Week Seventeen: Hands on Learning
Happy New Year! It feels great to be back in the classroom with these fantastic, energy-filled girls after a restful winter break. This week the girls were excited to use some of their favourite materials, learn around the classroom, and explore the ravine. We also started thinking about our STEM for a Better World: Linden's Inquiry Fair project, which will be centred around libraries. The girls were mathematicians and scientists as they developed research questions and begun to survey the entire student body at Linden. Stay tuned for updates on our progress learning about libraries and preparing for the Fair. For now, I hope that you enjoy the photos from the week.
A designs a "gem world" on the Light Table, with an ocean, rocks and different pathways. She explains that "since we have two feet there are rocks in two paths to the oceans".
O, the artist, presents her masterpiece of a contest to the class. She is planning on adding people to her art another time.
N learns about making a calendar at the Math Centre. She carefully tracks the numbers using the model calendar, and she also uses number models to help her print the numbers facing the right way. Her peers are impressed at how neat the numbers are written, which makes them easy for us to read during our daily Math Calendar time.
O experiments with kinetic sand at the Discovery Centre. She adds rocks and shells and other natural materials to make it into a world.
N builds a castle with cages for the spiders this morning. We are spending some time engaging with the wooden building materials after spending a lot of time learning about all of the things that the magnatiles could do during the first term.
AK and AB are playing "family" while at the Drama centre. AK, the mom, is reading a story to her baby, AB, to help her fall asleep.
The Early Learners are beginning to learn about graphing this term in preparation for our STEM For a Better World project. The girls are graphing the dot cards to see how many cards of each dot amount there are. During our math talk when the graph is complete, the girls use math vocabulary like "same", "bigger than", "shape", "lower numbers", and "higher".
O draws a picture of her and her mom on a practice board during some downtime.
AK and AB (not pictured) collaborate on building a zoo-castle-home.
It is a beautiful, sunny day on the roof during morning recess. N and O serve up different tasty (snow) treats to their customers, AB and AK.
N shows Ellen and I how long her body is getting during some exploratory play in the gym. She jokes that the poly spots are her bed.
AK and N read out their survey questions to the grade 6 class. We are conducting some research for STEM For a Better World and are spending this morning surveying students and teachers around Linden.
G (grade 1) stacks handmade pipe-cleaner rings onto A's unicorn horn during CERES.
While learning in the Math centre, A and O design a colourful store with a variety of materials. It is interesting to see how they used the number cubes to make the perimeter of the store, and then they lined up the ants by colour. They are discussing where the doorway to the store should be.
The ravine is one of my favourite places to build class community with the girls, and I think that this picture truly shows us why. After make it to the top of the hill, AB and O help AK and N get to the top too. Climbing hills is especially fun in the winter because our snow pants give us a little extra padding when we fall.
After a chilly hike in the ravine, we warm up indoors with an afternoon snack and a story. A's big smile and rosy cheeks remind me how important it is for all of us to get outside, even during the colder months.