So happy together....

One of the wonderful things that happens at our school is that the classes are often brought together for activities.  Sometimes it is whole school activities with all the students comprising multi-age groupings, or, like this afternoon, the two Grade Three classes getting together.

Actually, they have spent a great deal of time together lately because they are working towards their assembly presentation, which will be on Wednesday, April 16 at 9:00 a.m.

We have been very blessed to have Mrs. Thompson, a former teacher for EICS, and a drama 'queen' to work with the children to create the Passion of Christ.  The assembly falls within Passion Week.

Mark your calendars and please come to watch your child, along with all the others, who will be demonstrating their 'joyful' spirit through word, and movement and song.

Come see....

Visit our Bright Potential blog (you can get to it through the link on the right hand side) to see how the plasma ball...

...and the world's simplest motor is pushing our understanding about dams.

Counting Money

The natural extension to adding and subtracting large numbers is to learn how to do the same with amounts of money.  The students have been exploring Canadian coins.  They learned the significance of the images that are on our coins.

They should be able to tell you why our dollar coin is called a 'loonie.'

They may be asking you for opportunities to practise counting coins the proper way, starting with the larger value coins and adding down to the smallest coins.  Yes, they get to practise counting with pennies.  This is the bet time to introduce the idea of 'rounding up' and 'rounding down' since that is what we now do as we pay for our purchases.

I am sure that they all came home tonight excited about our dam building challenge.  Please visit our bp energy blog by clicking on the link found on the right hand side of the screen.  TONS of pictures!

Tons of learning and success!

Inspiring Education

"Everything Is Changing

The world around us is evolving at an unprecedented rate—and this speed of change is increasing every day. We don’t know what new problems and opportunities we’ll encounter tomorrow, let alone in ten or twenty years.

We need to prepare Alberta’s students for this unknown and unknowable future. The way we’ve delivered education in the past is no longer sufficient. So we’re changing our way of thinking.

We’re Taking A New Approach

We’re shifting our focus; investing in our students to empower them and bring out their potential. We are emphasizing the development of key competencies in our students, cultivating engaged thinkers, ethical citizens and entrepreneurial spirits.

We’re recognizing that not all students learn the same way, and that textbooks and classrooms are just one way for them to experience education."

words taken from  http://education.alberta.ca/department/ipr/inspiringeducation.aspx

It's true..what our classrooms look like today certainly should look differently than they did when I started as a teacher a few 'years' ago!  I hope that as changes come about, whether because of government improvements to the curriculum, or recognition of the evolving needs of our twenty first century learners, that I will be willing to inspire the students in my classroom to look beyond for the answers to their questions.  They must look beyond me, as I do not hold the answers....I just have the questions...

In pairs, the students were deciding how they were going to approach the engineering challenge that was shared with my by Tracey Graham, who is a wonder with challenges based on scientific principals for elementary students.

We look forward to being able to get our hands on these materials and try to rise to this challenge in the next week!

Soapstone Carving

One of the best things about having a grade partner is that each person brings something new to the table, and the students are the ones who benefit.  I have had a class do soap stone carving before, but I have never put it together with Religion.  Thanks to Mrs. L, we started our project with Rubble Carving.

The soapstone was actually imported from Brazil.  The first step was for the students to use the rasp (and who knows if I am spelling that correctly), to take the sharp edges off of the crosses that had been cut out using a saw at the shop.

It's a messy and tedious process, but every student was fully engaged in their job!

We had the instructor with us for 1.5 hours and were able to finish the edges, and do the first sanding. Thanks to the three parents who came to lending a helping hand.  You made the whole experience more enjoyable!

Some students, but not all, were able to move onto the second sanding stage, which really brought out the colour, added a smoother, glass like texture and removed most of the scratches.

Each student could decide how they would make their cross to reflect their own thoughts.

There's a couple more steps including another sanding and then oiling to bring out the lovely colour of the minerals within the rock.  Look forward to seeing the finished products at our Student Led Conferences on March 25 and 26.

Just a little note:

1.  Please send the students' assignments back the day after they are sent home to complete.  If they are left at home, the student is often even further behind because the next class, they had nothing to work with.

2.  Until the back field/playground is dry, please send your child with snow pants or slush pants and rubber boots.  The students are drawn to the water and are splashing around even though each teacher has requested that they stay away.  When they run and play, they OFTEN end up on their knees or bottoms, so they become soaked or covered in mud.

Good Deeds

Everyone loves to play with clay.  Each child was given a piece to roll out,

and then add to their table partners' pieces to create one long rope.

They worked together to bring the three long pieces to one table,

where the three pieces were braided together.

The braided clay was wound into a circle, and the children instantly saw that it looked like a crown.  We added toothpicks and discussed how our transgressions even today, add to Jesus' pain.

Father asked us at the Ash Wednesday Mass to do one small, kind deed each and every day of Lent.

Each morning, the students who have done so, can remove one thorn, from our representation of Jesus' crown of thorns.  Our prayer table has representations for the three aspects  of Lent that we are striving to add to our daily lives: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

It is soooo exciting to have out iPads all up and running.  The students were given their first opportunity to search for an answer to a question I posed.  We discussed that you must read the little 'teaser' at each site before you go to it, in order to know if it is an appropriate site, or if it will be a waste of time.  Since almost all of the students have earbuds, it was a quiet session as they engaged in the task.

The Ministerial Order that will see a shift in the manner in which schools deliver curriculum to 21st century learners, includes as its first goal to:
"enable all students to achieve the... outcome(s)....

be Engaged Thinkers and Ethical Citizens with an Entrepreneurial Spirit.."

When students are set a task in which they choose the manner in which they will solve the problem imposed, they are working on that entrepreneurial spirit.

 

More about that as we continue our learning journey!

Shrove Tuesday

This week saw us celebrate Shrove Tuesday, the day that we reflect on how to bring a clean heart into the season of Lent.  On Wednesday, our entire school will travel to our parish and celebrate mass for Ash Wednesday.  It has been years since I have had the privilege of bringing students to church on this important day, the beginning of Lent.

A HUGE thank you to the parents who organized our pancake 'mid-morning' lunch.  The students loved the healthy oranges and bananas that accompanied their pancakes and juice.

They ate it all up!

I am over the moon with our success using our iPads.  All of the students have completed their reports and this week we are learning how to use the iPads to video tape (probably a more modern 'techie' word for that, but I am of an age...) each other.  The plan is to take the iMovie (is that what I should call it??) and upload (see I know new terms!) onto my private Youtube channel (which I set up all by myself!!)

Once the movies are loaded, I will be creating QR codes and these will be displayed so that when the parents come for Student Led Conferences later in the month, they can use their SMARTphones, and scan their child's code.

That code will then allow the parent to view their child reading their report!  I hope it all works!

Please, if you don't have a QR code reader downloaded onto your device, please do so.  If you don't have the kind of phone that allows for that technology, I will have my iPads available for you to use!

You should be able to book your time for Student Led Conferences on March 25 and March 26 on line now.