Cultural X-Rays

Each student created a personal cultural x-ray using an outline of a body shape with a large heart inside. The metaphor of an x-ray highlights the need to understand what is on the outside, the visible culture, as well as the inside of each of person’s cultural being, the invisible culture.

Visible Culture 
On the outside of their bodies, students created labels and drawings to describe the behaviors, appearance, and other aspects of their identities that others can observe or easily determine.

Invisible Culture 
On the heart shape inside their x-ray, students placed the values and beliefs that they hold in their hearts and that may not be immediately evident to others around them.

Through creating Cultural X-rays, students come to:

• Recognize their multiple cultural identities
• Develop conceptual understandings of culture
• Raise awareness of how and why culture matters to each person

Cooking with Maths

What's your favourite recipe? Grade 2 students were mixing in a new ingredient this week: math.

This activity gave students the opportunity to work on mathematics through baking. 

Our mathematical and social/emotional focus for the activity was: 

• I can select and use appropriate tools and units to measure capacity and weight.
• I can cooperate well with others and respect and support their groups' decisions.

Students learned the importance of using proper measuring techniques and tools. Although, there were some tools that could have been used to measure out the ingredients, groups debated on which tool was easier to pour into and measure. Would it be easier to use the beaker with 250 ml or the wider edge cup with 250 ml?

Data Collection and Reflection

We weighed and compared the differences in grams between cups of sugar and cups of flour. As well as comparing the differences in milliliters between oil and yogurt. 

By using measuring concepts learned so far, students were able to follow the directions of the recipe and taste tested the results-the verdict:

• "This was so fun!"
• "Vanilla makes everything smell so good."
• "Can we make cookies next?"
• "Following a recipe has so much math."
• "I'm going to make this with my mom at home."

Resource: Yogurt Cake Recipe