Goodness! Gracious! Great days of Learning!

The students had a lot of fun using this idea that Kelley Dolling shared with me.  The students used a Hersey's Hug to land on a word on their adjective mat.  Whatever word they landed on, they wrote that word onto the next blank in their story.  It was a 'sweet' way to practise adjectives!

They were giggling all the way through their assignment.

Most of the students got to share their silly stories with the class who were tickled pink with the funny  phrases such as "smelly classmate" and "bubbly mind"

The students also got to make little bags to carry their Valentines home in.  They tried to make themselves!

I loved the details such as the boy who added his glasses and

the one who decided he had both yellow and brown hair.

The "Healthy Living" team from the Student Leadership Squad organized an event for the entire school.  The 'Jump Rope for Heart' presenters came and did an interactive demonstration, showing our kiddos how important keeping our hearts healthy is.

The kiddos loved the different tricks that were shown using the skipping ropes and

cheered on the teachers and students in a jump rope contest.

Here's the pledge we took as a school.

Later in the afternoon, the students got to hand out their Valentines to each other,

and check out the 'loot.'

Remembering our pledge to eat healthy, we ate apple slices as we watched 

Good ol' Charlie Brown!

The fun just hasn't stopped and the students were lucky to have groups of Grade Four students come into the classroom today to show some of their work on an author, using their Chromebooks.

The Grade 4 students were well prepared and polite as they shared

slides and video clips with the Grade 2 students.

It was a perfect Segway  because we tried to get onto Chrome books for the first time today.

Let's just say that the one teacher to 24 student ratio meant that I was more than a little busy but in the end, they all managed to get onto the Google search engine to start their project based learning activity in math.  It should be a steep learning curve but we'll get there.

Is it going to be quiet tomorrow?  I doubt it because it is the 100th DAY OF SCHOOL!

Winter writing

I believe that in order to write, you need to have experience.  The students have been challenged to add more interesting words into their writing this month.  Each made a sock snowman, and then labelled a picture of a snowman.  Once they had twelve nouns, they were then asked to add an adjective (which describes a noun) to each one.  Using those ideas, they were to create 5 sentences.  They also learned what a simile is: a comparison of two unlike things using the words 'like' or 'as'

Here's an example:  The sled shot down the hill like a rocket.

His head was as round as a basketball.

We went a bit backwards with this story.  The students learned what a show globe was through discussion and example.

Each got to make their own little snow globe ( without the water) using a plastic cup, some yardstick, a small plastic farm animal, some plastic shrubbery, some cotton balls and some artificial snow.

They then imagined what it would be like to be inside a snow globe and wrote their ideas, thinking about what they would be doing inside, whether they would meet someone inside, how they would feel and whether they could get out.

They were encouraged to add interesting vocabulary, adjectives and similes.

It was only after the snow globe stories were complete that the catalyst story by Jane O'Connor was read!  The students are starting to make real progress in their ability to get their thoughts and ideas onto paper.  It takes work, but it is worth it!

January brings the snow....

Thank you to Kathy Barbro for this wonderful tryptic art project for snowmen!

What I really loved was how far the students have come in listening, and remembering so that they can follow multistep directions.  It is such an important skill to develop!

Step One:  They had to choose 3 smaller card stock rectangles to paste onto the larger navy card stock rectangle.  they are learning how to please their eye in colour choice as well as how to place papers to create 'frames' evenly around their smaller papers.

When they added the small pieces of white paper to the bottom of the coloured card stock, they ripped the tops of the papers to create a more natural edge that represented a snow base.

Nine small circles were cut and then pasted one on top of the other....

...to create snowmen.

Each snowman came alive with the details added with sharpie pen, and some of the students also added a little black paper top hat for the snowman to interact with.

By the by, many of the students never did have a sharpie pen and the half dozen or so that I had are nearly empty.  Maybe you could pick one up to send to school the next time you are out and about ?

The different coloured backgrounds really change the appearance of the work.  Did you notice that it is snowing in each frame?

Today the students were introduced to the 'H' brothers.  I have been meaning to make these guys for a while now and finally did this week. The four 'brothers'  are all representing a different digraph.

Diagraphs are “voiceless” combinations of two consonants.  

Following are examples:     st, sh, ch, th, wh  

Here's Shane who makes the sound /sh/.

Charlie loves trains and the sound /ch/.

Wheeler takes his whistle everywhere and makes the /wh/ sound.

Theo needs to use his tongue to make the sound /th/.

You may notice that your child is looking for these 4 brothers as they are reading at night.  It's part of our challenge.  More work to come with these guys.

I love this project and how it turned out.  The students got dressed in all of their snow gear and thought of their favourite thing to do in the winter.  They then demonstrated what their body does as they are involved in that activity and I snapped a picture.  After they were printed, I cut them out.  The students wrote about their activity using some of the following criteria:

• must be a minimum of 5 sentences
• told in first person so the words 'I' and 'my' will be used
• find five nouns and include an adjective to describe that noun
• check that all sentences begin and end properly
• check for spelling errors
• after editing with the teacher, print legibly on the good copy, leaving lines

The students were able to choose a background to paste their photo onto and then added brown paper strips with some marker details so that they looked like the pictures were framed.

So many of their hallway buddies have been stopping and 'ohhhh' and 'ahhhh'ing because they are taking pride of place on the bulletin board outside of our classroom.