Mindful Drum Making with two Kind and Knowledgable Blackfoot Elders

Wow, what an amazing afternoon! What a fantastic experience.  Once in a life time, chance to make authentic Blackfoot drums with Darcy and Frank Turning Robe.  Students got to use all five senses and embrace the spirit of these instruments that came directly from nature.  The hides have a very distinctive smell.    Some students said that it reminded them of wet dog. Have you ever felt a raw elk hide? Some students said it felt like rubber.  It is wet, so that you can manipulate the hide, we found though that the strands of elk hide dried quickly as we worked with them.  We certainly used our sense of touch to work with the tough and strong elk hide threads.

Darcy told us that for the Blackfoot people drums represent healing and strength.  The spirit in the drums comes from nature because all things in nature have a spirit.  Frank told us a story about seeing a good luck rabbit on the way to school today in the Blackfoot culture they believe that this rabbit is a spirit delivering a message that something good is about to come.  Well, something good did come today and that was this amazing experience.

The drum rim is made from white cedar and the drum skin is from elk hide.  This was a legacy project for our first grade four classes at Kenneth D. Taylor school.  Imagine the stories these drums will tell in years to come.

Here are some wonderful photos for you to enjoy and talk about at home:

Elder Frank Turning Robe delivers the blessing  to begin

Receiving the gift of tobacco.  

Step 1

Darcy Turning Robe explains the techniques.  

Threading the hide from one side to the other, teamwork.  

Frank demonstrating the final stage of the stringing.  Binding the threads together in the centre of the drum .  The natural materials mimic the geometry found in nature.  

Finished drum.  Now all we have to do is wait for it to dry.  This will take 4 days.  

Look at this amazing braiding.  Incredibly talented fingers our students have.   

New Geometry Math Links - Perimeter, Area and Volume

This week we are going to be exploring Area, Perimeter of 2-D shapes and Volume of  rectangular prisms. 

Here are some links for you to check out at home: 

Math is Fun https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/area.html
Mathantics video on Area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCdxURXMdFY



Volume of a cuboid (a 3D object) = the amount of space taken up by a three dimensional object. 
http://www.mathsisfun.com/cuboid.html

Virtual Nerd - What is Volume http://virtualnerd.com/geometry/surface-area-volume-solid/prisms-cylinders-volume/volume-definition
Mathantics video on Volume https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJwecTgce6c

Khan Academy - Calculating Volume videos https://www.khanacademy.org/math/basic-geo/basic-geo-volume-sa/volume-rect-prism/v/how-we-measure-volume

Flex Friday Anticipation

Here we are with our brand new KTS purple shirts for Grade 4. Ready to set out for Flex Friday Fun!

Here's a shot of everyone enjoying their fun lunch in room 105

Prisms and Historical Artifacts on Thursday

Here are some photos of our continued journey into geometry and Alberta's Mavericks:

Prisms, angles and optical illusions.  

Recording our findings about  the effects of light through glass prisms.  How do angles  can change perspective.   

 Here's a little video showing how this convex glass prism shows refraction: 

Concave means lens curve inward like a bowl.  Convex means curves outward.  

 light travels in a straight line and refracts when it passes from one substance to another, is the principle behind why a prism separates white light into individual colors.

Testing out Reflection.  

Using nets to make triangular prisms.  What shape would you get if you took a cross section of this prism?

Today we used a historical artifact to explore important Mavericks from Calgary's Past.  These books from 1989, really sparked some amazing conversation.  We did a See, Think, Wonder thinking routine to explore the stories and impacts of these important people. 

Mindful investigation of Prisms on Monday

Tell your parents what you learned about prisms today.

What is a net?

What kind of prisms are these?  How do you know? 

What property of the prism does this demonstrate?  

Collaborating to create.

Here is some vocabulary that we discussed today: parallel, faces, cross section, vertex/vertices, angles, edges. bases and sides.

Is a cylinder a prism? Hmmm...
Why? or Why not?

Try out the Animated Multiplication Table

Here is another fantastic tool for discovering some very interesting relationships within the  animated multiplication table created by Steve Wyborney.

http://www.stevewyborney.com/?p=94 

If you download the powerpoint you can try it out for yourself.  

May 2nd - Grade 4 Field Trip to Harmony

Our field trip to Harmony has been confirmed for May 2nd.  The schedule is as follows:

Students are asked to wear appropriate footwear for walking as well as a coat and hat.  They will bring their packed lunch as we are eating on site.  

Thank you again to our volunteers for adjusting their availability.  It is going to be a wonderful day with lots of sunshine (fingers crossed).  Also, a great big thank you to Mrs. McGee for connecting us with the folks at Harmony and for the site for supplying the bus at no cost to us.  There are so many learning opportunities especially connecting science and humanities.  Calgary History, and Plant Growth and Change, Conservation of native plant species and wetlands,  and Building a community (how human development can impact ecosystems). 

Wondering about Math and Friendship on Friday

Dear Parents,
We are looking forward to seeing for student led conferences.  Here is a sneak preview of one of the math tasks that you will see: 

Which one doesn't belong? 

Each of these four doesn't belong for different reasons.  Can you think of why? 

Today we had a wonderful guest called Steve Harmer he talked to the students about building friendships.  Here are some photos from the show:

Reminder of our Field Trip on Tuesday to Harmony Community in Rocky View

Dear Parents,
We are heading out on our field trip to the new community of Harmony  on Tuesday, April 17.  Thank you to Mrs. McGee for connecting us with Harmony and to our parent volunteers.   We would also  like to extend gratitude to the creators of this community for generously supplying the bus and inviting us to come and see what goes into the development of an innovative community.  Here is the link to Harmony's website, if you would like to learn more about this development and their connection to conservation.  https://liveinharmony.ca/springbank/interpretive-stories/

Here is a copy of our Schedule for the day:

Here are some photos of one of the CEO's,  Birol who came to speak with the grade fours to set them up for our visit on Tuesday.  He told us about their commitment and respect for the environment and how they made a decision to delay digging until they could relocate a native Alberta prairie plant called the Blue Eyed Grass which is actually a type of iris

http://www.prairiepollination.ca/plante-plant/herbe_aux_yeux_bleus-blue_eyed_grass/

Welcome to Birol

Our ideas for what a community should offer.  

Birol explained how all these ideas are filtered down to the most important parts.  

As you can see from the photos I took this weekend, the site is pretty messy with water and mud so it will important for students to wear protective footwear, for example rubber boots and a warm coat, gloves and a hat since the temperature is supposed to be 2 above.

This is the Discovery Centre where we will learn about the history of the land and the development of the community.