Ms. Schmidt's Grade 1/2 Blog

What a week! I find that when the weather does a 180, our perception of time shifts, in this case back to winter yet it is nearing the end of April! 'Sprinter' is fun! On the whole, the children had a great attitude about our continued appearance of winter weather in springtime — 'sprinter' — and profited from the excellent building conditions outside! It is so rare that we get snow that binds well in our dry climate, but the shoulder season weather this week gave us that opportunity and the kids definitely took advantage of it. Once balls became too large to roll solo, they worked well together in small groups until they could make them positively monstrous in some cases! We also talked about fair play and if it is/n't acceptable to wreck someone else's creation. Walking Rainbow To continue our study of liquids this week, we did an experiment that involved capillary action with water traveling up (and down) paper towel. We also took advantage of the opportunity...

April (so far!) in Room 170 We have had a busy start to April! Thank you all for your welcoming notes and patience as we get to know each other, and as I learn the routines of both Room 170 and Tuscany School. The kids have been amazing adapting to change and helping me to become a member of this space. As a class, we have taken some time to review expectations to help facilitate the best learning environment possible, including respecting each other’s space to learn. In spite of ‘Sprinter’ making an appearance this second week of April, we’ve enjoyed getting outside every day: thank you for helping get your child to school with the appropriate outdoor clothing, no matter the weather, so that they can have fun and move their bodies in the fresh air! This time is an important brain break, part of their daily physical activity, and a powerful social-emotional learning space because they are playing with other students, as well as learning to work with them, including opportunities to pro...

We continue to be very busy in room 170! Here are some of the learning activities we have been doing. Social Studies We have started to learn about the arctic and the Inuit people. We have been very fortunate to be able to borrow some authentic and very old Inuit artifacts. We spent some time sketching them, looked at what materials they were made out of, and made predictions about how they were used. The students offered great ideas about what they thought each artifact was and what it may have been used for. We followed up this work by watching a short documentary that showed each artifact in action.  We were also very fortunate to enjoy a virtual presentation from "Grandma Carol" who taught in Ulukhaktok for three years in 1977. She showed us some amazing artifacts and told us some wonderful stories about life in the arctic. We learned so much from her presentation! Writing We are using our developing understanding of the arctic and the animals that live there to retell an...

  Carnaval  We had so much fun celebrating Carnaval - February 14th to 16th!  We made Effigies! We played the Spoons! We built some "cool" ice sculptures! We went sledding! We went snowshoeing! We braided our own ceinture flechee! Bonhomme Visited!