School starts tomorrow! Come visit the classroom!

Welcome to Mrs. Matheson's Grade Two classroom!  I am going to take you on a little tour of the room.  Here is the board next to the classroom's entrance.  Soon it will be covered with a variety of student's work all about the alphabet.

Behind the classroom door I have placed our POPCORN words, named because they keep 'pooping' up in our stories.  The students will be focusing on remembering all of these words over the first few weeks.

Here is what the classroom looks like from the front door.

Just to the right, as you walk in, is our Calendar with so  many different ways to talk about numbers, weather and calendar.

To the left as you walk in is the teacher table where small groups will gather for guidance in reading, writing and math.  It's a busy place!

Each table has a variety of materials available for the students at that table to share as they work.

Our first focus this month will be reviewing the alphabet, numbers and colours.  Bill Martin Jr. has two great books that we will be using "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and "Brown Bear".

This is the first of our gathering spots on the floor.  We will hold our Morning Meetings here.  The white shelves will be housing our blue bins that have all of our school materials in them.

Here's our second gathering spot, with different learning materials in each of the black bins.

We follow the Fountas and Pinnell leveling for reading within our school district, so I have leveled all of my classroom books.  The students will be using these books as part of their home reading program.

On the side shelf are more supplies that we use as a community.  To the left as you look at this photo, is where all of the student's duotangs and scribblers will be kept, neatly organized and ready to use.

One of the most important areas in our class is our Religion table, where we ensure that we remember that Jesus is Our Ever Present Teacher.

From this area just to the left of the Religion area, are all the technology components to run the computer and SMARTBoard.

The SMARTBoard is front and center and is used all day long!

Here's a little shelf that will play a part in our independent Word Work during Daily Five activities.

Teacher's Desk, always a busy active area, but I never get to sit there during the day!  I am too busy interacting with the children!

Meet Kit.  She has joined our classroom this year and will be a vital part of our learning about life in the past.  She's ready for her first day with her backpack and binder.

See you all on Monday, August 31.  Classes begin at 8:45!

Garden Club

I want to start off with a HUGE thank you to Salisbury Greenhouse, Rob Sproule and the different members of Strathcona County for their generous and innovative offer to bring gardening into schools.  It is only their supportive backing that this project was born!

I really should have taken some photos of the 'before' but truth be told, this is a Garden Club which involves students from Grades One to Four and I do not have written permission from all of those parents to allow their children's photos to be on the blog.  I can show you the fruits (actually vegetables) of their labour!

These two raised planters were gifted to us through the program that I applied for last September.  I plan to apply again this year to add another two planters to the front of the school.  With one growing season under our belt, I can see how we could improve our plans, and allow for more crops to flourish.

I was so excited to see the peas!  Brought me right back to my own childhood and picking peas with my Baba on her farm!

Baba grew cauliflower, but I never have.  I thought that the children would love to see how the plant creates the flower that we eat in the middle!  I bet they will love cauliflower because of this.

I had been warned against growing zucchini or squash or pumpkins.  I knew why but again, this is about the children learning, appreciating and then exploring the world of vegetables, so I did not listen and here is a little pumpkin!

Our cucumber patch has not yet yielded, but there sure are a lot of blossoms!

I'm pretty happy with the beans!  I had been 'pinning' ideas onto my Pinterest board for Gardening and the trellis idea was one that I used.  It is bamboo poles and jute twine and is working perfectly!

We have six different pepper plants, each producing a different type of pepper.  I think this one is called a banana pepper and of course, the one below is a green pepper.

By the time the students return, the lettuce will probably have gone to seed, but that is part of the learning.  There are radishes in front.  Did you know that radishes will grow really, really big?  I didn't, probably because we used them when they were small in our salads.

This was just for fun and though it's not really how I imagined, we'll try again next year.  Those are scarlet runner beans running up along a teepee shape created from bamboo poles and netting.  The idea was to create a 'hide away' place.  Look inside!  The grass is probably 30 centimetres tall!  Wouldn't it be a great place to curl up and read a book?

In September, I am sure that the Garden Club is going to be so excited to see the vegetables that they started back in the spring.  They will have the opportunity to be part of the harvest and like the Little Red Hen, they will be able to enjoy what they worked hard to grow!