Explore and question everything!

On Garden Day, we really enjoyed planting with Mrs. Keiver. Ask us what we planted!

We have really enjoyed watching this house go up. Today we spent time trying to figure out what each of the rooms will be used for, and how many windows they will have. We are so curious about who it belongs to!

Ms. K's Grade 3 class taught us all about 'good litter' and we investigated our collections under the microscope. We were amazed at how the veins of leaves look, and even saw a worm moving around! Thanks Grade 3's for this great opportunity!

While exploring outside near our favourite tree, we discovered that we could each have moustaches!

Talent Show

Community Adventure

Today was the day for our big community adventure! We started the day off at the Community Garden, where Dirk taught us about mason bees and let us explore the garden. We were able to plant sunflowers and carrots, and were able to pick kale and arugula to eat (which most kids did a lot of, to my surprise!). Having the freedom to explore the garden was amazing, and Dirk invited all of the kids to bring their families back whenever they want!

Although I didn't capture any of the next activities with my camera, we had fun exploring the museum and the older buildings that existed in the platzl. In the museum, students used picture cards as a scavenger hunt tool, and had a tour of the museum. We worked on the value of coins earlier this week, and students really enjoyed donating coins to the museum. We visited the location of MacLeod's hardware store, Jones' Superette, Bavarian News Ltd, and Aikman's, and learned a little bit about each place. Ask your child what they remember about each spot! 

We then enjoyed a tour of the library and a story! Sage and Kyleigh won the book draw, and most students received a library card to come back and use anytime. Ask your child what they learned about the library filing system and fines for books!

We then had lunch in the platzl. Of course, we HAD to check out the coo coo clock!

Finally, we headed over to the bakery, where we were given baker's hats and put to work with bread dough!

We were given a yummy treat to finish off our day!

We send a big thank you out to Dirk at the community garden, Marie at the museum, Arlene at the library, and Eric at the bakery. What an amazing community this is! Thank you so much for the wonderful parent volunteers too, we could not have done this trip without you! 

Back to the Basics

I took a little trip back in time this evening to listen to the wisdom of Bev Bos, an expert in early learning. The videos that I watched and articles I read were from the late 80's/early 90's, but the words still rang so true for me (the glasses and hairstyles are a different story!). When I look at back at our last week, her words about 'basic skills' stand out most. She argued that reading, writing and arithmetic are not the basic skills, rather they are quite complex skills to wrap our heads around. The true basic skills are wonder, discovery and experience, and I feel as though this past week has been a wonderful mix of the three! Has our learning always gone in the direction I predicted? Nope! Has it been messy and really wet? You bet. But if you were to ask me if curiosity and creativity was encouraged and supported, I would also answer yes. I learn so much every day from this group, and I am now really enjoying having the students as teachers each day. In fact, I am enjoying it so much that I have completely forgotten to take pictures most days!

puddling painting for some,

puddle jumping for others!

Inspired by Miss Lizzy to create our own musical instruments! Now that we have a painted design, we can move on to building.

Students have now signed up to teach for a day. This includes all activity ideas, planning and prep. During a directed drawing activity this week, there was this magical moment when I realized I wasn't really needed.

Bryden led us on a special trip to his grandpa's scrapyard today. Everyone was given a magnet to explore with and keep, and we watched the machines do some serious crushing!

When we returned to the classroom, we used the magnets to investigate magnetism using coins and hardware.

I truly believe that working to create a culture of curious, engaged, caring children builds the foundation for academic skill development. I marvel at the choices students make to independently create and explore with numbers and letters, and the connections they make with others along the way.