Looks Like We Made It, Look How Far We've Come Now BB

What. A. Year. I am so very proud of all of us, making it through the year despite all of the chaos and the uncertainty. From the multiple government announcements to the looming threat of virtual, and the absence of an in-person grad... The Baxter Bunch worked on adopting an attitude of gratitude, focusing on all we still had - especially each other. The year really did seem to fly by, with our final month feeling like the blink of an eye.

This month we celebrated Mikael's birthday, enjoyed our virtual track meet, wrote letters to our virtual buddies and dads, bid a happy retirement to Mrs. McDonald, and practiced measurement while making some delicious snack mixes. We also reviewed healthy eating practices and decided on ingredients for a picnic lunch. From there students had to create a shopping list, critically think about the number of items needed, find said items in flyers looking at various prices, and then apply mathematical skills of addition and subtraction to ensure they stayed on budget. Mrs. Baxter got the ingredients and students were then able to cut, pack, and enjoy their picnic lunch at the neighborhood park!

We discussed types of media and talked about the marketing and advertising tricks that companies try to play on us to get us to buy their products. We also discussed social media, as so many of us are connecting that way, especially through the pandemic. Technology does some incredible things to keep us connected, but we also touched on some of the dangers related to social media - related to bullying, sharing personal information, and feeling peer pressure.

The book "Be You!" by Peter H. Reynolds resonated with Mrs. Baxter, she wants us all to remember how amazing we are - ALWAYS!! For who we are, for what we can do, for our strength, resilience, and our own unique skills, traits, and superpowers! It is so important that we understand ourselves, and take the time, to learn and grow at our own pace - while always remembering to be who we truly are. Mrs. Baxter loved the book, and its message, so much that she and the teachers made sure everyone got one to take home over the summer!

Our grads may not have gotten the grad they were originally hoping for, but the virtual grad was beautiful and we all enjoyed the special photo opportunity that was created at Oodenawi! Congratulations go out to Sean, Sheyana, Austeja, and Aydin; we know you will continue to shine, grow, and choose your best! Special recognition to Sean for receiving the Courage Award, and Aydin for the Citizenship award! Way to go to all of my Baxter Bunch grads, I am so proud of all your hard work! I wish you so much, but above all remember to choose your best and don't stop working until you're proud!

Thank you so much to my amazing Baxter Bunch families for your support and understanding throughout the year! Thank you to my bunch for your flexibility, your laughs, your resilience; I hope you all have the most amazing summer, you've all earned it! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy time with family and friends... enjoy NOT WEARING A MASK as much as possible! :) Enjoy all you can with an 'Attitude of Gratitude'!

See some of you in the fall! Remember to keep "choosing your best"!

May is for Moms, Mail, and More Sunshine!!

We can hardly believe that we are about to start the last month of the school year! May has just flown by! This month our literacy instruction has been not only super varied but also super fun! We wrote poems for our mothers, created our own stories that we edited then published, worked more on letter writing, and then wrote a 'snail mail' letter to our virtual buddies. We made tons of lists that focused on gratitude, places to travel, weekend plans, etc. We researched animals of our choosing and created infographics that we later turned into a slide for a class slide show - 'A Baxter Bunch of Animals!'. It can be tricky to sift through information to find what's important, summarize, and turn it into a slide that is both informative and piques the reader's interest!

We really worked to focus on having 'Attitudes of Gratitude', and shared something big or small each day, adding to our Gratitude Journal and gratitude wall. Being grateful for what we have helps us feel happier, reduces comparisons to others, and actually helps us be even more thankful! When we put out positive energy into the world it comes back to us. Spreading and sharing positive energy is so important. We also spread awareness for hearing loss, abilities access, and that acknowledged that every child matters.

STEAM activities included making dancing gummy worms and Body Scrub for our mothers in Science. Getting new Osmo math games for technology, built various structures using different materials for engineering which we then measured for Mathematics. We also continued to explore estimation using our background knowledge to guess the number of items in our estimation jar and thought critically while we discussed and hypothesized various scenarios in fun video clips.

For physical education, we began our Soccer Baseball unit, which we have been playing outside in the sunshine. On the rainy cool days, we have continued to rock out with our Pound Fitness (Drum fit). Strength, stamina, and flexibility are still a main focus for the Baxter Bunch, through daily squats, power jacks, and our Body/Brain walking breaks.

This month there was a horrific find, the bodies of 215 children were found at a Residential School in B.C. It is important to recognize that we have a lot to celebrate in Canada but we also need to recognize there were atrocities that happened. Among these were the taking of Indigenous land and stealing their children, culture, and language. We have a responsibility to acknowledge our mistakes in order to ensure they are not repeated. In an effort to play our part, we recorded the land acknowledgment for the upcoming Virtual Track meet.

We have four and a half weeks of school left as we enter June. It turns out we will continue to have the school all to ourselves, and that means we get to keep Ms. J and Ms. R. We will get to see Ms. Nuhn, Ms. Minion, and Ms. Noguera on the virtual Google Meets. There is still so much to do and so many fun events happening. Though we miss teachers and friends we do enjoy the calm feeling of the school. Graduation will happen for our grade 8 friends, we will celebrate a friend's birthday, enjoy our Virtual Track Meet, continue learning about Media responsibility, growing up, and online safety practices. We will also celebrate our fathers and continue with our measurement unit. With any luck we will get to have a picnic outside, plan an end-of-year celebration (maybe a movie day), this year has looked very different, but there is so much to celebrate - 4 weeks everyone!! We've got this!

April Showers and the School is Ours!?!

The month started off great with a couple of short weeks as we had Easter break, Ramadan began for some, and although we were a little unsure, we all got a week off with our families for the postponed Spring Break. That being said, we were surprised to find out that the Baxter Bunch would have the school to ourselves again as all other classes were virtual. We also celebrated Sean's 15th birthday!

Though it has been sad to not have a school full of friends and have Ms. Nuhn and Ms. Noguera leave us, we have been so excited to have Ms. J and Ms. Robinson join the Baxter Bunch again! When things are constantly changing and there is so much uncertainty it is important to focus on what we can control and all the wonderful things and people in our lives.

We are reviewing what it means to be thankful for all we have and all that we can do! We, the Baxter Bunch, have attitudes of gratitude. Did you know that having gratitude actually helps build self-esteem? Yup, pretty cool eh?! Being grateful encourages us to appreciate ourselves, all we have, and all we can do rather than comparing ourselves with others. Gratitude also cultivates resilience, empathy, and kindness. It's true, gratitude changes everything! What are you grateful for?

The month flew by... In May we will acknowledge and celebrate our mothers (who are AMAZING!), the festival Eid al-Fitr will take place, and we have Ms. Nuhn's birthdays to celebrate. We will continue writing poetry, sharing our questions, thoughts, and connections, while further developing our media literacy. This will lead well into our Genius Hour Inquiry-based celebration projects. Fractions and measurement will be topics of focus in Mathematics, but we will also continue estimating, working with money, and solidifying our number sense. In Health we will continue to talk about healthy habits (eating, sleeping, mindfulness, gratitude) annnnnnnnnnnnd the big "P"! Puberty is a wonderfully confusing and exciting time that is totally normal and means we are growing up. It is important to remember that our bodies grow up much faster than our brains... so even though we feel like we know everything, it is important to "Choose our Best! and act with integrity (making the right choices, even when no one is looking)." We have begun a summer countdown and are hoping that we all stay happy and healthy through the last weeks of school. Bring on those May flowers and our much-deserved sunshine!!

No March break - No Problem!

Even though we didn't get a March break we had tons of Fun. We enjoyed Oodenawi Spirit Week - with Beach day, Llama day, Lucky Day, PJ Day, & Community Rock Our Socks Day! We got to dress up in fun colours, watch a movie, enjoy special treats, and promote acceptance for Down Syndrome. Grade 8's had grad photos and looked very mature. We may not get the grad we all had planned on, but we will make the most of it!

We continued to work on making connections in literacy, reflecting on what we take in using our senses and what experiences, text, and/or thoughts and ideas they remind us of. We have been writing every day from our own experiences, imagination, and/ or guiding questions. We enjoy sharing our thoughts, and are beginning to incorporate editing techniques; asking ourselves "does that make sense?", "Did I use capitals?", "Do I have punctuation?", etc. Basically, we are asking "Is my writing easy for someone else to read and understand?".

Our numeracy program has consisted of estimating, deconstructing numbers based on place value, critically thinking and inquiring using our "math" brain, identifying and adding amounts of money, and solidifying basic numbers sense.

For STEAM this month we performed Skittles Science, made Silk Dough, built with Lego and/or Clay, did an egg break challenge, made popsicle stick houses, and boats that really float! Wow!

We worked out our minds as we drew and then researched peacocks, bees, Leprecans, and bunnies. We then worked out our bodies as we learned foundational volleyball skills in the gym, and started some drumming Pound Fitness in class.

Next month is April. We are starting the month promoting Autism acceptance by lighting it up blue and raising the Autism acceptance flag. Having Autism means that you have some unique characteristics, and some amazing things happen. Check out this video to learn more. All of us have unique traits but that should never mean that we feel like that's all anyone can see (like this little Zebra), or that we are alone or left out (like Ryenn). We will continue to talk about our feelings and strategies for when we are feeling down, frustrated, and/ or escalated. Feelings are okay, feelings are good, feelings are ours to have and they are very real and don't have to make sense... They are all part of being an amazing unique human! Even with all of the Covid rules and restrictions, we continue to have fun, working and learning together. Though we had a lot of fun at school, we can't help but be a little excited for the break coming up next month. We have been noticing some spring changes, so maybe we will get warmer weather! April, here we come!!

February is the month of Love!LOVE is POWER, we must

Stand Up, Listen Up, & Speak Up - So We Can RISE UP!

February is such an incredible month. Yes, it is the month of love and friendship... and as such, we were able to reflect on just what that means... especially with the absence of Valentine's day cards from home due to Covid. What the Baxter Bunch did do to spread a little sunshine and love was make Valentine's for a local seniors' home. They were delivered (after sitting for 4 days) and we got an email with pictures letting us know how much the notes were loved and appreciated. It was so amazing to know that we had the power to put smiles on so many faces! Power can take many forms, and we have so much more than we think. We have the power to say something... and we can do it with our words (e.g., "stop", "please". "help", etc.), our actions (e.g., sitting with someone, giving a high-five, being there, etc.", and through our creativity (e.g., music, art, dance, etc.)! What we say can inspire, spread joy, and have huge ripple effects! We need to choose what we "say" very carefully.

We also introduced February as Black History Month, and will that there have been some very heavy discussions about racism. Racism is still happening, even here in Canada. Inspiration Republic - a group that works to spread the message about being an ally with the black community led us in a very powerful virtual assembly about Anti Black Racism. W have a responsibility to stand up when we see something wrong, speak up for the rights of all people, black people, and listen when our friends share with us how they are feeling... even when don't realize we said something or did something wrong, this could be a micro-aggression. Micro-aggressions are seemingly small things that carry a whole lot of weight.

A surprise book was left in our class for 'I Read Canadian' day, and when we unwrapped it we got to see that the author was none other than our local amazing astronaut Chris Hadfield! Did you know he was afraid of the dark?! From there we completed an astronaut directed drawing and researched some pretty cool space facts... like no salt or pepper is allowed because it can get in the astronauts' eyes and in the vents.

We also discussed how important it is to look beyond black history month to celebrate Canadians of all colours and ethnicities throughout the year. The entire school decided to choose a Canadian to learn more about, and we chose - Andre De Grasse, the fastest Canadian.

Our STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics activities this month included; coding, snow volcanoes, hand doodle art, gumball art, sharing with our virtual buddies, estimating the amounts of items in our jar, and measuring the length of a community skating rink.

Oh, my?! I almost forgot... we celebrated a birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AYAH! Wore our Pink Shirts to say "Bullying Stops here, we spread kindness"... annnnnnd... of course, I can't forget to mention that WE GOT A SNOW DAY THIS MONTH!! WoooooHoooooo!

Our March break has turned into an April break, it's a bit of a bummer.... but the Baxter Bunch always adapts and has a blast! So bring on the new month! We will be talking about the uses of a variety of household tools, creating a Life SKills "What's on the Menu" Genius Hour project, estimating, critically-thinking, hopefully welcoming some much nicer weather, and so much more!

January: New Year, New Friends, & A New Normal

We have all been anxiously waiting for the new year to start, in hopes that it would bring some miracle that erased the Covid virus and all of the rules and changes associated with the pandemic. Alas, that has not happened. In fact, we are the only ones at school as all other students are learning virtually. That hasn't stopped us from having fun though, we even made up a little 'Baxter Bunch' rhyme about it to the tune of "The Addams' Family".

We have continued our healthy mind, body, and heart learning... As an extension of this, we have been enjoying the gym a couple of times a week - dancing some Zumba with Ms. Blyth, learning ball skills, and building our cardio and muscle stamina. We revisited the food groups and reviewed the importance of including multiple food groups (2 for a snack and 3 for a meal) when eating to ensure we are getting proper nutrients. We did a snack pairing activity where we identified food items and paired them with items from another food group to create some simple, delicious, healthy snacks. Bell "Let's Talk" Day encouraged us to critically think about what "being sick" and "needing help" might feel and look like. We can often "see" when someone is physically sick, but it is much harder to see that someone needs help when their heart or mind is not feeling their best. We also talked more about the importance of sharing our feelings and worries so that they do not consume us and stop us from doing the things that we love.

Connections aid in the learning process solidifying learning faster, which is why they have been the foundation of all of our learning and are especially at the core of our literacy goals and programming. We are continuing to build background knowledge with exposure to non-fiction facts and researching procedures with our directed drawing activities. On community walks, we are exploring connections to our own memories and experiences. Readers Workshop provides us with stories that help us learn facts, life lessons, and to see similarities in our own lives, the world around us, and the other texts we've read. Additionally, we have been using these connections as the inspiration to writing our own stories, as stories can be found... EVERYWHERE!!

STEAM activities have been a lot of fun as we; blew up balloons using a chemical reaction in Science, started a new coding unit to build our critical thinking and technological skills, built structures with Lego as engineers. painted snow and coloured mandalas in art, and began estimating in Mathematics.

Next month we will continue to build on our academic learning, but also continue to focus on our hearts and bodies. February is a month for basking in love, friendship, and positivity... which we, and the entire world, could use a whole lot more of... especially right now. We have already started to embrace this as we welcomed our new friend Cole to the Baxter Bunch! What makes Cole unique is that he has hearing aids and can also speak sign language - SO COOL! We are hoping he will teach us some! We have also had two new teachers Ms. B (Blyth) and Ms. J (Jamestee) join the bunch! They have been a huge part of making the transition into the new year a smooth one!! We are so grateful for being able to learn together and will continue to incorporate all the safety procedures and follow all guidelines to ensure we are able to do so! If you need a reminder that the Baxter Bunch is still fighting just click on the link below.

The Baxter Bunch is still fighting!

December ?! Where'd You Go?!

I can not believe how quickly December just seemed to fly by! Students have completed their Healthy Mind, Body, & Heart Genius Hour projects and were able to present them to the class. We have been talking to Mr. Hummel's (a teacher who covered for me on my maternity leave and now has his own group) Life Skills class in Burlington, and are going to be starting Virtual Buddies in the new year!

Friends created the most adorable popsicle stick houses with Mrs. Minion and decorated them to look like gingerbread houses. They also made the cutest little Covid ornament to commemorate this surreal year (like we could ever forget it).

Each student will be taking home a Distance Learning package that will only be opened if we move to some form of virtual learning in the new year. Each package contains supplies, learning materials, and manipulatives that are critical to our learning and we definitely don't want anything to get misplaced.

I really hope that everyone enjoys the much needed break, and comes back feeling refreshed and excited... and remember....

We will keep fighting! No matter what 2021 brings!

November : A Healthy Body & Healthy Mind Makes It Easier To Be Kind

This month we continued discussing strategies that will help us develop skills related to peer collaboration (e.g., asking to join, choosing a new activity, asking "what can I do?", finding a friend that is alone, making a trade, taking turns, etc.). We have continue to use 'Play Plan' as a way of exploring new activities and playing with new friends. We discussed the way different scenarios make us feel and we realize that the best strategies have everyone involved feeling happy. As an extension, we discussed Peace - what it feels, sounds, smells, tastes, and looks like, and how we can spread Peace at home and at school. We talked about poppies for Peace and poppies as a symbol of remembrance. We remember those who have fought, died, survived but were never the same, for the nurses and doctors who help, for the families of those who are fighting, or lost oved one, and even for the animals that have played a part. Those tiny poppies hold enormous meaning that we honor and remember.

We have started exploring our next inquiry unit 'Healthy Minds & Bodies'. We know that it is important to eat healthy to get the vitamins and nutrients our bodies need. As a general rule, we want our plates to have a lot of color - rainbow plates that are half full of fruits and vegetables, with the other half consisting of whole grains and proteins (with an emphasis on plant-based protein). We talked about the wide spectrum of foods that range from very healthy to very unhealthy and that we just need to try to have balance. For example, we can match something very unhealthy with something super healthy... or try to meet in the middle, half and half. We talked about "bumping up" our lunches to make healthier choices. We know that food gives us the vitamins and nutrients we need to grow our minds and bodies, and we want to make sure we are getting the right nutrients to ensure our bodies and minds are performing at their best.

The Baxter Bunch also got to perform some fun "hands-on" science experiments (baking soda and vinegar pop rockets and walking water), enjoyed community walks (rain or shine, or rather.... windy or calm) that sparked memories and promoted discussions, showed our school spirit with hat and jersey day, shared some healthy snacks and recipes, thought critically about math through pictures and journal questions, and talked more about what it means to be a writer, and how to make our writing more interesting for the reader. We discussed writing letters and chose a few people to write letters to (e.g., Santa, Ms. Marshall, our parents), we all however, wrote letters to ourselves that we will keep at school to reread now and again. These letters are from our inner voice, this voice can sometimes be negative, but we want to be our own biggest fans! We created these letters as a class based our our individual needs and goals and each student was able to take home their chart paper copy to keep and maybe even put up on their wall.

Mrs. Baxter was also able to touch base with parents about how everyone has been settling in, and we were able to learn a little bit more about what high school will bring.

Happy Diwali to all those who celebrated!

We will begin December with a 'Tech Blitz'! Students will doing a variety of activities starting from our Google Classroom, enjoy a couple of class Google Meets, access our class website links, and reinforce learning with a few Osmo activities. The bunch will also expanded on our 'Healthy Me' unit with a individual Genius Hour project, that will then be linked to our Google Classroom.

We also have a few friends celebrating birthdays in December, we will create a few winter and Christmas themed Design & Technology / STEM projects, perhaps enjoy a little party before Christmas break, and keep our fingers crossed that we can welcome the NEW year with a little bit of our OLD normal. We can make it to the break!

October is Awesome: Gratitude, Healthy Food, & Halloween Fun (a bit subdued :)

The bunch is getting into the swing of things are we are starting to identify areas we need to work on in terms of learning, academic, social and self-regulatory. We have introduced community circles to talk about our feelings as a result of certain behaviours, and have begun discussing how to restore and rebuild trust once it has been broken. We are introducing and revisiting mindfulness strategies, pinpointing specific goals for tracking, and are developing plans for how to reach those goals. Oh, and friends are doing an amazing job coming up with strategies for the 'Baxter Bumps' (e.g., 'hands on', name calling, etc.) we are seeing. It all starts with understanding why we have rules, a "friends out of trouble" approach, and using our WITS (walk away, ignore, talk it out, and then seek help) to keep us all happy and safe.

For Literacy we have begun Writer's Workshop, writing a class story from a shared illustration. We identified the problem, solved it, and then edited our story; adding exciting details and taking out information that wasn't needed and/or didn't make sense. Have a listen to 'The Day the Fire Hydrant Exploded' by the Baxter Bunch. We also began researching specific information in our Directed Drawing lessons, and even got introduced to Genius Hour where we will get to focus on our own interests. What a fun way to foster independence and accountability, while igniting our spark for learning, and building skills for finding and sharing information!

Our Numeracy focus is on time, money, and number sense. We will continue to build these stills through a variety of activities throughout the year. Currently we are playing games (e.g., Guess My Number, Show Me the Money, What time is it Mrs. Baxter, etc.) to introduce these skills in a positive and engaging way. We also started 'Dollar Up' practicing our rounding skills which will help us with budgeting and started something on Mondays called Picture Math where we look at pictures from are community and critically think about a variety of Math questions that could be asked and solved.

We are exploring Life Skills in a variety of ways; talking about healthy eating, mindfulness, and safety. We have discussed and created an anchor chart illustrating the way our plates "should" look. Extending that into creating healthy Halloween snacks. Ms. Minion has introducing some exciting design and technology activities as we made fall placemats, spider webs, and Indigenous Dot Art. Finally we have been learning about sequencing and following steps/directions with our directed drawings (e.g., ladybug, turkey, snail), writing recipes (e.g., pumpkin pie) and performing experiments at our desks (e.g., Magic Milk where we watched colours explode)!

We have all gone over our class and individual learning goals. We have all chosen both an academic and self-regulatory goal. Additionally, we are all working on developing a mindfulness toolbox to hold our calming strategies.

Friends got to dress up for Halloween, which was some much needed familiarity for the bunch, as they all become accustom to the "new normal". We made some healthy Halloween snacks at our desks, created various arts and crafts, participated in the whole school spooky read aloud, and got some treats to take home. Friends said it wasn't subdued at all and was actually just like any other Halloween.

Next month, we will continue to build skills related to self-regulation and peer collaboration as we talk about Peace. Friends will talk about strategies to reach their learning goals making a plan to help them, as we prepare for our conferences. We will also continue to explore STEM activities with some great hands on and authentic activities that build our critical thinking skills.

We are all settled in now, and are moving forward with high expectations for ourselves and each other!

The Baxter Bunch is Back!!!

September 2020

What a interesting summer we have had, and there have been so many questions about the upcoming school year. Yes, we will be wearing masks, and doing our very best to physically distance as much as possible, there are no field trips allowed yet, annnnnnd we won't be able to cook. However, after months apart we are able to be together again. For me that is the biggest win we could have right now!! I have missed my bunch so very much and I am so thankful we are learning together again.

As you can imagine, the bunch had a lot of questions about the new school year, as they are very curious about the changes. Speaking of changes, we had 4 new friends to welcome to our school family (and I know they are going to fit right in)! Therefore, we started the year going over what school would look like this year. We started with the new look and set-up of our class (e.g., no carpet, desks > meter apart, etc.), new polices and routines (e.g., only using 1 door, no gym, fieldtrips, or "cooking".), and new safety procedures (e.g., wearing masks, hand sanitizing, utilizing a specific play area).

With all the questions and new rules we started our first inquiry unit - Covid. The new learning helped calm a few of our friends nerves, helped us feel a little safer, and allowed us to begin to explore 'Covid Can-Dos' (e.g., community walks, have recess & play friends, do STEM activities and experiments at our desks), focusing on what we are still able to do - like have fun (it just may look a little different).

For Life Skills we started the year with our sandwich unit, talking over the steps, writing our recipe, preparing a clay sandwich, and then finishing off with a delicious sandwich that we prepared at our desks. Yum!

October will have us extending 'Covid Can-Dos' focusing on gratitude for all we have at home, school, and within the community. Our IEPs, Individualized Education Plans, will go home, and we will look at choosing specific goals for each student to track on our Learning Goals wall. Don't worry, even though we will not be able to bring in treats for Halloween the teachers have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Not to worry friends, we're the Baxter Bunch!

**We've got this!!!**