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Week of April 10-13

Peaks= happy moments, Pits = challenging moments. Today we added another page to our "Questions" booklet. I asked the students if they knew what a dandelion is by a show of hands. Next, I asked if they knew how dandelions got the name "dandelion". They shared their ideas with an elbow partner. Lots of great responses. For the purpose of saving time and for establishing the "French Connection" for the day, I took out a dandelion leaf and began to tell the story of how the french settlers in Canadian first came to know the plant by the shape of the leaf and how the leaf looks like "The teeth of a lion" or (in French) "Les dents de lion" hence where its name came from. Next, I modelled glueing the leaf into the booklet and drawing a lion's head around the "teeth". We answered the question with "La plante s'appelle dandelion parce que c'est les "dents de lion". We went outside to pick a dandelion leaf and then returned back to class to draw our lions:)

Peaks: My grade 4 class practiced pollinating the dandelions with their noses (transferring pollen from one dandelion to the next) like les abeilles (bees). We had a contest to see who had the yellowest nose(s) - a mini stewardship project I guess:) We ate the new dandelion leaves. Next time I would use adjectives related to taste (bitter etc.).

Pit: For one of my classes, the fire alarm went off in the middle of our outdoor excursion so we had to race back and line up on the field. At the end of the drill we had run out of time to finish the activity:( Fortunately one of the EAs had reminded me about bringing the outdoor emerg bag for fire drills.

Pit: One of the students swatted at a bee that was on a flower and some other students proceded to step on it and kill it. It was a little like "Lord of the Flies". This was shortly after a discussion on the importance of pollinators and dandelions. I was upset, stopped the activity and walked the class back indoors. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do/say when a student harms something in nature? Deepti - Perhaps role play - have a child be a bee that is busy pollinating, another comes and catches it in his net to put it in the jar. Talk about the feelings of the "caught" bee. In my experience with young children, empathy is not something that can be taught in one or two lessons - it has to be learned through various personal examples repeatedly.

I will end with a sidenote, that the actual french word for dandelion is "pissenlit" - the children loved that as you can imagine. I'm sure some adults would find it amusing as well:) Deepti

Tamara

Week of March 19- 23

This week we focussed on "Water day" (March 22). On Thursday, with temperatures soaring (26 degree +) we ventured outdoors to decorate the sidewalks with messages about water (en francais). This was an idea from the summer ETFO instititute with Stan and Brian Bibby Smith from Belfountain. The students came up with some adjectives to describe water and then decorated the school ground in colourful sidewalk chalk. I contacted the media and three newspapers happily came out to photograph the students working (The Mercury, The Tribune and Snap). After much work in the sweltering sun, we shared a box of popsicles and took a gallery walk to observe other student's work. It was a good day:) I am still trying to work out how to bring conversational french into these activities. I find this to be the most difficult since the students want to converse in english especially when we are doing "fun and exciting" outdoor stuff. How do I keep them motivated to speak en francais outside?

Week of Feb 19-21

We went outside this week with the question word "Pourquoi?" (Grade 5) and the students came up with some great questions like "Why do coniferous trees keep their needles in winter?" and "Why do mushrooms grow on dead trees?" We focussed only on questions rather than giving answers and attempted to open a space for curiosity. However, this was challenging because it was amazing how many times a student would say "I know the answer to your question" and then share something confidently that was completely false...how does one manage that situation?

A question arose from several students observing three squirrels in a tree. They asked, "Why are the squirrels fighting?" I have learned that inquiry involves guiding the students to a possible answer by asking more questions "Why would one squirrel fight with another?" "Why does it look like one squirrel is protecting another?". All of a sudden the squirrels started mating...which resulted in screaming and fleeing children but they had discovered the answer to their question.

One of my students with autism made me smile this week. She was very excited about the assignment of asking questions in nature. As we walked on the trail beside the school she picked up a curved branch and made a fist below it and said, "Look! It is a question mark". I wished that I had brought my camera outside:)

Question: Should I try and focus their questions more or just let them choose? Some students chose open-ended questions like "Why do people get lost in the forest?" or "Why do people put up bird feeders?" - it will be hard for them to come up with possible answers I think. Ideas?

T

Week of Feb 14

I have been thinking about how to weave together the process of inquiry, outdoor learning and core french. The common thread seems to be "Les Questions" and learning the different ways to ask and answer questions (a curriculum objective for Grade 4, 5 and 6). I tried it out this week and last week and am pleased with how it is going...

Each student has a field notebook (rough copy) and we have made an 8 page folded "livret" (booklet) for their good copy. Every week we tackle a new "question word" like "Comment" (How?) or "Pourquoi" (Why?) and then head outside to try to frame at least 3 questions using the word of the week. I have been booking a computer period to help them with the translation of the question into french and also to provide opportunity to research potential answers (when possible).

Ideally, I would love to have my own classroom to set up a space of field guides to assist in the research but am restricted to a rolling cart. The saga continues!

Early Feb. Here are two outdoor French activities to do with your classes... Ecureuil/Squirrel BINGO and Oiseaux/Bird BINGO. You can laminate these and re-use them year to year (use a china marker and a Mr. Clean magic sponge to erase). China markers can be found at Staples. Basically you go over the vocab in class and then head outside. Ideally you need an area frequented by squirrels and/or birds. If the students get 5 in a row, column or diagonal they yell out "SALUT" and then continue finding more things. Near the end of the period, we talk about what we saw. The squirrel one worked really well in a 50 minute period. Also, attached is a french "bird muffin" recette/recipe to make delicious bird muffins (no birds are harmed) that you can impale on branches outside for the birds to eat. My goal is to make these with the students and then head outside to put them in bird-friendly places. One of the ingredients is "sand" so let other staff know especially if you are baking them in the staff room. T



And here is the bbird muffin file converted to RTF format which should allow you to access them if you do not have Word. Don't know how Tamara got the other two files uploaded since my computer says these are too big. ideas?

Stan



Hello again!

Here is the tracking document that I gave people at the tracking workshop. This can be made into 4 half-page laminated sheets for students to bring with them on the trail. It has most of the key info that kids needs to begin tracking animals. [|Animal Tracks.pub]

Hey all,

Here is a space for us to dialogue about tracks and signs if needed. Here is one of my most favourite tracks! Very distinct...a great way to get kids to look at a track is to ask, "Which is the front print? Why do you think that? What shape is the front track? (somewhat star-like). T