Visiting Reader - Mrs. Inman

Mrs. Caroline Inman (Joseph's mom) visited us on Friday to read her favourite picture book: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Mrs. Inman also shared with us her passion for literacy as she worked as a journalist in England before moving to Canada.

As you can see from the photo, the kids really enjoyed the story!

Running!

Whew! Are we ever hard at work running towards our goal of 42 kms! We figured out that it would take the equivalent of 126 laps around the school to match Terry Fox's daily run. Some of us are already over a quarter of the way there! Even if we don't meet our goal, I'm confident we've gained at least a small appreciation of what it must have been like for Terry when he ran every day for over 140 days!

Here's a picture of Rylee doing her thing, with Olivia close behind her. Moyra and Matia are cooling down.

Read Aloud: Jin Woo by Eve Bunting

Today we read the book "Jin Woo" by author Eve Bunting. The story is about a young boy named David and his mixed feelings about his family adopting a baby boy from Korea. Bunting does an excellent job of delicately expressing David's anxieties about how his parents will have enough love for both children. However, on the drive home from the airport, David and Jin Woo share a tender moment and from then on, David's heart is hooked. The story ends with David passing on his favourite toy to his new brother.

"Good readers have busy brains when they read." This is a class slogan. I modeled the type of thinking readers do through making connections between the text and the reader's own life; in this case, my experiences as an adopted child and how I navigated becoming an older sister to my younger brother and sister. Furthermore, I connected to how David's family were facing the exciting challenge of keeping Jin Woo's Korean traditions alive as he grows. My brother is a member of the First Nations and he has always had a deep appreciation of his culture thanks to my parents.

We will spend the next several periods of Reader's Workshop reading and documenting our connections to the texts we read.

Bansho Math

Our math program is heavily based on the problem-solving approach, rather than an over-reliance on the rote recall "kill-and-drill" approach to math. One of the ways we consolidate what we've learned in math is to analyze and sort the different strategies of our classmates into a "Bansho". Bansho originates from Japanese mathematics lessons. In Ontario classrooms, the term “bansho” has been used to represent a process where teachers co-ordinate discussions of students’ mathematical thinking through a discussion that engages students in clarifying and justifying their solution methods. Teachers use visual aids (e.g., samples of student work on chart paper) to facilitate discussion that requires students to compare and synthesize different solution methods and identify relationships among them.

The photo is a (distant) sample of the bansho we did today after our math session on changing attributes in patterning. This is my first time using this method to help students communicate their learning, and I'm looking forward to using it again.

Terry Fox Run

Today we began learning the lyrics to the song "Run, Terry, Run" in honour of Terry Fox and in preparation for the Terry Fox Walk/Run. We hope to perform this song for the school.

One of the things we learned was Terry ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day! That's about 42 kilometers! And Terry did it with a prosthetic leg!

To give the students a very small taste of what it would mean to run that distance, I challenged the entire class to run and accumulate the equivalent of 42 kilometers between now and the day of A. Lorne Cassidy Terry Fox Walk/Run. Every day we will run in the yard, measure how far we ran as a class and keep a tally of our daily achievements. Hopefully we can reach our goal in time.

Learning Styles Activity

Today Ms. Zorad led the class in an activity where they got to explore their learning styles. It is important for the kids to know and accept the fact that not everyone learns in the same way, and that's okay! Some kids need to move their bodies to learn and are kinesthetic learners. Others learn best by talking it out with another person and are interpersonal and verbal learners.
In this photo, Matia is busy deciding which learning style best fits him while Emma has a discussion about her learning style with another student. The kids discovered and affirmed a lot about themselves!