It Takes A Village…

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child” well I truly believe that the adults in our school are true examples of how it takes a whole school to educate a child.  Over the past few weeks the Super Kids have been busy learning and asking the adults in our school community to share their thoughts and experiences with us.

Last week the city of Winnipeg held a civic election for mayor, city councillors, and school trustees.  With a polling station at our school it made sense to explore this topic and set up our own polling station in our classroom.  When the students came back from music I greeted them at the door and told them they had to register or they couldn’t vote.  Of course you can image the looks I got!  What was I doing?  After every student signed their name to the registration form they had to learn about what they were actually voting for.  Do you like chocolate chip or Oreo cookies the best?  It was a difficult question.  Were the chocolate chip cookies store bought or homemade?  Were the Oreo cookies the regular kind or the vanilla flavoured?  After scanning QR codes and watching commercials that tried to sway our votes just like actual politicians do, we went to the polling station.  Each student took their voting paper behind a book and cast a secret ballot.  Who won?  Well, we had to keep the polling station open until the end of the school day just like a real polling station.  We invited Mr. Bell our vice principal, Mrs. Grenier our student services teacher, and Mme. Meg our teacher librarian to cast their ballots.  It was a nail biter..chocolate chip won 19 to 11!

   

Explaining and answering questions about the election process with adults from our school.

 

We continued to learn about inventions that have helped shape our world.  The birch bark canoe was invented by the Western Woodlands Indigenous people over 3000 years ago!

This invention changed the way people travelled, got food, and traded.  The canoe was made with material from their surroundings.  When the European fur traders came to Canada the canoe was adapted as a means to travel over the lakes and rivers of Canada.

We looked at books with examples of Indigenous inventions including the birch bark canoe, watched several videos on how to make a canoe, and marvelled at the effort it must have taken.

Using popsicle sticks, the students got to work trying to make a boat design that would work.

    

In the spirit of Halloween, Mme. Meg came to our classroom to get us in a spooky mood.  Did you know the story of Frankenstein was written 200 years ago?  We create our own monsters by getting into groups and tracing a body part of each kid for the monster.

  

Next, students used a Spero and iPad to put electricity into their monsters.

 

The University Of Manitoba Science Department is having a contest for Manitoba classes to enter.  Create an invention that solves a problem.  After reading the book “A World Of Your Own”, we brainstormed problems that we could solve with an invention.  The Super Kids are so creative!  Having an audience of scientists really helped motivate the class. 🙂

     

Halloween was this week and students were welcome to wear a costume if they wanted to.  The staff in the Woodlily neighbourhood was ready for the busy day.

The grade 1/2 and 2/3 classes rotated through a variety of stations set up in the classrooms.  We had to have a movement break to Ghostbusters!

  

Spooky spider webs decorated our classroom and put us in the mood.

 

With all the Halloween excitement it seemed right to put some skeleton X-rays on the light table.  What is an X-ray?  Why do our bones show up?  Who invented the X-ray? Why are bones important? The Super Kids are thinking like scientists and generating great questions.  We had to find the answers to these questions.  Using play dough and straws we conducted an experiment.  The play dough acted as the muscle and skin and the bendy straw as the bone.  What do we notice?  Without bones our internal organs wouldn’t be protected and we couldn’t even stand up!  Check out the links below explaining the invention of the X-ray.

    

Yesterday we went to the Human Ecology room in our school to visit Mrs. Dulder and the grade 7 students.  Together we sewed poppies for Remembrance Day to honour those that serviced in the armed services in the past and currently do to protect our freedom.  The Super Kids learned about the sewing machine, got to use the pedal, and even got to sew some decorative stitching.  Thank you Mrs. Dulder for inviting us to spend some time with you!

 

    

It’s been a busy time in the Super Kids classroom, but I’m so excited to see the growth in my kids. They see our classroom as a place where they can learn, ask questions, and create!