Piet Mondrian
-we wrote about another new friend in our Friendship Journals
-in math we did a 3rd lesson about making 10-some of us are making 10 into 2 groups while others are doing 3 groups
-we also played a game called "Under the Bowl" (ask your child to explain the game)

Have a fantastic day!
From the Peace Pod

Happy Monday Everyone!

We sure enjoyed playing in the snow during our morning body break and at lunch.  We reviewed how to play safely in the snow-not throwing snow at each other. 

Language Arts-Today some groups worked on making words.  Each student got 5 letter tiles for the word "hand" and we cut them out and practiced moving them around to make new words (i.e. an, had, sad, etc.).  Some groups reviewed this activity.  We also worked on our Friendship Journals and practiced building stamina in read to self.  Today we practiced finding a spot in our own personal space away from others and reading quietly the whole time.  One way to challenge your child at home is to make letter tiles out of scrap paper using your child's first name (i.e. McKayla-lay, a, may, clay, etc.).  Word play is an important part of learning new words and using vocabulary students already have.  A really good website for literacy and math games is www.abcya.com.  The kids have been using the Sight Word Bingo game during IGNITE.

Ask your child about some of the new IGNITE centers we have put out (Hint: Up To Your Neck In Words Spelling game, Designer Squares math game).

Math-Ask your child about the game we played today with a partner called Find It!  The game allows us to work on our subitizing skills as identified in the Program of Studies.  Subitizing is important because it is the ability to identify a quantity quickly without counting or "counting with your eyes".  As well, it helps us to handle addition and subtraction concepts, as they don't have to count each small group to be added or removed when learning number operations with manipulatives-it is recognizing numbers to 10 at a glance.  See the game board below.

Some groups went to Music while others go tomorrow.  We had gym outside in the snow before our Orange Shirt Day Assembly.  Please see the Monday Connect email for more information on upcoming events and dates.

Have a fantastic day!
From The Peace Pod