Week 5: October 5 to 9
Monday - Adriana was away today
Calendar went smoothly today, as we adjusted the month calendar to add the special days in October. Our teaching introduced this week was Courage, represented by Mukwa (Bear) and Dragon. We learn from Mukwa what it means to stand up for ourselves and others.
Math began with a game of Money Bingo! Everyone won bird stickers and an extra bonus sticker if they could name the bird they received for winning. As a result, everyone received two stickers! Bird Identification is on point! Language began with a book by Robert Munsch called Put Me In A Book. Students LOVED the story! I read many of the silly stories students had created from year's past, and we had a real hoot laughing at all the silly ideas. We pulled out a game called story cubes and built up a story by rolling dice. We settled on a setting (on Earth in a house by a fountain), 5 main problems, and each person present chose to be a character in the story. We will continue this practice throughout the year and see where we get with our story!
Monday afternoon we learned about the 6 ingredients in Elderberry Syrup. With so many friends down with chicken pox, we decided it was a good idea to create some immune boosting medicine. We had foraged Elderberries from the season before last in the freezer, dried coltsfoot for a NAC-rich tea base, ginger from Pam's garden in the park, raw honey from a local farm, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. We reviewed our instructions with a picture list for our recipe and added the numbers of the measurements. We learned there were many measurements that said 2, and each two was very different in size for our recipe. We allowed our medicine to simmer down throughout the afternoon while everyone had free time to play and enjoy one another.
Tuesday - Pam was away today
Today our morning focus was on reading the receipts we collected from Share the Magic Day. Each student had a handful of receipts and reported what was sold so we could record the information for comparison to our inventory sheets in another lesson. This afternoon we packaged and labelled the Elderberry Syrup for students to take home and began learning about our feelings by reading a story called Have You Filled A Bucket? We learned that everyone has an invisible bucket (capacity) to carry around kindness for themselves and others and we can choose with our actions to be bucket fillers or bucket dippers. We began learning about our conflict resolution steps for when we encounter problems as well.
Wednesday - Pam was away today
Today our morning focus was on collecting data from our inventory sheets and adding it to our big chart. For math, we split the students into two groups, younger students counting coins and older students counting bills utilizing their place value logic on the abacus. The younger group utilized an abacus as well to count up each dollar. We utilized an equivalency chart we made to identify how many nickels, dimes and quarters make up one dollar. When we were done counting, we added up both amounts and celebrated our hard job of counting all the money being complete with a short dance party.
After lunch, we continued our math to we could wrap up business counting, by tallying time worked in the school store, tea blends sold, and determining how much each student received. We tallied our tips and decided that those who worked jobs would received the largest coins, while those who did not, received the smaller coins. Every student who worked at share the magic day or created a label for a tea blend, had money placed in a labelled envelope for them. They were all VERY excited to share about their earnings. Our profits from Share the Magic Day were $200!!!! We hope that is enough to cover our whole feast plus some.
Thursday
Today we did not get as many photos. Our morning consisted of playing the Feelings Game as a group. Once everyone got the hang of the game, that asks you identify what feelings look like in others and what strategies students use to support themselves when they have specific feelings (plus a little charades for fun). Everyone loved it and is looking forward to playing it again. In the afternoon, we began planning the menu for our feast. Emma and Pam did a great job supporting all the student ideas, counting votes and ensuring that everyone understood what they were voting for. Our Kid Approved Gratitude Feast Menu 2026 Main: Hamburgers and Gluten Free Sourdough Buns Side: French Fries from our garden potatoes Greens: Rainbow Salad from our garden (plus a red cabbage and avocados)
Dessert: Ice Cream Sandwiches for dessert Drink: Pina Colada Smoothies & Chocolate Milk
****A Special Note about Gratitude Feast Day****
Please send snacks in student lunches and a full lunch for those students with particular tastes that may prevent them from consuming our feast foods.
Friday
Today was my husband's birthday, and Aliyah thankfully allowed our afternoon lesson to be the creation of a blackforest cake. We made a big layer cake and a mini cake so we could enjoy our labour too! The cake was a delicious end to a day full of pattern finding, instruction reading and practicing sewing by hand. Adriana assisted Aliyah in beginning a teeny little creation that is sure to be a big hit! I worked a little on our school butterfly stuffy that I created a pattern for from Mia's butterfly she brought to the school in September. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
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