Nov. 29

 Hello everyone,

We started our Monday with some quiet reading time and switching our book box books. We had a morning meeting to share about our weekend and practice some more questioning. We watched a short video without words and then asked some questions about what was happening. 

Our start student today was Jayla! We asked her lots of questions, wrote sentences about her, and then filled in a star student page all about her for our class book. 

After our first recess, we gave Literacy Centres a try. During literacy centres, we each have a job to do that practices the letters and sounds that we have been working on. While we are working on our jobs, Ms. Byrne sits with a small group to teach us new reading skills and practice reading books together. Ms. Byrne got to meet with 2 reading groups today! Next week, we will also be starting our sight word program where we will be practicing 5 sight words a week during our centres. Ms. Byrne will post the 5 words here on the blog so that you can practice at home as well!

After lunch, we practiced our letter sound set and completed another word ladder. We're getting really quick at figuring out the next word in the ladder! We've all started to spell the words on our own. 

We read about the importance of family connections in Indigenous communities. We learned that a common belief in many Indigenous groups is that family connections are very important to a positive community. Everybody in a family and community have important roles and responsibilities. We sat with a partner to talk about some of our own responsibilities in our family. We shared with the class some of the jobs that we do within our family: chores, helping with cooking, helping with a younger sibling, taking care of a pet, etc. 

At the end of the day we had the iPads booked to do a job on Mathletics. We learned a new way to sign in and then Ms. Byrne was showing us how to earn the most points to help us access the secret world. The new way to sign in is much easier for us! We got to use a QR code to do it. We practiced some addition using a number line on Mathletics. 

Reminders: 

Tomorrow - Tuesday, Nov. 30 is Crazy Hair Day!

Have a great day!

- Ms. Byrne

Upcoming Spirit Day - Tuesday, Nov. 30th

Our November Spirit Day is this Tuesday, Nov 30th and it is crazy hair day! Students and staff will wear their craziest hair styles they can whip up.

Nov. 24

 Hello everyone!

We were so excited to see the snow yesterday! We got a chance to play in it during our second recess, and again today. Please make sure we are dressed properly for the weather so that we can enjoy our outdoor time. We also talked about some rules for the snow: snow stays on the ground (no throwing snow or snowballs at school), no eating the snow because it could have germs and dirt in it that might hurt our tummies, and no sliding on the hill because the fence is no fun to crash into! We did a great job following our snow rules today during recess. 

We started our day with some time to work on a family portrait that we started yesterday afternoon. We have been talking about how families can be similar and different during social studies. We will use our family drawings to help us talk about our family with our classmates. 

Next, we had a morning meeting where we handed out our Pillars of Care awards to prepare for our assembly in the afternoon. We filled in our calendar, practiced the months of the year song, and counted to 100 by 1s and 10s. 

We used the sentence starter "I hear..." to write a new journal entry today. Ms. Byrne played a mystery animal sound from her computer, and we had to write "I hear a _________." and try to spell the animal names. We sounded out 3 animals together as a class using bubblegum writing. Then, we wrote a fourth sentence all on our own. We had fun using animal sounds for our journal, so we might try another entry like this next week!

After snack and recess we had some Mathletics time on the iPads. We tried signing in on our own again, and Ms. Byrne showed us how we could get to the secret world once we had earned enough points! We worked hard to get access to that world today. 

In the afternoon, we had some movement time in our classroom since we would be missing our P.E. time for the assembly. We practiced our letter sounds. Then, we started a mystery sound game in science. We will finish our game tomorrow because it was time to start the assembly! We're nearly finished learning about our sense of hearing. Next up will be sense of touch!

Finally, we had our Pillars of Care assembly. When it was over, it was time to get ready for home!

Reminders:

Friday, Nov. 26 - No School due to Parent/Teacher conversations

If you haven't yet booked an appointment for Parent/Teacher Conversations on Thursday, Nov. 25 or Friday, Nov. 26 please do so! I have had about 20 appointments booked so far, so the spaces are filling up quickly! You can book an appointment using your MyCBE account. If you are having issues with your account please send me an email with your availability and I will do my best to book you an appointment that suits your schedule. 

Have a great day!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 22

 Hello everyone!

We started our day by doing some quiet reading and changing out our books in our book boxes. We had our morning meeting where we talked about the learning goals we have been setting and how Ms. Byrne is going to share them with you during Parent Teacher Conversations this week. We've had lots of parents signing up already!

We filled in our calendar and played a game of Splat to practice our adding and subtracting. Ask us how to play Splat! Mr. Wiens came to teach music and took a video of us singing our Highway of Heroes song to post on his blog for you to see (don't worry, if you checked "no" on our media consent forms, or if we had not received them yet, we sang from the side so that our faces were not in the video!). 

We interviewed our Star Student - Nola. We took a break to have snack before filling in our star student page with facts about Nola. Everyone tried to write 2 sentences today, and some of us even created our own sentences about Nola! 

We got to read the final chapter of our My Weird School book before lunch. We have the second book in the series ready to go for tomorrow!

After lunch we had mindfulness time, and then went over our letter sounds. We practiced the word ladder game that Ms. Byrne taught us last week. We started at the word "win" and ended up with "panda"!

During math we focused on the number 11 and completed a page about 11 in our printing books. We showed 11 in ten frames, and then chose another way to show it. 

After our second recess we watched a quick video that showed us how sound moves through the different parts of our ear to send messages to our brain. We filled in our 5 sense book page about our sense of hearing and drew pictures of different things we could hear.

We got to have centre time in the gym. That means that the different activities we have been practicing are set out into 4 different corners of the gym and we take turns playing at each centre with our group. We are practicing moving safely on the scooters, throwing, catching, and racket skills in our centres. 

Reminders:

Friday, Nov. 26 - No School due to Parent/Teacher conversations

If you haven't yet booked an appointment for Parent/Teacher Conversations on Thursday, Nov. 25 or Friday, Nov. 26 please do so! I have had about 20 appointments booked so far, so the spaces are filling up quickly! You can book an appointment using your MyCBE account. If you are having issues with your account please send me an email with your availability and I will do my best to book you an appointment that suits your schedule. 

Have a great day!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 19

Hello everyone,

Today was Shape Monster day in grade 1! We took a break from our investigation of 2-digit numbers to revisit 2D shapes. Yesterday, we each made a book called Shape Monster and practiced the story together. We coloured the pictures to match the words and then tried reading the story on our own. Today, we tried reading the story with a partner. Later in the day, we each chose a shape to start our monster with. We cut out the shape and glued it onto a large paper. Next, we chose shapes of different sizes to create the body and features for our monsters. Next week, we will be using our monsters to do some exploration of those 2D shapes, counting the shapes we used, charting the shapes we used, etc. Here are some pictures of our finished Shape Monsters:

We filled in our calendar and took some time to talk about zero. We talked about what zero means, and how to add and subtract with zero. We practiced a few addition and subtraction questions with zero to make sure everyone understood. We learned that we can do questions with big numbers using zero since the number stayed the same! We did some questions with big numbers just for fun. 

We worked on the letter R today. We completed our letter R page in our printing books, drew pictures of words that start with R, and tried to write sentences using R words. 

We went to the gym and played our horse and carriage game together again. 

We had just enough time to read 2 chapters from our My Weird School book before getting ready for home!

Reminders:

Booking is now open for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). If you have any issues booking an appointment, please call the office or send me an email so that we can get it sorted out! 

Have a great weekend!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 17

 Hello everyone!

We had a morning meeting today all about asking questions. We looked at a silly picture from the book Wacky Wednesday by Dr. Seuss and asked lots of questions about the things that we could see (ex: "Why is that boy sitting the wrong way?" "Why is there a cat in their classroom?"). We read the story together and asked some questions about the book as well. We will be practicing this skill over the next few weeks to help us think about what we are listening to and reading. 

We filled in our calendar and then practiced our Letter Sound Bingo game. Ms. Byrne thinks we are almost ready to try playing on our own! Hopefully next week we will get to try. 

After our first recess, we worked on the letter L. We made a poster on our SmartBoard full of L words. We completed our printing book page about L and tried to write a sentence using "I love..."

After lunch we had mindfulness and then practiced our letter sounds. Ms. Byrne taught us a game called word ladder. We started by writing numbers 1-5 on our whiteboards. Then, Ms. Byrne gave us a clue for our first word - "A cup that you might put hot chocolate in." We guessed "mug" right away! We sounded out m-u-g together for word #1. Then, Ms. Byrne told us we were going to change only 1 letter to spell the next clue, and she showed us a picture of a pug. We changed the m to a p and spelled word #2. We kept getting clues about each word until we had spelled 5 words all together: mug, pug, bug, big, pig. 

Next, we read a book about our sense of hearing. We learned more about how our ear works and how our ear drum sends messages to our brain. We learned that our sense of hearing can help keep us safe, and that it is important to protect it by not listening to loud music or wearing ear plugs if we need to be around a loud noise. We will be doing an experiment with our sense of hearing tomorrow!

We tried logging onto Mathletics by ourselves today. It was tricky, but we're getting there! Ms. Byrne had given us 2 jobs on Mathletics that practiced making 2-digit numbers. Once we finished these, we had 200 points and were able to open the special secret world! It only opens for a few minutes before we go back to Mathletics and earn more points to open it again. 

In P.E. we have been using the scooters. Ms. Byrne taught us a horse and carriage game that helps us practice our balance and core strength, plus it is so much fun! 

Reminders:

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). If you have any issues booking an appointment, please call the office or send me an email so that we can get it sorted out! 

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 15

 Hello everyone!

We got another new friend added to our class today! We started our morning by welcoming him and helping to show him some of our classroom routines. 

We had a morning meeting where we shared about our long weekend, and talked about our new reading focus - questioning. We talked about what a question is and is not. We will be learning about asking questions while reading for the next 5 weeks and practicing how to do that while listening to stories and poems that Ms. Byrne reads to us. 

Next, we filled in our calendar. We worked on the letter Z today. We talked about how we make the S and Z sounds in the same way, except our voice is off when we say /s/ and our voice is on when we say /z/. We completed our usual letter routine and filled in our printing book page about Z. Many of us have started adding sentences to our printing books as well! 

We had our first recess break, it was very wet outside! Please make sure we are wearing appropriate clothes and shoes for the weather. If our socks get wet during recess it can be a pretty uncomfortable day! If you need any support with getting weather-appropriate clothing for your child, please don't hesitate to email me at: nibyrne@cbe.ab.ca and we will try our best to support you. 

When we got back inside Ms. Byrne taught us how to play letter sound bingo. We each get a playing card with letters, and Ms. Byrne holds up a picture. We have to figure out what letter the object in the picture starts with, and then find that letter on our card. We had lots of fun playing our practice round today! Once we learn the game, we will get to play it in a small group together to practice our sounds. 

After lunch we had mindfulness and then reviewed our letter sounds. 

We got out our place value blocks for math. We practiced making 2-digit numbers using our 10s and 1s blocks. Then, we practiced changing the number by taking away or adding blocks (ex: We made 87, then we took away a 10s block to turn it into 77). We also used our 10s blocks to count by 10s to 100!

After our second recess, we spent some time talking about family. We talked about what family means to us and read a book about a little boy named Miguel and his family. Ms. Byrne showed us that there were lots of similar books that were all about different kids and their families. We talked about how everyone's family might be different. Some families are close together, and others live far apart. We sat with a partner to tell them a little about our family and hear about theirs. First, we talked about who we think of when we think of our family. We shared our ideas and made a list of family words. Then, we talked to our partner about something that our family likes to do together and shared our favourite family activities with the class. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head to the gym to see Ms. Sterne. 

Reminders:

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). 

Have a great day!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 10

 Hello everyone,

We started our day with some partner reading. We had our morning meeting to talk more about Remembrance Day, the significance of poppies, and learn more about what the assembly was going to look like. 

We practiced a letter sound game together as a class before it was time to eat snack. We had an indoor recess so that we wouldn't miss the start of our assembly. 

Mr. Wien's hosted a lovely assembly. Ms. Austin told us some stories about the courage and bravery shown by 3 different Indigenous soldiers during her acknowledgement of the land. Mr. Hebert shared his opening message and then 2 of our friends got to carry our wreath out to the learning commons to be placed with our flags. 

Izzy and Finn getting ready to place our wreath!

We listened as Mrs. Anderson read us a story called The Eleventh Hour and the grade 3s read the poem In Flander's Fields. Then, we all stood and sang Highway of Heroes together. We had a moment of silence while Mr. Wien's played "The Last Post" on his trumpet, and then sang Oh Canada together. 

We watched closely so we could see our friends place our wreath!

When the assembly was over, it was lunch time! After lunch we had our daily mindfulness time, then we worked on signing into Mathletics on our own. Once we signed in, we completed some activities about ordering numbers. 

After our second recess, we reviewed everything we had learned about sense of taste and introduced our next sense - hearing. We began by watching a video that helped explain what sound is. We used a noise meter on the SmartBoard to help us "see" sound and begin to understand how our ears can hear things. We will be continuing with this study next week. 

Reminders:

Thursday, Nov. 11 - No School - Remembrance Day

Friday, Nov. 12 - No School - PD Day

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email today through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). 

Have a great weekend!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 8

Hello everyone!

We started our day with a morning meeting to talk about Remembrance Day. Some of us already knew why this day is so important, so we shared with the whole class to make sure everyone understood. We learned that we will be having a virtual Remembrance Day assembly on Wednesday morning and we have a special job to do for it - making a wreath! We will be working on our wreath tomorrow. 

We filled in our calendar and talked a little about how the time went back over the weekend. We all noticed this morning that it was light outside when Ms. Byrne came out to get us, but last week it was dark! We also added a new page to our calendar - The Number of the Day. This page helps us learn about what bigger numbers actually mean (place value) and how we can use a 100s chart to find out which numbers are more and less. Today our number was 12. The page looks like this:

Next, we looked at another I Spy picture and used it to help us write a journal entry. We picked 1 word from the picture to sound out together, then we each worked with a partner to sound out a second word. We each wrote a journal entry with the words we worked on. Once we are all comfortable with writing a sentence this way, we will try new sentence starters!

After snack and recess, we worked on the letter S. S can be a tricky letter to make properly, so we took the time to talk about how to draw it correctly. We listened to some songs with letter S words and made our poster about S. We each completed the S page in our printing books. 

Next it was lunch time, and then our 10-minutes of daily mindfulness. After mindfulness each day we review our whole set of letter sounds. Today we also got out our whiteboards and wrote these new letters on them for the first time. After some practice, Ms. Byrne told us we were going to spell the word "zip". Lots of us knew how to spell it right away! Then, she asked us to change "zip" into "sip". Then into "rip" and "hip". We came up with a few other rhyming words (dip, snip, lip) that we spelled by changing only the first sound. We're turning into such great readers and writers! Some of us are really ready to begin practicing reading. If you would like to help us at home, here is a list of "sight words" (words that fluent readers know automatically without having to sound them out). 

We can practice these words at home together - just 2 or 3 at a time. Knowing these words, finding them in our favourite books, practicing reading or writing them, will be a huge help when we are reading books by ourselves!

Next, we worked on ordering numbers in Math. We talked about how to tell which is the larger number when the numbers have 2-digits. We practiced ordering some numbers on the Smartboard by arranging a list of 3 numbers from lowest to highest. Once we had practiced together, Ms. Byrne put 3 numbers on the whiteboard and asked us to give it a try on our own. It was pretty tricky at first! Tomorrow, we are going to use blocks to represent these numbers to help us see which ones are bigger more clearly. 

We went outside for our second recess and then came back inside to work on Science. We got into pairs and sat together while Ms. Byrne finished reading our sense of taste book. Today we read about sweet tastes and how some foods are naturally sweet (like watermelon) while other foods have sugar added to make them sweet (like candy). We also learned about the flavour umami. Umami is a flavour found in meats like pepperoni or beef, and also in soy sauce. We discussed our favourite foods in these categories with our partner. Next, we read about how everyone's brain senses tastes differently, so everyone has different opinions about what tastes good and what doesn't. We talked our partners to see if we could find a food that one of us likes and the other does not (ex: sushi, fish, plain pizza vs. pizza with toppings). Finally, we talked about how our sense of taste can keep us safe from eating dangerous things. We saw a picture of a poison symbol. We talked about how we might find this sign on chemicals, cleaning products, and other things that might look like food or drink, but would hurt us if we did eat or drink them. Many of us weren't sure if we had ever seen these symbols before. If we have some time this evening, could you help us look for 1 thing in our house that might have a warning sign on it like this? (cleaning products, bleach, etc.)

Finally, we went for P.E. with Ms. Sterne. We practiced playing a throwing game together. 

Reminders:

Wednesday, Nov. 10 - Picture Retakes - If your child was away on our picture day, or you were not satisfied with the photos you received, please let me know by commenting below or sending me an email: nibyrne@cbe.ab.ca. I will make a list of the students that need retakes so that no one gets left out!

Thursday, Nov. 11 - No School - Remembrance Day

Friday, Nov. 12 - No School - PD Day

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email today through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). 

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 5

 Hello everyone!

We started our day by doing some partner reading. Yesterday, we got to visit the library and check out a book with our very own library cards! So, we shared our new library books with a friend. 

We reviewed our second set of letter sounds using our gumball game. We have been practicing with syllables. We learned that syllables are parts of words. Usually, syllables have 1 vowel. (ex: el-e-phant). We practiced clapping out the syllables for lots of words. Today, we each got Elkonin boxes. Elkonin boxes can help us count out the sounds in individual words. We used them today to break several 3-letter words into their sounds. Then, we changed 1 sound in the word to make a new word. We spelled 10 different words on our own!

We have been reading a book about our sense of taste. Each page asks a question (ex: What is your favourite snack? Is your favourite snack salty, sweet, sour, or bitter?). We read a page, and then turn and talk with a partner about the question. We then share some of our discussion with the class. We've been having lots of fun thinking about the different types of tastes we like and dislike! Today we also looked at our snacks to see which kinds of tastes we could find. 

We had music with Mr. Wiens today. Afterwards, we talked about the number 10 in math. We completed our number 10 page in our printing books and then brainstormed ways to show 10. We came up with 8 different ways and we each picked 2 to put into our printing book!

We went to the gym and practiced our throwing and catching skills again, before returning to class and reading a chapter from our class read-aloud! We are so excited to be reading a chapter book. It's called "My Weird School" and it is about a kid named AJ who thinks that his teacher is actually a spy! We have been trying to fit in 1 chapter a day. Today, we read chapter 5. 

Reminders:

Wednesday, Nov. 10 - Picture Retakes - If your child was away on our picture day, or you were not satisfied with the photos you received, please let me know by commenting below or sending me an email: nibyrne@cbe.ab.ca. I will make a list of the students that need retakes so that no one gets left out!

Thursday, Nov. 11 - No School - Remembrance Day

Friday, Nov. 12 - No School - PD Day

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email today through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). 

Have a great weekend!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 3

 Hello everyone!

We started our day with some quiet reading time. Then, we reviewed our Cree and Blackfoot words for Fall. We reminded everyone what these words mean and why they were used to refer to this time of year. We filled in our calendar and practiced counting to 100 by 1s and 10s. Each day, we have been adding a star to a set of 10-frames to count how many days we have been in school. Today was our 40th day of grade 1! We can't believe how quickly the time is passing.

Mr. Wiens came to our class and taught us a song called "Highway of Heroes" by The Trews. We practiced singing the chorus of the song together because everyone is going to sing it during our Remembrance Day assembly next week. We really liked the song! We can listen to it together at home to practice the words:

Next, we helped Ms. Byrne write a journal entry that was her very best work! She wrote 3 sentences with neat printing, sounded out a word on her own, added a colour word to a sentence, and drew pictures to match. We used a checklist to make sure the journal entry was perfect. Tomorrow, we are going to use this checklist to review our own journal entries and see where we can make improvements!

After lunch we had our mindfulness time and then worked on finishing our smell test experiment. We wrote guesses about what the mystery items were, and then Ms. Byrne revealed the real answer! Some of the mystery items were yummy smells (ex: cinnamon, vanilla, orange), other smells we were a little unsure of (ex: vinegar, garlic). We had lots of fun trying to guess the mystery smells. It was interesting to notice how difficult it was to guess the mystery when we could only use 1 of our senses! When we were finished, we each picked a favourite and least favourite smell to write on our paper. 

We practiced our letter sounds using our gumball game and then we got back to our greater than and less than work in math. We each completed 9 greater than, less than, or equal to questions in our math book, and then we got to choose to do 3 "spicy" (challenging) questions that Ms. Byrne wrote on the board, or to make up our own 3 questions. 

In P.E. we are working on throwing and catching skills right now. Today, we worked with a partner to play catch using a bean bag. Each time we caught the bean bag, we took a step backwards to make the game more challenging. 

Reminders:

Wednesday, Nov. 10 - Picture Retakes - If your child was away on our picture day, or you were not satisfied with the photos you received, please let me know by commenting below or sending me an email: nibyrne@cbe.ab.ca. I will make a list of the students that need retakes so that no one gets left out!

Thursday, Nov. 11 - No School - Remembrance Day

Friday, Nov. 12 - No School - PD Day

Thursday, Nov. 18 - Booking opens for Parent-Teacher Conferences. These will be held online through Microsoft Teams. You should have received an email today through SchoolMessenger with more information on how to book an appointment. Conferences will take place on Nov. 25 (evening) and Nov. 26 (morning). 

Have a great day!

-Ms. Byrne

Nov. 2

 Hello everyone!

We got a new friend in our class yesterday so we were busy making sure our new friend felt welcome and understood how our class worked. 

We practiced using Bubblegum writing (stretching out a word) as a whole class, and then with a partner yesterday. Today, we added an extra step by adding a bubblegum sentence to our journals. We looked at some journal examples that Ms. Byrne created and rated them 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then, we each got our journals out and tried to write our best sentence. Some of us added a colour word to our sentence for an extra challenge! Yesterday, we looked at all the letters for our second set - m, n, s, z, l, r, w, h, u, i. We looked at each letter and practiced the sound. Today, we focused on the letter m and completed our printing book page about m. 

In math this week we are focusing on ordering numbers. Yesterday we practiced ordering numbers 1-10 that were scrambled on the SmartBoard. Then, we learned about "greater than" and "less than". We used < and > to show which number was greater. We added some teeth to our arrows to make them look like crocodiles. The crocodile always has his mouth open towards the bigger number because that's the one he wants to eat! We practiced this with pairs of numbers up to 10. Today, we practiced 3 questions up to 10, then 3 with numbers 10-20, and then 3 with some bigger numbers for a challenge. We talked about how to tell which number is bigger when it is a 2-digit number (ex: 21 and 12). We also talked about using the = sign if the numbers are the same. 

During science today we started a smell test experiment. We are using our sense of smell to guess mystery objects without using our other senses. So far we have smelled: brown sugar, coffee, and lemon. We have some more mystery smells to test out tomorrow!

In social studies this week (connected with our previous science unit about Fall Changes) we have been looking at Fall through Indigenous ways of knowing. We have a giant medicine wheel in our classroom now! We each made a fall leave art project to add to the Fall section of the medicine wheel. We talked about our connection to the land during Fall and why this time was/is important. Today, we learned how to say Fall in some Indigenous languages. We discussed that there are many different groups of Indigenous people with different languages, cultures, and traditions. We learned that takwakin is the word that some Cree people use to refer to this time of year and that it translates to "gathering." This is because this time of year is when people, and other animals too, were gathering food and supplies for Winter. Especially when Indigenous Ancestors were alive (before grocery stores!). We also learned the Blackfoot word O'ko, which refers to this time of year as well. We labelled our medicine wheel with these words. During this discussion we were able to talk about working together as a community as well, because it would take a lot of working together to prepare for Winter a long time ago!

Have a great evening!

-Ms. Byrne