A month ago we were talking about what elections are and who was the elected premier of our province. You might remember our cookie election and debate from a pervious post. Well, not a month later we were back at it with our federal election. Who is the Prime Minister of Canada? What is their job? Where do they work? We started the day by making Canada puzzles. Each group was given a big piece puzzle and told to work together to create it. Next we used the puzzles to find important places in our country like our city of Winnipeg and Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Next, we research where the Parliament Buildings are and what they looked like. It was raining that day so some kids used their indoor recess time to create their own Parliament Buildings!
Have you heard of the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt? The Super Kids learned about her style of painting as well as her life by reading the story book “Mary Cassatt Extraordinary Impressionist Painter”. The class was surprised to know that her family didn’t think she should be a painter because she was a girl.
We were inspired by her painting below. The class noticed that the water isn’t completely blue but has many different colours from reflections.
We took inspiration from this painting to create our own art pieces in the style of Cassatt, but with a Canadian twist. The class painted Canadian geese. Our community has many ponds and geese like to stop by on as they migrate south. Every morning we watch them fly over our school at recess. First was the sketching stage where students used whiteboards and markers. Next was the water and then students painted the goose. It was a day full of art!
Spirit week, pumpkin centres, and Halloween! It was a busy week. Pumpkin centres with our 5/6 buddies was a blast. How much does your pumpkin weigh? How tall is your pumpkin? How many pumpkins tall are you? Will your pumpkin sink or float? It was an afternoon of estimating and measuring.
Skeletons can be a bit scary for kids and they definitely remind us of Halloween. Some of the kids noticed some X-rays I had under the light table and were wondering what they were. We took a closer look at the animal skeletons, which led us to the idea of looking at a human skeleton. Why do we have a skeleton? What are joints? How does our body move?
After reading “Bonaparte Falls Apart” we wanted to dig deeper about skeletons.
With some QR code videos to help our developing understanding we took it to the next level with a challenge.
The kids were put into group and asked if they could make a symmetrical skeleton using Q-tips and play dough? How about using 5, 6, 8, 10, or 12 Q-tips?
Spirit week had our school dressing as twins, kids dressing as adults, PJ day and ending with Halloween. It was a CRAZY week full of activities.
Pyjama Day is always a hit. The Super Kids estimated and measured their favourite stuffies, graphed their bedtimes, read in the dark with flashlights, and read bedtime stories.
One of the Super Kids even dressed in skeleton pyjamas like our new favourite book Bonaparte!
Halloween was a great day! Our Woodlily team was ready for our day with our kids and everyone had a blast.
In the morning we had Halloween themed centres such as tic tac toe, code a friend with a Halloween theme, bingo, and create a skeleton.
In the afternoon all of the grade 1/2 classrooms mixed up their kids into 5 groups which rotated through the classroom doing Halloween themed activities such as art, a break out activity, coding, yoga, and a scavenger hunt. The Super Kids love getting to know and spending time with other kids from the other classrooms. What a great way to spend our Halloween afternoon!
Such a great busy week! Playing, learning and having fun!