Kenneth D. Taylor, Grade 3 - Ms. Hargreaves

The thinking question:  Will our prototypes do the job?  How effective are they for giving the user a sensory brain break when needed?   Global mind in action on Wondering Wednesday.  We explored the Test Phase of the Design Thinking Cycle this afternoon when we traveled to Mrs. Jordan's class and asked the grade 2's if they could try out our prototypes of the sensory tools we built yesterday.  This phase of the cycle is testing and getting feedback for improving and refining the design. Design Thinking Stages  The Design Board Mrs. Jordan and I were so impressed with how collaborative the two classes were.  It could have been a real design lab in any innovative company anywhere in the world.   This was a room of 21st century thinkers in action.  The natural conversation was insightful and helped us learn what improvements need to be made to these first prototypes.  Having real users, the grade two's, handle the de...

Well today was a day filled with collaboration as we worked with our Kindergarten buddies  on a design challenge to create a sensory tool. Thanks for letting us hang out in your learning space, Kindergarten students!  The criteria was it must be so appealing that you just need to touch it. It must spark your sense of sight, hearing and touch.  It must be have a function. We had a variety of materials to use and it was fascinating to see what everybody used.  Each design definitely hit the bullseye and met the criteria.  Our plan is to test these sensory tools by putting them up on the bulletin board outside of Room 155, we can't wait to hear what people think, and if they help learners when they need a body/brain break.    Here are some of our thoughts on why we love design thinking in Room 123: What do we love about design thinking ? "Showing your creativity." "We like using materials and making our prototypes better." "We like gett...

We are having some community building assemblies to celebrate the values of:   kindness, belonging and the season of giving.  On different days next week we will be coming together as a school to sing and dance (giving the gift of music).  Here are the dates and times for our gathering just in case you want to join us .  Each class will be doing different dances on different days and fun dress themes if you are interested (see below).   Tuesday, December 13 @ 9:30am  Pearson/Stewart Brar/Bakkan  Thursday, December 15 @ 1:00pm  (Red and Green Day) Hargreaves/Sayani PM Kindergarten   Friday, December 16 @ 8:30am (Pajama Day)  Carstairs/Witczak AM Kindergarten  Steckly/Fraser/Jordan  Don't forget that Friday, December 16th  is our last day before the break and it's an early dismissal day .  Students will be finished at 11:30 and report cards will go home that day.   ...

Goodness, the days are flying by in December .  We did some math on  Wondering Wednesday to discover there are 9 days left until the break.    Here a some highlights for our explorations and discoveries this week. On Monday we returned to our definition of ambassdor and we started our symbol creation for an ambassador.  We came up with the following definition:  "an ambassador is someone who puts others before themselves and stands up for what is right ."  They represent the following values:  responsibility, empathy, independence, kindness and respectful.  Have a look at our web of connections for ambassador: ask us about the ambassador walk .   On Tuesday we did some collaborative learning with our Kindergarten buddies in Room 124 next door.  You may remember that we were inspired by their artwork and we responded to the colors by making connections to our emotions and personal experience.  We decided to share our t...

Did you know that today was Giving Tuesday?   A national day to celebrate giving back.  Giving Day is for helping others in need. There are so many groups and organizations all over the world that appreciate donations.  This gives me a text-text connection to our exploration of values.  Talk about generosity, kindness, belonging, responsibility, empathy, just to name a few.   Today was a day about creating.  At recess we were inspired by nature to come up with similes about the sparkling frost on the grass outside.  Check out this frosty leaf that sparked the simile:  The frosty leaf is as sparkly as a Christmas tree ornament.  Another one was the sun's rays  slice through my vision like shark's teeth.    \ This afternoon we practiced the design mindsets to launch into design challenge #4 which was to create a musical instrument.   We were inspired by the global picture book Ada's violin and the recycled o...