Books, Culture, Pajamas, Museum Tours and Global Goals and a Birthday, too!

Although short, this week was jam-packed with activities! 

It was fun dressing up each day to celebrate Book and Culture Week! The Grade 3s showed their spirit, as almost everyone put on a special outfit each day!

Monday - National Dress Day

Wednesday - Favourite Character Day

Tuesday was extra special as the Grade 3s and 4s helped me celebrate my 45th birthday! Thank you everyone for all of the cards and gifts!

Museum Tours for Parents

Thank you to all of the parents who came and showed their support by visiting our Museum of Ancient Civilizations. It was great to see many of you taking the time to show an interest in your child's schoolwork.

Global Goals for Sustainable Development

As part of our inquiry into how humanity's future is dependent on resources, I began by introducing The Global Goals for Sustainable Development by asking the students the question, "What are the biggest problems faced by humanity today?"

In pairs or small groups of 3, the students brainstormed their answers and then wrote them on the whiteboard. Many groups came up with similar answers, and then after introducing the list of 17 goals we identified those that the students had touched on in their brainstorming.

Sharing the Planet and Our Museum of Ancient Civilization

 This week we put the finishing touches on our Museum of Ancient Civilizations and began our 5th unit of the year!

Museum Tours for Parents!

We are pleased to invite the families of Grades 3 and 4 to come in for a private viewing of the museum either at the start or end of the school day next week. Your child will gladly be your private tour guide! Please click on this link, or the one included in the email to reserve your tour time!

For those who can't make it in, I'm working hard at creating a Virtual Walk-Through that will hopefully be ready to share sometime next week (I'm still working our all of the technical bugs!)

We also had our first visitors this week!

Sharing the Planet

Our fifth unit of the year is about how Humanity's future is dependent on resources. To prove how dependent we are on resources, and to demonstrate how natural resources are not shared equally I began by dividing the class into two groups and gave each group the central idea but cut up the words into syllables for them to unscramble. I told them that it was a challenge for the groups to work together to unscramble the words and that only one team could win. What I didn't tell them was that one team was missing some of the resources (or syllables) to complete the words! In the end, one group was very angry with me, but they were able to understand how unfair it is that some countries start out with access to more resources than others!

Next, the students researched the meaning of the word resources and then worked in groups to brainstorm all of the different types of resources that they could think of. After watching a short video explaining the 3 main types of resources (human, capital and natural) the students worked with the members of their group to sort their suggestions into different categories, and then followed that up with individual work on Seesaw.

Book and Culture Week

Next week, we will have 3 special dress-up days as part of our Book and Culture Week celebration. 

Monday - National Dress Day - come in clothes to represent your home country or culture, bring a favourite book from there as well.

Tuesday - Pajama Birthday Party - I get to relax in my PJs for my birthday this year! (Unfortunately, I still have to teach lessons!) Pyjamas and crazy hair required!

Wednesday - Book Character Day Dress up as your favourite Book Character! Bring the book as well!

It should be a fun-filled week before Spring Break! Let's see how much spirit we have in Grade 3!

To find out more about our 5th unit of the year, please keep reading.

Unit 5: Sharing the Planet

Central Idea: 

Humanity’s future is dependent on resources

Lines of Inquiry:

- Challenges due to limited natural resources 

- Adaptations to how we use resources 

Key Concepts:

Connection, Change

Approaches to Learning:

Research, Thinking

Learner Profile 

Thinkers, Risk-takers

Learning Goals / Success Criteria:

- Students will identify what the challenges are with finite resources

- Students will explain adaptations about how we use limited resources - Repair, refuse, and expanding on reduce, reuse, recycle

- Students will show that they understand and know about the new ideas and trends in daily life, eg paper straws, electric cars

Action:

Students will examine their own personal choices.

Students will write informative pieces on recent adaptations and trends in using less non-renewable resources and conservation efforts.

How to Support Your Child at Home:

Discuss different ways that you try to use less natural resources, or reasoning and choices that you make when purchasing certain products.

Museum of Ancient Civilizations Coming Soon!

 This week, the students felt the pressure as the deadline for completing all of their museum exhibition artifacts, research summaries and display boards quickly approached. Some finished just in time, while others will be finishing up over the weekend! Hopefully, all will be ready to finish off their displays by next Monday!

Here are a few shots at the artists and museum curators busy at work!

Busy Builders

 This week the students in Grades 3 and 4 have been busy creating various models of art and artifacts for our upcoming Museum of the Ancients. Each will submit 3 to 4 recreated items related to art, architecture, food or farming, language or writing system, currency, clothing, music or instruments, beliefs and tools.

Looking Back in Time

This week, the students were busy researching different aspects of a chosen ancient civilization. To direct their individual research, they were tasked with finding out about the art, architecture, writing/ language, beliefs/ religion/ myths, foods/ farming, tools, music/ instruments, currency/ money and clothing. Students used books on EPIC as well as Google to research the topics and added photos, links and short notes to a Google Doc to keep track of all the information and will choose 3-4 aspects to focus on in more depth next week as they will prepare displays and artwork for a Museum of the Ancients that they will organize for the last week of the unit.

Our art project for this week was also connected to the unit as students used their research about the writing system of their chosen civilization to write or carve out their name using the appropriate type of writing.

 During language time, we learnt about similes and metaphors in order to add more details to the students' personal narratives. The students enjoyed coming up with inventive ways to describe me, "Mr. Brabant is hairy like a bear!" Or, "Mr. Brabant's tummy is a balloon." And of course, my favourite, "Mr. Brabant's hair is like pasta!"

We also FINALLY started our Book Clubs/ Literature Circles. It took a few days, plus the threat of them losing recess time to get them to do their work, but somehow managed to have some discussion on one of the three books below. All of which also ties in nicely with our current unit! Let's hope they remember to read the next agreed-upon pages and complete the jobs that they chose over the weekend as the next meeting will be Monday morning!

Here are a few more of the linear perspective pictures that came back finished this past week.

One Point Perspective Artwork

 This week we had a brief introduction to some of the civilizations from the past. After watching short video clips on the Ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans and Chinese the students enjoyed playing a few rounds of Bamboozle (a fun quiz game) as a class. This helped give the students some insight into each of the major civilizations from the past from which they chose one to focus on for an in-depth research project which they will carry out over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile in art, the students continued to work on drawing realistic one-point perspective pictures. Some were based in reality as they drew the hallway, or indoors. Others chose to watch tutorial videos to get more inspiration or to improve their own techniques.