Outdoor Challenge Day 2: Boats

What an amazing day of learning! This morning it was raining and really windy so we decided to stay in and see if it would pass.

While we were inside we decided to make boats to take out with us. First we did some experiments to see whether objects in our classroom would sink or float. We also talked about the base of the floating objects and what shapes stayed up the best.

Then we created a criteria so we would be able to tell if our boats were successful or not.

The next step was choosing materials and building the boats. It was exciting to see students testing their boats and making changes, or starting over, to improve their designs.

In the afternoon we went over to Discovery Children's Centre to test our boats in the puddles and PLAY! We always have such a great time when we visit their adventure playground.

At the end of the day we came back to our playground at Stevenson and spent some time doing discovery centres. Today we skipped the paper and painted right on the sidewalk. We also discovered that the bubbles worked way better today with a little wind.

Here's a video of some of the highlights from today.

Outdoor Challenge: Day 1

Today was the first day of our Outdoor Challenge. We started with a very special guest, Kelly, from Lululemon. The people there are so amazing and care a lot about kids, fitness and community building. They sent the wonderful Kelly and a class set of yoga mats for us to use for the day.

Kelly taught us a sequence of poses that are all animals, we even got to make the sounds. We plan on starting each day of our challenge with some moments of mindfulness. 

Warming up with some cat/cow poses.

And cobra!

Down dog. We also played a game where everyone crawled under the dogs. Kids said it was challenging but felt good!

Taking some minutes to breathe and think about our day.

After our stretching, we worked together to set up shelters to give us some shade from the sun. 

While the room 12 class was in french class the kindergarten students played some games with the parachute. 

After recess we had discovery centres outside.

Thanks to Reimer Soils for donating a yard of sand and a yard of soil for us to use during our Outdoor Challenge!

We ended our day with some very special Star of the Week presentations, journal writing, and singing My Roots Go Down. 

Tomorrow looks like rain. We plan on being outside (in and out of shelters), unless there is very strong rain or risk of lightning.

Please make sure all students are dressed for the weather. 

Walking Wednesday

Last year the Room 8 students participated in Walking Wednesdays. Our goal was to get used to walking longer distances, being outside for long periods of time, and moving safely as a group. This year we decided to do Adventure Afternoons at Discovery instead.

The Adventure Afternoons have been amazing and we have learned a lot, made some great routines, and benefitted from visiting the same spot more than once and seeing it in different weather but we haven't done too much walking.

That changed today. We walked all the way from school to the Rod's Football Field and park. Before we left, everyone went to the washroom. This will be a very important part of our routine. Then we started walking. We paid attention to street signs so we can map our route tomorrow (maps are an important part of our social studies curriculum). 

Along the way we practiced staying together and looking both ways before crossing streets. We also noticed nature around us and airplanes in the sky.

Before we went into the park we all agreed to follow two rules 1)be safe 2)be kind.