Kenneth D. Taylor, Grade 3 - Ms. Hargreaves

Red & White Day   Dear Parents/Guardians: On  Wednesday, June 28th,   our last student school day (reminder:  Early Dissmissal), we will celebrate our Ken Taylor version of Canada Day :) Students are encouraged to wear red & white in recognistion of Canada's 150th birthday!   red, white & true.jpeg   Thank you, David

We had a great presentation from the Calgary Public Library this morning.  It was wonderful because it ties into Canada's 150th Birthday and Mayor Nenshi's request that we do 3 things for change.  Talk about connecting to our learning and an opportunity for us to be activists.  The Public Library's challenge is to do 3 things for Canada: 1.   Read  2.  Learn 3.  Act  Students will be bringing home a card to sign up for this amazing program.  Here is a link to their website as well in case you want to take advantage of this opportunity over the summer:   https://calgarylibrary.ca/3things/ Students can register in person or on-line.

A special request ... can students please bring and extra back to carry home school books/work and other personal items for Monday and Tuesday this week.  Thank you so much. Monday, June 26th Public Library Presentation - 9:15-9:45 for grade 3 in the Learning Commons Wednesday, June 28th  Last Day of School  -- Early Dismissal - 11:30 Year End Assembly 8:30 a.m. Report Cards go home. Thursday and Friday, June 29 and 30  - Appeals Day - No classes.

Wow, I can't believe we are almost at the end of our first year at KTS!  It has been a whirlwind of learning and growth.  I'm proud to say I was your grade three teacher. How lucky I am to have such big thinkers in room 123.  Thank you so much for your curiousness and your desire to transform your thinking. Speaking of the passing of time -- we've been learning  how to tell time and and the different units of time (sec, minutes, days, years, decades, centuries, millenium).  It all comes back to our big question around the cycle of our first year and the development of our identity as grade 3 students in a new school. We been learning how to use an analog clock in IXL math and in our Nature Challenge we are creating timelines.  We made so many connections:  like the clock is really your multiples of 5 or multiplying by 5s.  It's also connected to fractions because 1/2 = 30 minutes and 1/4 = 15 minutes.  We learned that you need to pay at...

Well have you heard the term infographic before?   info = information and graphic = how something is drawn out or represented , like a graph or a a photograph.   Here is an example of one that we analyzed today based on our closer investigation into the whale shark and it's amazing body adaptations.  Did you know it's a filter feeder?  How about that it feeds on plankton?  This led us to our question what exactly is plankton?  Well here you go here is a wonderful infographic that explains it: Can you see the connections to our learning?  The food webs,  life cycles and adaptations.  This then connected to our sorting and categorizing when we realized that there are two categories of plankton:   phytoplankton = microscopic marine plants and zooplankton = diverse marine animals such as krill, fish larvae, jellyfish.  As you can see from the infographic these are important supporters of the ocean ecosystem.   We rea...

Lost & Found Hello Parents and Guardians, As our school year comes to an end and our classroom’s are being tidied, our Lost & Found pile is growing! Please feel free to drop by the school and collect your missing items.  Any items not collect by June 30 th  will be donated. Have a nice day, ​​​​​​​ Barb Rocca Administrative Assistant,  Kenneth D. Taylor School Calgary Board of Education |  cbe.ab.ca t | 403-817-3504

On June 21, celebrate the heritage, diverse cultures and outstanding achievements of First Nations, Inuit and Métis! What an exciting afternoon we had - to celebrate community and identity at KTS we combined our sports day and National Aboriginal Day.  Here is a link for you learn more about Aboriginal Day:   https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100013248/1100100013249 Here are some photos for you: We ended the afternoon with our first whole school circle dance, talk about communication and collaboration.  It was really great to celebrate the aboriginal identity.  Circles and are cycles, this was a fitting way to celebrate the life cycle of our first year at Kenneth D. Taylor School.   Getting organized for the circle dance.   Hopping like frogs at the Mother Earth game, talk about connecting to our learning -- students had to match plants, animals and objects to the correct element in nature and then perform actio...

Orders Needed   Dear Parents/Guardians: Just a friendly reminder that there are only a few more days left to order a yearbook!  This will capture all the highlights of our first year of learning and building a school culture. Currently we have 44 orders and we require a total of 176 orders before we can go to print. Please see the information on how to order here:   yearbook2017.pdf   Any additional funds collected will be donated to our playground fund. Cheers, David

Aboriginal Sports Day, Wednesday afternoon - June 21 Please return all home reading books and folders by Friday, June 23rd.

Drumming on the djembe drums.   F inal Day of Swimming today.  Everybody did a wonderful job improving their skills and confidence.  Thank you to all of our parent volunteers. We did our final testing on our beaver dams today, then did a debrief about what worked and what didn't with the designs. We looked at the stability, structure and sustainability of each of the prototypes.  We realized that the tape worked on their dams much like the mud in a beaver dam.  However, it is not as sustainable as mud because over time it lost the sticky factor.  Also, it is not waterproof.  We determined that the volume of water was variable in the sustainability of the dam.  Since beavers are nature's greatest engineers, then what can we learn about their building techniques?  The collaboration and critical thinking were a huge part of why these prototypes worked.  Many teams worked together to fix leaks, and decide how to adapt the design ...

Last Friday we used collaboration to design our first prototypes of beaver dams. On Monday we took it outside to test the stability and sustainability of these structures.  The teamwork and critical thinking was outstanding.  There were several successful prototypes.

More swimming fun today ... I can already see some confidence building, not to mention new skills.  Swimming is a really great life skill, after all  about 71% of our planet is covered in water.  We were making some connections back to our animal adaptations when I spoke with one group at the pool and they noted that the flippers are like a dolphins.  Hmmm, I wonder where they got the idea for the flippers that divers use?  How about googles? Biomimicry perhaps? Here are some photos from today. Buidling endurance Learning how to float Deep water! Hope there aren't any sharks! Goggle eyes!

A reminder to bring a towel, goggles and a towel in a waterproof bag that you can carry back and forth to the pool.  It's a good idea for students to wear their swimsuits under their clothes to save time when we arrive, if possible.   Our first day of swimming at Thornhill pool.  We really practiced our communication and collaboration skills listen to the instructor and taking turns following the instructions and building our swimming skills.  You know what we always say "practice makes progress"  Let's see how much progress we can make this week.  Stay tuned.  Here are some photos from today:

Hello Parents,   Please watch your child’s backpack for an order form for our Ken Taylor School Group Photo.  If you are interested in ordering an 8” x 10” color photo please return this form with payment  to the school prior to June 16 th , 2017.   Thank you.    

June 12-16:   Monday - Thurs. June 12-15 - Swimming - 10-11:30   (please bring your suit and towel in plastic or waterproof bag to carry to and from the pool).   Friday - June 16:   Spirit Day – Beach Day - Early Dismissal  Upcoming:   June 19th and June 20th Swimming  June 21st Aboriginal Day / Sports Day June 28th Year-End Assembly 8:30am June 28th Early Dismissal/ Report Cards go home/ LAST DAY OF SCHOOL June 29th Appeals Day