Week 5: October 2–5, 2017

This was our annual Week Without Walls: a week full of day-trips around the city that helps build relationships between students, helps foster risk taking, and helps expose students to new learning opportunities outside the classroom. On Monday, we took the TTC to Black Creek Community Farm. There, students built shelters in the woods, cooked bannock over a fire, pressed apple cider, and learned about the importance of buying locally. On Tuesday, we took two classes at The Flying Yogi. Acro Yoga involved creative lifts and partner work while suspension yoga had students hanging upside down by the end. On Wednesday, we found an incredible park and then visited the AGO for a printmaking workshop. After that, we toured the gallery and made our own art. We wrapped up the week on Thursday with a trip to Ripley's Aquarium. Students worked together to complete a scavenger hunt in which they identified different fish they saw and they even made their own model aquariums. The jellyfish and touch-tanks were both highlights of the visit. What a full week!

 K mixes the dry ingredients for bannock at Black Creek Community Farm.

G gets creative and uses her hands to rake leaves for her team's tree shelter at Black Creek Community Farm. 

Students gathered by the fire to learn about the importance of local food at Black Creek Community Farm. 

Z and G illustrate how short the supply chain is when you buy local. In the previous demonstration, students generated ideas of how a tomato grown in another country might make it to consumers in Canada including truck, boat, and jet ski.

M shows off her bannock that she cooked over the fire. Almost every Indigenous community across Canada has their own version of bannock which goes by many names including 'palauga' (Inuit), 'luskinikn' (Mi'kmaq), and 'ba`wezhiganag' (Anishnaabe).

 G sniffs the cold-pressed apple cider that she and her friends worked together to make at Black Creek Community Farm.

The class warms up for their acro yoga class at The Flying Yogi. 

Z and M reach for each other during their suspension yoga class at The Flying Yogi.

M demonstrates her flexibility during her suspension yoga class at The Flying Yogi. 

Students in the Grade 1-2 and Early Learning class work together to make a pyramid at The Flying Yogi.

K passes the time on TTC by playing rock, paper, scissors with a Grade 6 student.

M enjoys a massive slide at Grange Park while classmates climb on a rope bridge during our break outside the AGO.

M shows her bravery by traversing the rope bridge at Grange Park outside the AGO.

 S admires a piece of Indigenous art at the AGO as inspiration for her printing project.

S has created a turtle to use as her print during our AGO printmaking workshop.

Students try to count how many animals they see in Christi Belcourt's "Wisdom of the Universe". 

Students were inspired by Christi Belcourt to explore pointillism in their own art.

 M is voting for the AGO Photography Prize while practicing writing her Linden email.

 M and G listen intently as an artist talks about his work.

The students gathered outside Ripley's Aquarium.

 M uses a crayon to get the seaweed just right in her model aquarium.

S and G compare notes on their aquarium scavenger hunt to see if they have identified the same type of fish. 

Students work together to complete their Ripley's scavenger hunts.