How can I develop my resiliency to grow, learn and contribute to a community?
In our visual journal this morning we finished our Tipi drawings by adding details such as a symmetrical oval door which connected to our study of shapes. We also talked about the different designs they did on Tipis by looking at several pictures. We learned that the Blackfoot were known for their beautiful designs on their tipis. Not all First Nations people actually painted their tipi. The Blackfoot painted them to honor the animal spirits and spirits in nature. They believed that the "spirit" design that they used would help protect their family. These designs were said to have come to the people through visions or dreams from Grandfather and Grandmother spirit. There is often a legend for each design.
Today we took all the pieces of our buffalo to the library because we needed space to put it together. We laid all the pieces out on the floor and labelled them. Than looking at our prototype and the body decided that we needed to attach the side pieces to the bottom to start. We also made a plan that some people needed to hold the pieces while other people taped. Everyone worked together and we were able to put together the two side pieces and the back end to hold it up. Tomorrow we will continue putting together the rest of the body than talk about adding the legs and making the head.
Our recess was really green so our plan of picking a person, making a plan and place is working! We played a lego game and robots on the playground. We also played soccer with the big kids and had alot of fun.
We started reading a new legend called The legend of the Buffalo Stone. We don't know what the stone is yet. We met a new main character who is a Blackfoot First Nations girl named Hanata. She likes to sit up high on the rocks and watch for buffalos. Our next step is to learn about how the Blackfoot First Nations were nomadic because they needed to follow the buffalo around the prairies which had a big impact on their way of life. In Math, we made 3D shape Angry Birds out of paper. We got to play a couple new math games on the Ipad. We also made an estimate of how many orange blocks were in the bin. To help us figure out how many there actually was we organized the green blocks in groups of ten and realized there was 6 more left over which made 76. To make our best guess for how many orange blocks there are we looked at the green blocks. Tomorrow we will count to see how close we were. Our goal is to work on our ability to use information in order to make our best estimate. We watched a news story video about how the buffaloes are coming back after almost going extinct. It showed first nations people scrapping the buffalo skin. We talked about all the different things the first nations people use the buffalo for like clothes, shelter and to make different tools for hunting. They talked about how they are buffalo people and trying to bring that connection to the buffalo back as an integral part of their culture that was lost when the west was settled. Buffaloes have made a comeback due to the high demand for buffalo meat and conservationists advocating for their return to the wild like the 16 reintroduced to Banff National Park. This connected to our legend Where the Buffalo Began and our buffalo building. We continued to build the top and bottom or our buffalo in two teams this time. We used our same strategy of nonstandard measurement string but this time used the width (realized we needed to make it shorter) and the length.
We made a new plan for lunch recess because as a class we have realized this is a time a day we needed help being green. The plan was: 1. Pick a person or people to play with. 2. Make a plan about what to do. (e.g. what game to play etc. 3. Pick a place. (playground, compound, or field) After lunch we had a class meeting and talked about how our new plan went. We had more green moments overall. We will continue to practice everyday with the hopes that it will help us play safely and have lots of fun! We started to build the buffaloes body. We did it as a whole class this time. We made the two side pieces of the body by using our height and length string measurement. Next steps are to build the bottom and top, and the two end pieces. Hopefully we will build the head next than add the details like horns.
IMPORTANT REMINDER!!! Tomorrow is REPSOL SWIM DAY. Please remember to pack a separate swim bag including bathing suit (or underwear if wearing it to school) and a towel.
Special Guest: We had an engineer visit our classroom because we have talking about what it means to be an engineer when building our buffalo. His name was Taorid (Mr.T) and he introduced the boys to different concepts such as:
Assembly
It was interesting hearing the grade 3's play the drums. They did a really good job! They all played the beat at the same time. We had an annoucement that another older student is shaving their head to raise money for people in the community. Also exciting news was that the Stone jars are full and being counted right now but we don't know who had more grey or blue! Where the Buffalo Began We finally got to the end of the legend we had been reading. Little Wolf the main character saved the people in his community by leading the buffalo towards their enemy tribe and they trampled them. So now when they tell the story of where the buffaloes began they always talk about a boy called Little Wolf. Buffalo
We split into groups and drew on paper using rulers as a tool to make the pieces we need to make for the buffalo. We found deciding what jobs each person in the group was going to do challenging so this is something we are going to work on as a whole class. Music We got to listen to the grade 3 students playing drums. They showed us different ways to play the drum including the bass. We are excited to try drumming next week with a focus on creating a beat and a simple song! Zones of Regulation We had a guest speaker named Breanna who is a therapist. A "Therapist helps people when times are tough. " She taught us to use exercises to calm us down so we can start to build a tool box of strategies to help us with regulating. Art
We wrote an artist statement about our circle art because we are serious artists like Alex Janvier. We looked at some of his artwork first and talked about what we see in some his larger artwork. Also looked at the different names he gave his pieces. In our artist statement we wrote a name for our circle art, how we made it, and how the art made us feel in connection with our work on Zones of Regulation. Please check it out when you come for conferences on Thursday & Friday it will be on display! Math We measured the width of Mrs.Chilton's car because we realized we needed to in order to build our big buffalo. Our next step is to look at all 3 of our measurements and start to figure out how we are going to make our pieces larger. We have been making 3D shapes out of connecting blocks. We started with 3 blocks but realized it did not make many different shapes. Today we tried using 4 blocks and got alot more different shapes. Our next step is to try building with 5 blocks. First we reviewed what it means to be an engineer and how they build stuff to solve a problem or for a purpose. We made the basic structure out of cardboard and tape. We made the fur by using markers and paper. It took alot of effort and team work to make it. We had 3 teams and each team made a different part of the buffalo. One group made the head, one group made the body, and one group made the legs. After we put all the pieces together.
What we need to improve when we build the actual size buffalo:
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