Lockdown practice

At school we have to practice for some different safety situations. The two "official" ones that we must practice are Fire Drills and Lockdowns.

This week we practiced our Lockdowns in Room 9.  Then the whole school practiced our Lockdown Drill.

Our lockdowns involve securing ourselves in the classroom (i.e. locking the doors and windows and covering all windows), and sitting silently in a safe location away from the windows.

We don't want the children to worry about Lockdowns, so we discuss some scenarios that might happen so we would have to lock the door and stay in the classroom. Perhaps an animal, like a strange dog or raccoon has come into the school. We don't want it in our classroom because we don't know if it is friendly. So we lock the door.
Perhaps some "big kids" are playing outside and get into a fight, or maybe are throwing stones. Then we would have to close our windows and pull down the blinds, just in case a stone hits a window and breaks it (we don't want glass to fall on us).
When we hear someone saying that there is a LOCKDOWN (over the PA), we stop what we are doing, move to our safe spot, and sit quietly like mice. (Meanwhile the teachers check the hallway for stray students, lock the doors and windows and pull down the shades).

We talked about what to do:
If you are in the bathroom finish quickly, then walk quietly to our safe corner (the block corner).
If you are in the hallway, go into the closest classroom.
If you are eating snack, put down your snack and walk quietly to our safe corner (the block corner).

We made an infographic so we would remember what to do.

We did a GREAT JOB during the actual practice lockdown! (and afterwards someone asked what kind it was -- was it a dog or a raccoon? :)

We will discuss and practice our Fire Drill procedures and then let you know how it went!

(if you have any questions about the lockdown or fire drills, please email Ms. Brown)

Five Point Check

Who is sitting in a Five Point Check?
I am sitting in a Five Point Check!

When we sit for whole group learning (very briefly - we begin to lose interest after ten minutes!), we get the students' attention by asking if they are in Five Point Check. (We also understand that some students find sitting cross legged very difficult, so we do have a lot of leniency :)

First days of school

We have had a great first few days of school!

We LOVE the outside nature area:

"I made pizza!" (A.W.)

"We made a fire"

We are making a potion with poison raisins" (S.B.)

"I'm stepping across a river!" (S.L.)

"This wood slices sand." (J.T.)

"I found roots"(J.T.)

"What are these things? I found them on a branch!" (J.T.) (we will investigate this more!)

It feels like summer..... but it is starting to look like fall :(

Summer (teacher) Reading

This summer I focused on the power of play; inquiries and investigations; and on outdoor learning.

Parents! Please read Balanced and Barefoot by Angela Hanscom. It addresses the importance of unrestricted outdoor play for children. Please send your children outdoors to play!
(Toronto Public Library has this book available in print and by ebook!)

Worms

We have been observing some living things.
When it started to get warm (back in February :) we noticed some worms in the soil. Mrs. Nilgun helped the students begin an inquiry into worms!

 

 

 

Mrs. Nilgun brought in some Hornworms! While not an actual worm (it is a caterpillar), they were very cool!

We learned that worms don't like the light, so we discussed if this was the best habitat for worms in our classroom. We decided that after the weekend, we would make a better home for our worms. (We fed our worms an apple core. On Monday it was gone!)

 

So,  Ms. Brown brought in a bin and a drill and we created a habitat for worms! We filled it with newspaper and leaves and some soil and we added some more food for our worms (apple cores and some veggies from a snack that fell on the floor)

 

 

Please take some time to look at Mrs. Nilgun's slideshow about the worm project!

2D Shapes

In March we learned about 2D Shapes.

We read a lot of books about shapes, including City Shapes by Diana Murray.

 

 We discussed where we find shapes around us -- inside and outside.

Then we looked at some work by artists who used shapes in much of their work. One of these artists was Paul Klee.

We noticed that Paul Klee's work looks like buildings.  Maybe it is a city? ( When we looked at the title of the work, we found that yes indeed, it is a city!)

We came up with some names of places where you would see buildings. On a street. In a neighbourhood, in a community, in a town, or in a city. Then we created our own streetscapes or cityscapes using shapes and then adding details with oil pastels.

Fun Friday!

The kindergartens were able to have our Fun Friday! ( the rest of the school had to postpone theirs due to teacher illness) ( it was already postponed from mid-March!)
We had a loose Olympic theme.
Our class participated in an obstacle course, and also with Olympic yoga (pictured here)
We can't wait until next Fun Friday!!!!