Love You

Wednesday 31 October 2012

SO MUCH FUN!

 Halloween can be a crazy day, but it's every child's favourite school day ever!  Look at the fun things that they got to eat....pizza from the SUTP freebie for the class, rice kris pie pumpkins, frozen banana ghosts, grape caterpillars, an amazing yummy green drink made by a real witch and....
 veggies and dip in the shape of a skeleton, no less.  It was so wonderful to see them eat healthy!
In the afternoon, the Grade 1, 2, and 3 students gathered in the gym for a whole series of fun activities based on the Halloween theme, with parents running the stations....
cotton balls on spoon races....
bounce the eyeball into the pail....
put the frog onto the witch...
put the smile onto the skeleton....
mazes, and puzzles and word searches, oh my!...
scooter races and broom races,
ghost bowling and goalie ghost...
eleven stations in all plus a freeze dance at the end with ghoulish music.
Thanks to all these wonderful parents for coming in and helping
their child (and yours)
have a Halloween to remember!
Couldn't have done it without you ladies!
Don't those smiles say it all?
You're the best!

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Halloween Book Reports (and pumpkin characters)!!

How much fun we had today during our book report sharing!  This is an idea that I found on another teacher's blog site, so a huge thank you to Hope King for the inspiration.  All the students were excited to share and really were well prepared!  They had made great connections with the story that they had read and recognized the different elements that a story contains.  The students noticed that some of the books were by the same author!  Here is a cute book called "Vunce Upon a Time" by Jolto Seibold and Siobhan Vivian.  Too cute!
The pumpkin characters sat at the front of the room as the students shared their presentation elements.  We had invited the principal into the class so almost all of the children were able to present while he was in the room.  He gave a certificate to each for their hard work.
The book characters are lined up about their coat hooks in the hallway, along with the actual book and the story bag that is full of the story elements.  The bag was to be decorated with the student's version of the front cover of the book.  They make quiqte a parade!  Do you recognize any of the  characters?
All of the students could create their characters in any way they wanted.  Some used paint, others used duct tape, some added parts from other costumes.  What imagination!
The pumpkins seem to have taken on the personality of the characters they represent.  Here's one of the naughty pigs from Robert Munsch's book and that little mischievous girl is Junie B. Jones.
Some of the pumpkins were the foam kind from the craft store and some were actual garden grown pumpkins.....it didn't matter what kind they were, they all turned into wonderful book characters.
Thank you to all the parents who were willing to embrace this project and help their children recognize the 'fun' of reading a good book!

Friday 26 October 2012

Everyone needs a buddy

One of the blessings that come from our schools housing students at different divisional levels, is that the older ones love to get paired up with the younger ones (and visa versa)!  One of the teachers from Grade 7 approached me and asked if some of her students could be 'buddied' up with mine.  
Sadly this won't be able to happen all that often, but judging by the happy smiling faces today, whenever they get together, I think all will be enjoying the experience!
The older ones were helping the younger ones with a logical puzzle activity called "Who Wore What?"  Using the clues and a graphic organizer, the students are to find out which children wore which costume.  It takes a bit of thinking but they are on their way to figuring it out.

Thanks to all the parents who are going to be helping us (Gr. 1, 2, and 3) out with our games and activities in the afternoon and to those who volunteered to bring spooky (but healthy) snacks.  It should be a wonderful day, but remember we've had snow so please ensure that your child can still play outside at recess time, even in their costume.  See you then!

Wednesday 24 October 2012

An apple for the teacher!

 Wednesday is our 'mini-gym' day.  We always do yoga on Wednesday.  We try to learn and practise two or three new poses.  Today, we learned how to do downward facing dog.
We also learned how to do the cobra pose.  The important thing in yoga is to always keep breathing!

This pose is called the dancer.   We have a series of poses that we do to prepare for this one.  How do the students stay balanced?  They look at a spot on the wall!

It is important to rest our bodies after we have stretched.  The children love this pose because it feels so good.  It is aptly named the child's pose.

How sweet!  Look what was on my desk after lunch today!  What a wonderful way to fill my bucket!

Monday 22 October 2012

Look at how busy we are!

I thought I would share my example of the pumpkin character that I created for our classroom.  As you can see, I did not use a novel, but your child has free choice of which book and character they want to do the book report on.  Does your child's pumpkin have to be this fancy? Not at all, but whomever sees the work should be able to tell who the character is!  Does the character has to have the full body?  Again, this is completely left up to you.  I did sew up the little trousers, but everything is attached with a glue gun!  Obviously the easiest way to get an orange pumpkin to turn brown was to paint it.  You do NOT have to purchase a styrofoam pumpkin either.  The main purpose of this assignment is for the students to have fun connecting with a story and then make some memories as your family works on this little bit of creativity together.  Not so long ago, I had children at school and I did not want to be trying to put together a project the night before it was due.  That's why there was lots of time to do this. Can't wait to see all the pumpkin characters next Tuesday!
A few years ago, I moved to making my classroom a 'no hands up' area.  Still students are used to this usual way of getting attention.  What I use instead are these little plastic pencils that have a student's name written on each one.  I can pull out a name after asking a question ensuring that everyone has thought of an answer because they do not know whose name will come out of the cup.  I also use these pencils to create groups, either by colour, or numbers or by the shapes.  I pulled out these four pencils and the four children with their names on them, became a group for working on an assignment in Social Studies.
Why do students work in groups so often?  The easy answer is that it gets them ready for the real world.  Think of how many times in different types of employment, groups of people must get together to talk about issues, solve problems or share ideas.  That is an important skill and the curriculum asks teachers to ensure that those skills are taught, and opportunities for practise be given.  It allows the students to recognize that they can work even when there is a 'buzz' of activity going on.  It assists them in learning how to focus.
It also gives them opportunities to learn from each other.  Students in 21st century classrooms are expected to find information on their own.  It amazes me how many times my own boys bring an electronic device to the table during supper, but most often it is to share a news story that they were reading, or to 'look up' something that we are discussing.  Students today are learning to be consumers of information.  In both of the pictures above, the students, in groups of four, were working to find answers using text and maps.  If they weren't sure if they were correct, they had someone to 'turn and talk' to.
You may hear all about 'Kaboom Kabobs' today.  Our 'apple school' director worked with the health teachers this month to focus on making better choices for snacks.  They discussed the difference, for example, between fresh fruit, canned fruit in syrup and 'fruit roll-ups.'  The two Grade 3 classes spent some time this afternoon, planning and then creating healthy alternatives to prepackaged snacks.

They loved to be involved and readily took on the 'hands on' challenge.
Everyone of them came back saying how much they loved this snack idea!  We should 'run' with it and get our children involved with packing their lunches with healthy (and nutritious) snacks!

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Bucket Filling

The Grade 1, 2, and 3 classes had the opportunity to work together on Monday to hear the story of "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?"  This book suggests that each person carries an invisible bucket that can be filled when someone does something nice for us, and when we do something nice for others.  If we are not kind, or someone else is rude or mean to us, our buckets are then becoming empty.  The person who is mean is called a 'bucket dipper.'  We want to give our primary students the same words to use with each other. The morning was a great success and we hope to continue to bring the classes together every two weeks.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Field Trips



Field Trips

Dear parents,
     At St. Theresa Catholic Schools, traditionally a set amount of funds are asked for at the beginning of the school year to cover the cost of admissions and bus fees for a variety of in-school and out-of-school field trips.  This system makes it so much easier for the accounting to be done and cheques written.
     As I am new to the school, I did not ask for these funds yet and the first field trip is already planned!  Would you be so kind as to forward a cheque for $100.00 payable to St. Theresa Catholic School before the end of October?  It sounds like there will be many opportunities for fun-filled learning excursions to take place this school year!

                                                             Thanks!

Monday 15 October 2012

Using Halloween to Learn!

There is nothing students love more than Halloween!  It's a wonderful opportunity to use the season to introduce new learning!
The students put together these lovely witches.  Being able to follow oral directions is an important skill and here was a fun way to practise!
Even though each child had the same pieces to use, each was able to show their own creativity.
The students labelled a picture of a witch and learned that things that can be touched and labelled are nouns.  They then had the opportunity to use adjectives to describe the noun "witch."  Over the course of the next few weeks, they will be recognizing the nouns and adjectives in many different activities.
This work is pasted onto the back of the witch shoes (with the aabb patterned socks).
Using this old African American spiritual, the students learned a whole lot about bones, their proper names, their placement and their shape and size.
Each then got the opportunity to create their own skeleton using q-tips!
Same idea...they all got the same materials, but each one looks different!
There's a whole lot more to learn this coming up week and I will attempt to post at least twice so come check out the classroom blog each and every day.