Go, Go, Go

This week felt like we were on fast-forward! I was very happy to be back with our class and we enjoyed so much learning!

I'll back up to last Wednesday first, though! Despite busing issues and delays, we made it to the Airforce Museum and had so much fun! We played I Spy through the park, finding mascots and numbers on planes, and learning about different kinds of planes. We went into a very big Hercules aircraft, buckled into the seats, learned about it's use, and sat in the cockpit!

We came back from that trip with knowledge of what planes had, like propellers and wings, and tires for landing. We continued our discovery of how planes go this week! We discovered that when air is forced out/through something, it can make something move, like air from a fan, or air rushing out of a balloon (which we loved watching fly along the string across the room!). We also discovered, by blowing on pieces of tissue paper, that when air goes faster under the wing then over, it goes up! 

We also addressed learning skills through this topic as we discovered how library and books can be used to answer "I wonder's."

This week, we also opened a new sensory centre - the water table. OW and AY were interested in my problem about getting it set up - when, where, and how without making a mess. Also, how full? As they solved these problems, they practiced oral communication, innovation, problem solving, and leadership abilities. They also learned estimating and capacity skills as I asked probing questions through their work. Other students like TR became interested and also shared ideas. We put in food colouring to see how it dispersed through the water as well.

We also spent a lot of time this week talking about what we are thankful for. Answers included family, fun, colours, and BCS! We took our creativity to paper then to represent these things, and learned about labeling and letters in the process! We also explored thankfulness through songs and psalms in the Bible!

We dabbled in a few different topics in math this week as well, as our explorations took us to different places, and as we extended our knowledge by asking questions.

Certain centres I put out are provocations - that is, open-ended, no right answer, just seeing what they will do with it. It allows them to build innovating and problem-solving skills. In this picture, students decided to make towers for the numbers. JE made a tower, counted it, and found he had 22. I hadn't put that number on the table so he found it on our hundreds chart and brought it over! We noticed that numbers in order went up the same height, but JE's was higher by more because it "wasn't a next number."

At another provocation, we discovered that things are made of shapes. Some used the template while others expanded into free form creation. This led to a discussion about 2D and 3D shapes!

We discussed different attributes this week as well, expanding from sorting by the colour and size rules and moving to things that could be sorted in several ways. We practiced describing the way things feel, look, smell and sound!
This led to the feeling box centre where students continued exploring texture and description - this is great for vocabulary building!

In literacy we continued to explore rhyming, in songs, games, and now in puzzles. Students worked together in groups to put together puzzles of rhyming words!

We also explored letters in a game during explore time with our volunteer! RE, AY, and TR sorted by colour, counted, and found letters and sounds that they knew!

We also talked about being creation-enjoyers, as part of us being in God's story. We took walks outside, played with the guinea pig, and had a Friday picnic! On our walks we especially enjoyed feeling the different kinds of grass (long, long and poky, wet, short and dry) and then laying and enjoying the sun. We took some of our treasures inside to see the wonders under the magnifying glass as well!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!