Globalization and Citizenship

Rooms 20 & 21 have been learning about globalization, quality of life, rights and freedom and citizenship. Students have been learning that citizenship means a feeling of responsibility towards others and helping them. They have been exploring organizations, different countries and completing different critical thinking tasks to understand and appreciate their rights and freedoms as Canadian citizens. Below is the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child in pdf form.

UN Rights of the Child Poster
UN Sustainable Development Goals: this is what the organization believes will help end poverty

This document has been a huge part of our class discussions. The significance of this document has been important in their learning about citizenship because students have been learning that there are people in the world, and even within our country, who do not have the same quality of life, rights and freedoms as they do (inequality).

Students studied different international organizations for their own citizenship projects. An example of one was from an international organization called Plan International. Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organization that advances children's rights and equality for girls.
Plan International
https://plancanada.ca/because-i-am-a-girl



To illustrate this point, students completed the Marshmallow Challenge. Below is the video explaining the challenge itself and its purpose.



Students engaged in this team building challenge, but were faced with limitations and restrictions depending on what group they were put in. 
Group 1: have instructions on how to build a well constructed tower in English, hints on how to build a successful tower, all the materials at their desk, best and extra supplies at their disposal, and lots of help from the teachers and EA
Group 2: have instructions in English, good supplies, materials at their desk, only allowed two hints from adult supports
Group 3: Given basic supplies, no instructions, all materials at their desk
Group 4: no instructions or hints, must walk to get supplies and are limited in terms of how many items they can carry back to their table to complete the challenge
Group 5: have to complete another task that will take 10 minutes before they even start their tower
Group 6: unreadable instructions (in French), no hints/help, lack of materials

So what have we learned? How do we continue to discuss citizenship? How do we talk about the inequalities that we see? Below are some video prompts to help you engage in those conversations. There are also discussion questions below to help facilitate the conversations.

 < - What Does Education Mean to You? 














<- Two girls, two different lives.













How do you turn a life around? ->










Discussion Questions 
1. What is empathy? How do you show someone you care?
2. What is responsibility? How do you show responsibility at home and at school? 
3. Do your rights and freedoms change as you become an adult?
4.Why is it important to learn responsibility and empathy in order to be a good citizen?
5. How does showing citizenship increase equality and opportunity for others?
7. Who do you know is a citizen that has made a difference? (i.e Terry Fox, Malala Yousafzai, Christian and the Buddy Bench idea, etc)
8. What are some of the local organizations that help others? How do they make a difference?
9.  What are the difference between a right, want and need? Are there similarities between them? 
10. What are you thankful and grateful for? How do you show appreciation? 

December 1st Update

Literacy

Students have been working on their expert writing this week. Here is a sample of a Grade 3 expert writing so far. Don't forget, this is only a draft.


Some students choose to take their written work home to complete. There's no weekend journal this week.
















Math






































In Math, students completed a calendar math problem this week on skip counting by 3s, 4s, and 25s.


Here is an example of the math problem. We have gone through this problem in class but please allow your child explain their work to you.

Please review the following with your child:
- skip counting by 3s,4s, and 25s to 1000.
- Strategies to solve addition and subtraction up to 1000 (Gr 3) and 10,000 (Gr 4)
- Play Adding War with your child using a deck of cards to practice their mental math strategies and estimation.

Social Studies
Students have been working on an globalization inquiry project. They have been researching local and global organizations on how to help others. Please ask your child about what their ideas are and what their project is about.

For the whole month of November, students explored the term Peace and Globalization. In their collaborative art piece, students shared what peace means to them. Together, they have created this mural that is displayed outside of the office. Please come check it out!




Physical Education

It has been an exciting week of swimming! Students took the responsibility of taking care of their belongings and many of them expressed their enjoyment. Thank you parent volunteers for your support!

Weekly Update

Swimming will start on November 27th and ends on December 1st. It is from 9:10 to 10:30am. Please have your child wear their swimsuit before school to ensure the transition to the pool will be smoother. Mr. Gustafson will be taking the classes to swimming this week.

Here is a suggestion of things to bring for swimming:
- swimsuit
- googles
- swim bag or a plastic bag
- towel
- underwear

Parent Volunteers, thank you so much for coming in this week to help us out with this event. Swimming is part of the physical education that offers a great opportunity for students to explore and learn the skills to play and be safe in the water. Please arrive a few minutes early on the first day to go through some information with you. You are required to sign in at the office before the day starts. Thank you!

Social Studies
Students have been exploring the different artifacts from Peru, India, Ukraine, and Tunisia. They studied the geography, clothing, resources, and many more.  As they carefully examined the artifacts they had to think critically on where these artifacts are from and its importance. Here's a quick snapshot of our Social Studies this week. Thank you Fort Calgary for such a resourceful kit to share in our classrooms. This upcoming week, students will dive into what globalization means and explore some global organizations that helps improve the quality of life in other countries. They will also take part on the decision making of how they can contribute and support others in their community.




Mathematics
Students have been working hard this week to solve addition and subtraction problems using various Montessori materials and mental math strategies. Please review addition and subtraction with your child.

Grade 3s:
- Students are working addition and subtraction up to 1000 using 2 or more strategies.
- Students learned how to represent numbers to 1000 using Montessori manipulatives such as the Place Value chart, Golden Beads, Colour Bead Bars, Number Line, and the Stamp Game.

Grade 4s:
- Students are working addition and subtraction up to 10000 using 2 or more strategies.
- Students learned how to represent numbers to 10,000 using Montessori manipulatives such as the Place Value chart, Golden Beads, Colour Bead Bars, Number Line, and the Stamp Game.
- They are also building understanding of algebra.

This week, students will be working on skip counting by 3s, 4s, and 25s to 1000. You can support your child by practicing skip counting at home too.

Here are some fun videos to get the students started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWxPKnLtnus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BhGeOgRxCE


Literacy
I would like to give a big thank you to all the volunteers who put in the time to support our Word Work. This week, we have been talking about "expert writing". Students brainstormed their passions and chose one to reflect and to learn more about. Students used the hamburger graphic organizer to support in the introduction. This week, emphasis will be on the body paragraphs.

Students continue to be working hard on their Word Work and recognizing blends. Grade 4s were working on the long i last week.

Spirit Day

Upcoming Spirit Day: 
Students and staff are encouraged to wear their clothes either backwards, inside out OR both on Thursday November 23rd! Like all Spirit Days, participants are encouraged to be fun and creative with this theme, but to remember that it also needs to be school appropriate including allowing students to participate fully in all classes. 

November 18

Thank you parents for attending the Math Night on Wednesday. Students worked hard in learning the games and created videos on how to teach those games to you. We really appreciate your time to come and learn the math games.  In addition, we would also like to give a big thank you to parents who kindly purchased books to add to our book collection. Students are really excited to dive into them.





Upcoming events:
- Swimming is on November 27th to December 1st. We are looking for volunteers, especially male volunteers. If you are available, please let us know.

November 10

Upcoming Events:

- We will be going swimming from 9:10am to 10:40am from November 27th to December 1st. We are looking for 6 - 8 volunteers to help us with the swimming field trip. If you would be available, please let us know. The cost of the swimming lessons is $30 and parents can pay it online.

- November 13 - Practice Lockdown in the afternoon.
- November 15 - Celebrations of Learning. Our school will be hosting a Math Night for families to come learn and have fun. Scholastic Book Fair will be there that evening in the Learning Commons.
- November 17 - PD Day

Celebration of Learning on November 15

The first CJP Celebration of Learning will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 15th from 6:30pm - 8:00pm.  This night's theme will be "Math in Our World: Promoting Positive Math Experiences."  Students and families are invited to come and play a variety of math games, read math stories, solve puzzles and problems, and learn more about how math is used in everyday life.  Classrooms from Kindergarten to Grade 6 will be open and sharing ways that families can engage in meaningful and fun math activities.  Please be advised that not all classrooms will be open for this event, as a second Celebration of Learning will take place in Spring 2018.  If your child's classroom is not open for our November celebration, you are still encouraged to stop by.  There will be a variety of math activities for everyone to enjoy.  All CJP families are invited to attend this fun and interactive celebration!



Special Events this week:

Our school watched "Jack and the Beanstalk" production hosted by the Alberta Opera. In class, we read various versions of Jack and the Beanstalk and students had to re-tell the story from a different character's perspective. Please ask your child about the performance as well as how they re-told the story.

On Friday, we had our Remembrance Day assembly. We talked about peace and why we need to remember those who had fallen. We read a book called "Dreams of Freedom". Please discuss what they learned this week. 

Lock Down

On Monday, we will have a lockdown. As to what a lockdown is, please click the link below to be re-directed to the Calgary Police website.
http://www.calgary.ca/cps/Pages/Youth-programs-and-resources/School-resources/Preventing-school-violence.aspx 

It is important to us that our school remains safe and that students understand lockdown procedures. Talk with you child and review with them what they believe the lockdown expectations are.

Some lockdown expectations include
-remaining calm and stopping what they are doing inside the classroom
-go to the green dot posted in the class
-remaining quiet at all times

Extra Recess
As a school we have raised about 750 pounds of food! The food bank was so impressed with our donation that the Me to We club has given everyone at our school an extra long recess starting Monday at 1:50pm. Please ensure you are dressed for the weather.

November 3

Parent Volunteers:
We would like to give a big thank you to parents who came to our school this week to help us prepare our Word Work centers.

Science:
Students were reviewed the Hearing and Sound vocabulary and math through solving problems and puzzles. They worked collaboratively with their team to unlock a series of locks to break into the mystery box. Breakout SUCCESS!


Math:
Thank you for all the Food donations that was brought in. We have collected over 100 items. We really appreciate your ongoing support. Our classes have been collecting the data using tallies and learned to transfer the data to a pictograph and a bar graph.


Upcoming Events:
- We will be going swimming from 9:10am to 10:40am from November 27th to December 1st. We are looking for volunteers to help us with the swimming field trip. If you would be available, please let us know. The cost of the swimming lessons is $30 and parents can pay it online.
- Alberta Opera will be presenting on November 8th
- November 15 - Celebrations of Learning. Our school will be hosting a Math Night for families to come learn and have fun. Scholastic Book Fair will be there that evening in the Learning Commons.
- November 17 - PD Day