September 14, 2018

Hi Families,

Students have some "homework" this weekend!

As part of our exploration of colour, we have been sorting colours into a variety of categories:

- primary vs. secondary colours

- warm vs. cool vs. neutral colours

- tints vs. shades

Colour will be embedded throughout our year, across the curriculum, and we would like to have something that we can refer to whenever the topic comes up. So, we've decided to construct a "Loose Parts Collaborative Colour Wheel"!

Students are asked to collect small items that can be sorted and glued onto a large colour wheel for display in our classroom. Objects will be glued on and not returned. An example of such a colour wheel is below. Today, students brainstormed some small items that could be glued on:

- scraps of ribbon, string, wrapping paper or cloth

- paperclips, stray penlids, too-small crayons

- buttons, pompoms, beads, paint chips

- feathers, foam pieces, lego pieces

- bottle caps, bag clips, bingo chips

- etc, etc, etc...

Please have your child bring their items to school in a small baggie. No need to sort different colours into different bags, that's part of the fun for us to have here!

Today, we concluded the week by celebrating Dot Day! http://www.thedotclub.org/dotday/get-started

If you are unfamiliar with the story "The Dot", you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mGeR4AQdM

We uncovered that the book is not only an art book, but also a book about growth mindset. Once the idea of a growth mindset was discussed , students were all able to identify something that they've had to practice to improve on, or that they were practicing/learning, and came up with an easy way to encourage their own growth mindset everyday, by using one of two statement:

"I can't do that yet."
"I'm still learning how to..."

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Growth Mindset, and the work of Carol Dweck, I encourage you to see what it's all about: https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/

Each student created a dot based on pre-established criteria to contribute to a grade 1/2 collaborative art project celebrating Dot Day. We hope to have it on display for you to view when you come to our Open House before the Family BBQ next week!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Lindsay Brown