This past week we were lucky to have some Inuit artifacts from the Royal Alberta Museum in our classroom. We learned about many interesting aspects of Inuit culture, and were able to use a variety of items including an ulu (multipurpose knife), traditional pulling game, kimiik, art, and a soapstone carving. In the midst of this cold weather snap, it was exciting to learn about how Inuit people adapt so well to the cold climate! You can watch the video below to hear Inuit throat singing. We're very lucky to have Mrs. B in our school who lived in India, and this week the students who wanted to each got henna art on their hands! Mrs. B is a very talented henna artist, and the smell of the henna was also very pleasant for the three days that she worked hard on the henna! It's so special to connect with India in a really meaningful way with the help of Mrs. B! This week we were very lucky to meet (virtually) with a grade three class from Athabasca Delta School in Fort Chipewyan! We taught them a bunch about what we've been learning in our unit on Testing Materials and Designs, and they taught us a bunch about their very neat fly-in community and the winter road that opened today! It was really special to connect with them, and we're excited to visit with them in the coming months!
We were very lucky to have a special guest visit our class today! Our Master Sailor works with the Canadian Armed Forces in the Navy, so it was fascinating to learn about his important role. He also shared some very relevant history of the Canadian Armed Forces, and notable wars that Canada has participated in, along with moving stories about Canadians who have served our country so honourably. It was a really meaningful visit for the students, and we were grateful to have this special guest for the week of Remembrance Day. We celebrated Diwali in our class this week, which is one of the most celebrated festivals in India! It is a Hindu holiday that is usually observed for five days, and we learned about some of the traditions and activities that make Diwali special. We made our own versions of rangoli and cleaned our classroom because many Indians believe that the Goddess Lakshmi only steps inside if your home is clean. We played cards, enjoyed some sweets, and enjoyed lunch with some special lights (because Diwali is the festival of lights). Mrs. B at our school even shared some special parts of her Diwali celebration with our school, including the beautiful art in our front entrance! You can watch the videos below to learn more about Diwali. We commemorated Orange Shirt Day today (and earlier this week as well) to remember and recognize children who were affected by residential schools in Canada's past. The students showed great compassion and respect, and we had excellent conversations about how we can ensure that children are never treated like that again in our country. We spent the week reading Indigenous stories, listening to Elders, learning from Indigenous author Nicola I. Campbell, researching mikiwahp (tipis), making some reflective art, & planting tree seeds in the Participark to honour Indigenous people impacted by the tragedy of residential schools. You can watch the videos below to learn more about Orange Shirt Day. Grade three has one of the most exciting curricula of all the grades because we get to learn about places all around the world! Our Social Studies units in grade three are built around the theme of “Connecting with the World.” We will focus on communities in four countries:
In our first unit, we've been locating the communities on maps and globes and working on reading maps and making maps. We’ll be studying life in the selected cities, towns, and villages in each of the countries. We will learn about:
This unit will help develop an understanding and appreciation for people in other parts of the world. We're looking forward to "traveling the globe" this year in grade three! Today was Millgrove’s infamous Tacky Tourist Day for grade three classes, and the students did not disappoint! To celebrate the year ahead of learning about countries around the world, students dressed up in their cheesiest traveling gear. Our year of global learning is off to a great (and hilarious) start!
Today the grade three classes celebrated our learning about Tunisia, Ukraine, India, and Peru with a big cultural celebration! Each classroom was transformed into one of the four countries, complete with activities, decorations, and (most importantly) tasty food! The students flew around to each destination, and it was a great way to cap off all our learning about these global communities. They are officially expert global citizens! We had a meaningful, learning-filled, and fun time celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day this week as we participated in some special performances and activities. The highlight was Métis dancer Kenton Alook visiting our school. His performance was so impressive, and we learned a lot about Métis culture and heritage. We also got to hear from some First Nations, Métis, and Inuit elders the next day, and learned from artist Lance Cardinal about traditional moose-skin moccasins. We were so lucky to learn from and celebrate with these special knowledge keepers!
The big highlight four our class this week was getting to visit the Royal Alberta Museum! We learned lots about Indigenous peoples, Alberta's history, Albertan animals, rocks & minerals, fossils, vehicles, and bugs. A big thanks goes out to our wonderful volunteers who led groups, and the students did a great job trekking around the large building. We wrote journals this morning summarizing what we'd learned, and it was neat to see all the different things that stuck out to them during our trip.
The students have been thrilled by our recent learning about Ukraine! We have learned about mysterious ancient coins, the story of Chernobyl, the history of Ukraine in the Soviet Union, along with many other interesting aspects of Ukrainian culture and quality of life. Recently each student researched a different Ukrainian dish to add to our class' Ukrainian Recipe Book! They also created an art depiction of that dish to illustrate the book inspired by the mosaics in Ukraine's train stations. It was a fun way to learn about these cultural foods and how they're made. You can see our recipe book below!
As part of our Ukrainian Easter celebrations this week, our class played the egg tapping game played by many people in Ukraine and other European countries. My aunt from Greece taught me the game, my son's teacher plays it with her Ukrainian family, and Mrs. Woloszyn's husband plays it with his family who have Polish roots! To play, we held either the pointy or round end of our hard-boiled egg to the egg of another person in hopes that the other person's egg (and not yours) will crack. Emmett was our pointy egg champion, and Ethan was our round egg champion! After our class, and many other classes at Millgrove, wrote postcards to members of the Canadian Armed Forces this past Christmas, it was exciting when the school received a lovely postcard back from a soldier who wrote to us from where she is stationed in Latvia! Especially these days, we're grateful for the women and men in those roles who help keep our country, and others, safe.
As part of our current unit on Ukraine, this week we celebrated Easter Ukrainian style by decorating eggs (or “pysanky”). The students used kitskas and beeswax to create designs on their eggs, and we used real Ukrainian dyes. It was very exciting to see how they turned out after we’d melted all the wax off. з Великоднем! (Happy Easter)! For the next couple of months in Social Studies our class will be focusing on the country of Ukraine! So far the students have noticed that Ukraine has some features in common with Canada, and the class particularly enjoyed learning the game "Tzurki Palki" outside. Ukrainian sports, industries, and communities have been interesting so far, and in the next week we'll get to learn lots about Ukrainian culture. ми не можемо чекати (we can't wait)!
With our learning about Peru recently, we’ve been talking a lot about the importance of llamas to the culture and economy. This week we made art based on the bright contrasting colours of Peruvian textiles and the llamas that live in the Peruvian mountains. We learned about shepherds and Inca traditions with llamas, and the students did lovely job depicting the llamas and textiles. We learned about tree frogs this week as part of our learning about the environment and animals in Peru. Tree frogs live in the rainforest, including the Amazon rainforest in Peru, and we enjoyed learning different facts about this interesting creature. The students even made their own illustrations of the red-eyed tree frog, which you can learn more about in the videos below! |
Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three teacher at Millgrove School. She loves science and reading, and lives in a little brick house with Mr. Barker and her kids Jack and Ellie. Archive
April 2024
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