2School Open Minds Field Trip

"2School brings together teachers, students and community experts for a week-long curriculum-based experience utilizing the downtown urban environment as our classroom. This program is situated at the CBE Education Center in the Beltline, and encourages Calgarians to learn, talk about, and celebrate public education and our vibrant rich inner city neighbourhoods and the many exciting things they have to offer!"

- Campus Calgary, Open Minds

This past week students in Miss Tennis’ class ventured downtown to answer a big question:

How does change and innovation affect me, my family, my community, my world?

Monday

We began our week downtown in a historical classroom to see what class was like 100 years ago. Using our journal sketching technique “10 Things I See…” we chose ten things in the classroom to sketch. The prior week we had completed the same sketch of our own classroom at Ron Southern. Already we were noticing how change and innovation had affected schools in Calgary with things like SMART boards vs chalkboards, table groups and flexible seating vs attached desks that were placed in rows. We toured the CBE Education Centre and started noticing that the older side of the building was made with sandstone blocks while the newer side was brick and metal. Ms. Margeaux (our wonderful city tour guide and 2School program director) taught us all about sandstone and where it came from. Did you know they found it right here in Calgary? Where did we get more when Calgary ran out? We also learned that the City of Calgary used sandstone to build their downtown structures after a fire burned down many of the earliest buildings. We took a community walk and talked about where people in downtown live. We did not see a lot of houses but there were many apartment buildings. Where did kids go to play outside without any backyards? When we walked to Thomson Family Park, we learned that these parks become the backyards for many people who live in downtown communities. With more condensed living, more innovation occurs for people to adapt.

Tuesday

Day two began with meeting Sydney Smith, Superintendent of Learning at the CBE. We asked her some really tough questions like what she thought was the best and worst change in schools. She thought the best change was having more student input in the way they learn best and the worst change was when technology and social media is used in a harmful way in schools. Sometimes change is not always for the best. After that, we were welcomed into the CBE board meeting where we were introduced and got to watch the University of Calgary accept an award for the dual credit courses that they provide in partnership with the CBE. Again, lots of great changes to schools to adapt to the needs of students. We finished our day by visiting Connaught School, which is over 100 years old. We saw that their building was made of sandstone and had a separate entrance for boys and girls. There were stairs, wood panelling on the walls, and they had a toy lending library for students whose families were new to Canada and had no toys at home yet. What a great idea!

Wednesday

Our third day was so busy! We started at City Hall where we saw the mayor’s office. We saw that the building downtown were connected by walkways called +15’s. We did some sketching above 7th Avenue SW where the c-trains run. We did a zoom out sketch of the street and saw that it was used mainly for transportation. We also zoomed in on an interesting area that caught our eye. Last week we saw that Calgary used to use streetcars and realized that the c-train was an innovation that helped speed up transportation for Calgarians. We walked through into the Arts Commons. There were many beautiful displays and something called a Soundscape. We realized that art does not necessarily have to be a painting on a wall. It can be sounds, sculptures, furniture and much much more! In our next +15 walkway at Stephen Avenue, we saw that this road was mainly used for shopping and walking. We had seen an old picture of Stephen Avenue the previous week at school and it was nothing but dirt with a cow in the middle of it. Change was definitely evident here. An exciting part of our day came with a trip to the top of the Calgary Tower. We learned that it is not the tallest building downtown - that title belongs to Brookfield Place. We looked all around the city, stood on the glass floor, and saw how Calgary has grown and changed. The last part of our day was spend at Devonian Gardens. What a neat innovation to have an indoor space with trees, ponds, flowers and even a playground on the top floor of a shopping centre.

 

Thursday

On our fourth day we got to sit in the CBE board seats and meet Julie, our Trustee of Learning. She talked to us about how she got her job by being voted in by the public. She said that the smartest people she knows are children and that we can learn so much from them. After that, we went out on a community walk to look at ‘BUMP’ (Beltline Urban Mural Project). We saw huge murals painted on the sides of building in the Beltline and did some sketching. We thought it was a really great idea to brighten up the community and bring beautiful art downtown in a unique way. We finished the day in the CBE Learning Lab where we met some cute little Ozobots. We saw how they would follow along a black line on our papers and, if we drew certain colors in a specific pattern, we could get them to do little tricks for us like tornado spin or zig zag. These little Ozobots teach coding skills in a fun way and we wondered if this was where the future of innovation was headed in schools.

Friday

On our final day, we took a fun journey on the C-train! We noticed what kinds of people rode the C-train and it turns out that lots of different kinds of people do. It provides a quick mode of transportation to people who may not have a car. We thought that it was a really good change because it was helping reduce emissions if people chose a more environmentally friendly transportation option. When we got off the C-train, we arrived at the Central Library. This building looked so amazing from the outside. The C-train even runs right underneath it! Inside, we saw that it was quite big and each level had something special about it. On the top floor we saw books about Calgary’s history and got to sit inside a teepee to reflect and sketch. The windows in the library were interesting shapes. We saw how design can influence our perception of the building and make us more excited about using it. This library even had a play area right beside the children’s book section. We also found many little reading nooks so we took some time to find a good book and read with a buddy. This was a memorable place that we hoped to visit again with our parents. Then it was on to the Saddledome. We had a special friend who let us see behind the scenes in this huge building. He told us about how much electricity the building uses and how they figure out when to change the netting and how they keep the Calgary Flames’ ice at the perfect temperature. We did not realize how much technology and innovation is involved in running a place like this. Our city really is an amazing place.

We are currently in the process of creating a special project all about our 2School downtown field trip experience that will be shared at the Ron Southern School Market on May 30th. Be sure to attend our market so you can check it out!

Author Study

This past week students in Miss. Siegfried's class have taken part in our first Author Study. We began studying Mo Willems. He is the author of some our favourite books, such as, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!"
Author studies are an important part of students learning. They teach children a number of valuable skills that can be transferred to other areas of their learning and can be used throughout their school careers.
1. Build Critical thinking skills: Students are able to determine the message behind the books, analyze concepts and compare/contrast ideas between books.
2. Improve writing skills: When we study authors they become our "mentors" we learn from their writing and we ourselves try and become authors just like them. Students will begin to feel a bond with them and it can further their love of reading.
3.  Expose students to different forms of writing: Through author studies students often read different books that they might not normally choose. They are exposed to different forms of writing (ex: speech bubbles, comics, novels) which can broaden their skills as both readers and writers.


While studying Mo Willems we learned that while we are laughing at the funny things the Pigeon does and the trouble that Elephant and Piggie get into that the author has important messages for his readers. Mo Willems is often teaching us why it is important to share, that we are all different and that is okay, and that being a good friend is always a good thing.

Students even wrote their own story based on Mo Willems. We planned what our message was, what we wanted our character to do and funny things they might say. Students stories will be published and available to read in our classroom! We can't wait to share the finished product. 

Importance of Sketching

“A journal is a place for thinking and feeling, for harvesting the moment, the image, the idea, the place you occupy. Don’t wait to paint the perfect picture or sketch; don’t wait for the time when you have time to write the polished essay or poem butrather get down on the pages of your journal those core images, ideas and fragments of experience you are now feeling. Edit or recompose later if you must. Grab images, words, drawings, pressed leaves, dirt, post cards, anything that impresses you and will help you remember the time, place and events you are experiencing and creatively get them into your journal.”

~ William Hammond

This week in Grade 1 we have been spending a lot of time learning new journaling techniques that will help us as we begin our Open Minds adventures. Journalling helps students make sense of what is around them. It is a way for them to write and sketch about what they have seen and what they have learned in a way that helps them to remember what they have learned.

We have been sketching a number of things using a number of techniques and a number of item. 

We began our week by going out into the courtyard and sketching what we see when we look up, down, front and back. 

We had a guest visitor on Tuesday when Ms. Korol brought in her bearded dragon "Spike." We used our sketching knowledge to sketch and label parts of Spike. 

Students were introduced to a quick and easy way to take note of what is in the environment around them. By creating a list of 10 things we see around us students are able to write one word and do a sketch to help commit their surroundings to their long term memory. This is also a useful technique for noticing multi-sensory details in real time. 

On Friday we learned our final sketching technique this week, the one minute sketch. This activity helps students to focus on the finer details in their surroundings. When we are in big open places they can often be overwhelmed at where they should look and what they should draw by focusing on one item for 60 seconds students are able to focus faster at one detail instead of the whole thing. Students can use their 5 senses in their drawing, they can think about what it reminds them off, where they have seen things similar and what they wonder.

    

 We are so excited to practice these sketching techniques at our Open Minds experiences this month.