Tuesday, September 26

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. In the morning, we did part one of four of our 'Canadian Indigenous History' lesson. We talked about what life was like for indigenous peoples in Canada before European settlers arrived. The students already knew a lot about the ways indigenous peoples lived off the land by hunting and gathering, built temporary, easily moveable shelters to follow Bison (at least in the Alberta region), and lived fairly sustainably. We also talked about how during this time, people in Europe were living very different lives, that were often driven by a desire to expand and progress. which ultimately led them to explore over seas and arrive in Canada.

I'm trying to provide students with a general, age-appropriate context of what the world was like a few hundred years ago. I'm a bit of a history nerd so it's been tough to condense everything and I have went off on quite a few unnecessary tangents. But the students were an excellent audience, and contributed a lot to our discussions as well, so I think we're off to a great start. The class has been working to capture their understanding with illustrations in their sketchbooks.

For math, the Grade 4s worked on a "grueling" numeracy assessment, which covered multiplication, division, fractions. number lines.... pretty much everything. It was quite tough!

The Grade 3s worked on a place value / expanded form activity.

In gym, we played "Plank Air Hockey". It was also grueling.

In the afternoon, we had Daily LA, and then practiced spelling words in a fun way by playing -ing word charades. Students were given an -ing word (lets say 'crying'), which they would act out, and then their group would have to guess it by writing it correctly on white boards.

Remember that orange shirt day is on Thursday - and have a nice night!

Zac