Today, in STEM, we talked about what coding meant and what it related to in our everyday lives. Some of the students have already been exposed to coding in various ways, whether through iPad apps, after-school clubs, big sisters or brothers. Our activity today was to make a maze using q-tips and then write a code so that our little turtles could follow the code and go from point a to the star at the end. It was a very serious activity, hence all the serious faces!!! Once we finished, we sat and took turns doing a similar activity using the coloured grid carpet. Now we are not too far form being programming experts! Or inspired for now :)
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Last week, the students collected some pinecones outside that they were hoping to paint. This quiet afternoon provided a great opportunity to do just that. There are many more pinecones for anyone that was absent ;) The kids picked paint colours and put poured the paint into those little jars and then shook as hard as they could to get the pinecones all covered up. They look lovely! We'll decorate the class once we get some more of the pinecones painted.
Today, we had another discussion about what makes a living thing, living. Without any prompting, I asked the students questions to see what they knew. After our discussion, they drew in their journals, the instructions for their journal was to draw any living thing they wanted and to tell me how they know it is living. Great work! Understanding this concept is pretty solid now!
During our STEM period yesterday, we put on our engineering hats and listened to a story about the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the story of a little girl who was so excited to walk on the bridge after it was built. She watched as it was being built and finally, when it was ready, she asked her parents if they could go for a walk on the bridge. Her parents and many other family members and friends were not convinced that it would be safe and so the little girl was not allowed to go. After visiting the circus one day, the little girl thought of an idea. What if 21 elephants were to cross the bridge, then everyone would believe that the bridge was indeed strong enough and would not collapse. The little girl organized just that, and finally everyone was convinced as the elephants crossed the bridge!
Our challenge, after listening to the story, was to make a bridge using popsicle sticks and cups. Once we were confident that our bridge would hold 21 little figures (not exactly elephants), then we tried. If the bridge fell, then we had to re-engineer the bridge and try again! This mini lesson about fractions is not part of the usual term 1 JK math curriculum. A few other steps come before we begin learning about fractions. However...one of these little guys was quite interested in the fraction circles and wanted to learn about them, so why not. Fractions can be found everywhere and so cookies is how we made fractions relevant to us. We discussed a few scenarios where we had one cookie and 1, 2, 3 or 4 friends to share with. After a little discussion and modelling using the fraction circles, the students explored with the circles, independently. Thanks for inspiring this mini lesson, Mr. C. Every Tuesday, we go to the library to borrow a book. The students have free rein in the library, they may choose any book their hearts desire and often sometimes end up choosing novels! Each book they borrow is written down on their blue library card and when we go to the library the following week, we can only get new book if we return the book we borrowed. We don't take them home, but if you are curious which book your child borrowed, you can find the library books and blue library cards in the newspaper basket at the front of our classroom!
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Welcome to the daily life of Académie de la Capitale's Junior / Senior Kindergarten class! We hope you enjoy this window into our classroom as much as we enjoy sharing it!Archives
October 2022
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