We've been doing lots of things with our names lately. This is helping us learn about the letters of the alphabet that are in our name. The focus has also been on uppercase compared to lowercase letters.

We cut our names apart and counted the number of letters that are in our names. Then we created a floor graph to compare them to our friends' names.

Then we converted it into a smaller graph.

Everyone made Caterpillar Names. We compared their lengths. Some of the caterpillars are very long! We decided to have our caterpillars climb in our class tree!

​The School District runs a program called "You Can Count On Me" to help promote math skills. It was great that so many parents were able to attend the session to learn math games and then teach and play them with their child. What a fun way to spend time with your child and also practice math! Families that were able to attend got to take home a package of math materials to play the games. We hope that this will encourage families to play math games throughout the year to help further develop math skills.

We've been reading and learning about Remembrance Day and peace. 

Our focus has been on how we can show kindness and how this relates to peace. The children all drew what act of kindness they can do to promote peace.

During Activity Time the children have chosen to colour, make booklets, and do a variety of activities about Remembrance Day. A number of children have enjoyed the poppy creating at our Discovery Centre. ​

​I provided them with the materials and the challenge...they had to come up with their own creations. The children are connecting with the Core Competency, Creative Thinking, and if they are working with a friend they are using the Communication Core Competency. They are practicing the skill of sharing their thoughts as well as listening to others' ideas.

​The children all made big poppies and we also created a class wreath. The children all traced and cut out their hands for the background. Tracing and cutting out our hands was  tough but they did an amazing job! They made small poppies to decorate it. We used the wreath at our assembly on Friday.

The children also coloured and cut out an Aboriginal Poppy - the Thunderbird Poppy - created by Coast Salish artist, Stuart Pagaduan.

We have been enjoying our weekly time with our Big Buddies! It's a great way for students to make connections with other children in the school. It's an excellent opportunity for the older students to take on a leadership role and it's nice for the younger buddy to develop relationships with older students in the school.

Throughout the year we get together to read but we also do different activities and projects. This week we got together with our Big Buddies and made torn paper name posters.

"Pumpkin large.
Pumpkin small
Pumpkin…"
We made our poem into individual booklets. 

​Then the children read their booklets to a partner. They are getting good at remembering to read while running their finger under the words. The children also had to practice being good listeners while their partner read to them. At the end they had to thank their partner.

We played a new pumpkin math partner game this week. With a partner they took turns rolling the dice and colouring the pumpkin that matched the number on their dice. The children are getting quicker at being able to recognize the number of dots on the dice without having to count them each time. Instantly recognizing groups is an important math skill that we will be practicing throughout the year. The children also practiced being a good partner, taking turns, being patient and when the game was over they needed to thank their partner. They did an awesome job!

That was our graphing question. So each child got to draw the face that they wanted, then they put it on our graph, and when everyone was finished the one with the most was the face that we would carve. 

  The children had fun scooping out all the seeds and the pulp.
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                                                               Our finished product:

We sure enjoyed Halloween day - our costume parade and our party!

We were thoroughly entertained by Sandra "Safire" Sommerville this past week. The children sure enjoyed her circus-style performance. She juggled many different objects but her finale was certainly a 'show stopper'. The lights were off while she juggled hoops and wands that lit up!

We wondered that, too. So...we put it to the test. First we all got to hold our heavy pumpkin and then we made a guess whether we thought our heavy pumpkin would sink or float. ​

Then we put our guess to the test.

                                            What do you think happened:

​I set up a challenge for the students to see if they could build a gate for our five little pumpkins. They had to use some good critical thinking strategies to find a way to balance the pumpkins. Many of the students came up with some good ideas. They planned them, tested their plan, and then often had to refine their thinking to make it work. These kinds of challenges are a part of the Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies component of our  curriculum.