We had a great time learning about Chinese New Year this week! We learned from books and some online research about this special holiday, and the students were especially interested to learn about their Chinese Zodiac sign and learn how to do some Chinese calligraphy. Our class learned about the history of the Lunar New Year celebrations, and we got to partake in the celebrations with our own Hongbao (red envelopes) and special New Year candy. Happy Year of the Rat! Gong hei fat choy!
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In our first unit in Social Studies, we learned about the land in the communities of Iqaluit in Nunavut, Meteghan in Nova Scotia, and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. We will now revisit the communities and focus on people and culture in those communities—the Inuit, the Acadians, and the Ukrainians. Through stories, activities and research, we will:
Your child will be better able to make connections with material presented in class if he or she has experiences and knowledge to draw on. Here is how you can help:
We invite you to share your cultural background with us. Would you be willing to come to class and share some information? Do you have any materials you could lend us? Here are some specifics of what we are looking for: Traditions—Are there any traditions, celebrations, special foods or recipes, special games or objects you could show or talk about? Language—Is there another language spoken in your home? Perhaps you and your child could share some simple words or books in that language with the class. Music or Art—Do you have any music or art that reflects your culture? Can you show us any traditional clothing? You can watch the video above to see a glimpse of the lovely people in Iqaluit! ![]() On Tuesday this week we celebrated Ukrainian Christmas in 2B! We pretended to wait to eat lunch until we saw the first star outside (as some Ukrainians would do to remember the wise men following the star), and learned how to say Merry Christmas in Ukrainian (Veseloho Rizvda or Веселого Різдва). We decorated our classroom with a Didukh that symbolises the large wheat fields in Ukraine and means 'grandfather spirit' to signify people's ancestors being with them in their memories. The students went caroling like many Ukrainians do (singing “'Koliadky”), and we listened to the famous Ukrainian carol “Schedryk” (it has the same melody as “Carol of the Bells”). We set up our own class nativity scene like Ukrainian families would often do, and made our own paper snowflake decorations like Ukrainian children sometimes make to decorate their houses at Christmas. We read the beautiful book The Christmas Spider’s Miracle to learn about why spiders are so important to some Ukrainian people at Christmas and why there are often spider decorations on their Christmas trees. Finally, we drank some warm uzvar which is a national Ukrainian beverage, cooked with dried fruits and berries. This week we’ve been learning about traditional Christmas celebrations from communities around Canada. We kicked off the week with an Acadian Christmas today. We ate lunch in the dark by firelight as though it was Réveillon, which is a special Christmas meal late at night, often after Midnight Mass. We watched a bit of a real Midnight Mass, and learned how to chair dance like true Acadians (you can see the video below to try it for yourself!). The students even learned a couple of Christmas carols in French that would be commonly sung in Atlantic Canada. Our class learned about the Christmas tradition of godparents giving their godchildren a large biscuit shaped like a little person called a “naulet” that we decorated our own paper versions of. The most popular tradition of all though was when we got to eat our Bûche de Noël! We've been paying attention to the federal election in 2B since the beginning of the year, and it was very interesting to watch how everything unfolded with the vote results on Monday! Our class had been viewing news coverage of the election during our current events time in Social Studies, and after looking at a brief synopsis of party platforms the students even participated in their own pretend election with ballots and voting screens with the help of Student Vote. It's always exciting to watch history unfold with the students in 2B! This week we commemorated Orange Shirt Day to remember and recognize children who were affected by residential school's in Canada's past. The students showed great compassion and respect, and we had great conversations about how we can ensure that children are never treated like that again in our country. You can watch the videos in this post to learn more about Orange Shirt Day and see the stories we read to better understand the meaning of this day. Given that we are quickly becoming experts on Canada here in 2B, and the fact that Greta Thunberg is visiting Canada this week, 2B set to work making a short video with important Canadian facts and places so that she can get the most out of her trip. The students were very excited to share their knowledge, and to see the news coverage of when Greta came to Montreal today!
We have begun a new unit in Social Studies in 2B about life in three communities in Canada. One purpose of this unit is to help your child appreciate the diversity and vastness of Canada’s land and peoples. The specific communities we will study are:
Students will learn about the weather, geography, language, history, daily life, and economy of these three Canadian communities. There will also be opportunities to make connections to Alberta and Spruce Grove. You are invited to be part of our unit in a variety of ways, for example:
The students already have a sense of the geographic and weather differences between the communities, and are becoming experts at the communities where Zenia (Saskatoon), Kenojouak (Iqaluit), and Jean-Louis (Meteghan) hail from. We’re looking forward to an exciting unit! The students' Canadian Career Fair was a great success! They've put so much thought and effort into their businesses, and it was neat to see that work pay off as they pitched their companies to prospective employees from 2W and 2S. There were many big hires made, and it was great to see 2B share their learning and creativity with their peers. You can watch the video below to get a sense of our exciting morning!
We're busy preparing for our career fair next week here in 2B! Students are practicing their presentations, creating props, and putting the final touches on their presentations. You can view their business presentations on Seesaw, and a few are posted below. They will undoubtedly have many interested employees next week!
This past week 2B were very diligent marketers as they planned the marketing for their Canadian business. Students had to conduct market research to understand the culture and demographics of their location, and had to consider how to pitch their product and environmental policies to the public. They chose between creating a TV ad, radio ad, poster, or website and you can check out the results on your child's Seesaw! Our class has been abuzz for the past couple of weeks as the students have been planning their own businesses using a natural resource in one of our three Canadian communities. The students have made lots of decisions, including crafting a mission statement, business name, and determining whether their business existed to make a profit, benefit the environment, help a charitable cause, or to bring jobs to their community.
We’ve talked about resource stewardship which is an important part of our curriculum in grade two, and students have been mindful in making plans on how to use their renewable or non-renewable resources. Most recently the students designed logos. To recognize the history of Aboriginal people stewarding these resources, the logos all included the Aboriginal language and art of the business’ community. Some students have been so passionate about their businesses that they have been adding to their plans at home! This upcoming week we are going to plan some advertising for our businesses so that we can think about the demographics of our communities and what would convince those people to buy the product. Students will be creating a TV ad, poster, radio ad, website, or some other form of PR to advertise their product. You can check out some of our research resources here! The variety of cultures in communities across Canada has been a recent focus in our class, and 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!
2B officially voted in the 2019 Alberta Student Vote! Over the past month, they've enjoyed evaluating different policies and are very excited about participating in the democratic process. We learned about respecting people's opinions, and what types of ideas were matters of fact and which ones were matters of opinion. Our class vote was quite a tight race, and it was exciting for the students to watch and see how the student vote and adult vote the next day turned out. They promised me I could expect unanimous voter participation from them when they're 18! 2B has been lucky to receive dozens of postcards from classrooms around Canada this year, and it was our turn to send out our postcards this week! We wrote to the other Canadian students about our favourite Spruce Grove facts, including Jennifer Heil, Jack's Grill, and some of our favourite events at Millgrove like the pet parade. We can't wait to receive the rest of the postcards from Canadian classrooms over the next few months!
Our focus in Social Studies continues to be on life in three communities within Canada: an Inuit, an Acadian, and a Prairie community. We are about to start a unit that focuses specifically on the economic characteristics of these communities. Children will learn about:
Children will be better able to understand the concepts in this unit if they can make connections with familiar content through you. Here are some ways you can be involved:
Also, you can:
2B created their own virtual museums this past week using our borrowed artifacts from the Royal Alberta Museum! We learned so much about Inuit traditions, ways of life, and history from these artifacts, and the students became real experts with lots of knowledge about these Inuit artifacts. You can check out your child's virtual museum on Seesaw!
As we've been learning about Ukrainian, Acadian, and Inuit traditions, we read folk tales from these cultures in in Social Studies. Many of the stories were pourquoi-style stories that explained why something became the way it is today (such as why moles avoid light like in the story below). The students wrote their own traditional origin stories, and showed great reflection in using the traits of the folk tales we had read. You can read some of the students' folk tales in the slideshows posted in this post! In our first unit in Social Studies, we learned about the land in the communities of Iqaluit in Nunavut, Meteghan in Nova Scotia, and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. We will now revisit the communities and focus on people and culture in those communities—the Inuit, the Acadians, and the Ukrainians. Through stories, activities and research, we will:
Your child will be better able to make connections with material presented in class if he or she has experiences and knowledge to draw on. Here is how you can help:
We invite you to share your cultural background with us. Would you be willing to come to class and share some information? Do you have any materials you could lend us? Here are some specifics of what we are looking for: Traditions—Are there any traditions, celebrations, special foods or recipes, special games or objects you could show or talk about? Language—Is there another language spoken in your home? Perhaps you and your child could share some simple words or books in that language with the class. Music or Art—Do you have any music or art that reflects your culture? Can you show us any traditional clothing? You can watch the video above to see a glimpse of the lovely people in Iqaluit! We've been learning about different Canadian communities in the past in Social Studies, and this week our class has been focusing on the growth of Saskatoon after the railroad from Eastern Canada reached it. We talked about the pioneering families who came to Canada and then made the trek to Saskatoon, and how Canada advertised for people to come settle more of the land there. You can see the students' pretend historical ads to encourage people to travel to Saskatoon, and their representations of life in Saskatoon in the past from Makerspaces!
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Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three and literacy 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
June 2024
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