The 50th Day of School

Back on the first day back after Fall break, we celebrated all things "50's"

We learned about the way children dressed and compared it to today.  We also compared cars, restaurants, clothes, toys, books and toys. Some things are very different than today!

I laughed because my 'modern' version of a music player was an iPod, and the children didn't know what that was!  Our world is changing so fast!

Here's all the gals...

and guys in their finest!  Love the white t-shirts and leather jackets along with the rolled up jeans!

We did a little experiment before the students got to taste their root beer floats.  In one glass we put the ice cream first and in the other glass we put the root beer first.  The students were amazed at how different the results were!

They didn't all love it but they were good sports and all tried this 50's favourite.

We also learned the steps to make a bubble with bubblegum.  

We had a lot of success!

I really do believe that their favourite activity was our little 'sock hop'

We watched a few old dance shows using Youtube and the students knew that the dancing was going to be pretty fast.  We tried the hand jive, the twist and a couple of steps of the jive.

The smiles say it all!

They really were delighted that they had to dance "boy-girl"

Every time the music changed, they had to change partners.

When they wrote about their thoughts about dancing, one girl said "my skirt didn't go up as high as the girls who danced in the 1950's."  I loved that attention to detail!

They cruised off into the sunset with this pink cadillac!

We're dancing in phys. ed. class now and today my class was able to teach another Gr. 2 class how to do the twist!  It was so much fun!

The week that was......

On Thursday November 10, the students did an amazing job of leading the school's Remembrance Day assembly.

Each and every one had a part to play and they told the story of why we remember.

We were lucky enough to have Sergeant Barden come and join us.  He has served our country for 23 years, completing two tours of duty in Afghanistan and a tour in Croatia.  He added the human element to our ceremony and we were grateful for his willingness to be part of this special observance.

At the end of our time together, each child was given a toy soldier.   Here's what the children were told: Put this toy on your dinner table or by your bed or some other place in your house where everyone can see him.  This toy represents a soldier from Canada who is not at home with their family.  Instead they are somewhere far away in another part of the world.  They are fighting for us.  They are fighting for peace. When you pass by this toy in your house, ask God to be with this soldier.  Ask God to keep the soldier safe.  Ask God to bring the soldier home.

Did you know that dogs are very curious about cats?  The students have completed writing about cats and are reading their composition to their puppies.   Here's their planning sheet.  They took three of these ideas and expanded on them on the following sheet.

The students are working on writing sentences that give lots of information such as this one:

Cats love to munch.  That is why they have sharp teeth.

Cat's eyes are not made like ours.  Their eyes are made to see at night.

Along with a introductory and closing sentence, these became lovely pieces of writing.

Of course, the cats needed to have their portraits done. Did you notice this patriotic cat is sporting a poppy?

Doubles Dude and Mrs. Puddlehopper all in the same week!

"Doubles! Doubles! I can add doubles!

It's no trouble for me to add doubles!"

That's the chant on the You tube video that we watched this week and knowing the doubles facts has been our goal in all of our activities in math.

We made our "Doubles Dude" using an idea shared by Amy Lemons on her blog.

Has your child told you about our friend Rocket?  If not I'll try to introduce him later this week.

Rocket has brought some of his friends into our classroom for the students to work with and we used those puppies to create a portrait of each.  Each certainly shows his or her own personality!

Want to see this same type of art being offered for sale?

Check out: http://pastesf.com/collections/paste-pieces

Friday afternoon brought Mrs. Puddlehopper into our classroom to lead the students through four stations focusing on the science unit that they recently completed: Liquids.

They were all ears!

She made it rain in our classroom!

The students re-examined density.

They also changed

a liquid

into a solid

and did something that real scientists never do....tasted the fruits of their labour!

There was also a station where they tested the absorbency of different materials.

It was a wonderful review.

Please consider coming to the school of Thursday morning for the Remembrance Day celebration.

Our class is leading.  It starts at 11:00 a.m.