One Hundred Days Smarter!

Tuesday may have been the official 100th day of school this year, but we have kept busy doing great learning activities for the last three days!

Our favourite principal came down to our class to see what all the fuss was about!

The parents outdid themselves as they helped their shining stars get a t-shirt together to wear to our 'fashion show' where the models were my little kiddos....THANKS PARENTS!

So creative....

They loved being the centre of attention!

We read, and coloured, and counted, and helped and enjoyed so many different centres!

Every student was engaged with their learning!

They all loved building with 100 tiny red Solo cups and were proud when it stood up tall.

One centre was about creating a pizza graph,

and another challenged the students to print 100 words!

There were dice games,

Lego building,

and everyone got to make a 100 Fruit Loop necklace!

They were a hit!

There was also a scavenger hunt around the room, looking for all 100 number cards

and filling in the chart to reveal a little surprise!

The students wrote about what they could not do on the first day of school and what they can now do, 100 days later.  They were very proud of their accomplishments and....

I hope you are too!

Mixing Math and Religion!!

With our silly February schedule, every lesson has to do double duty!  Today is the very important last day of Ordinary Time before we begin Lent tomorrow.  We tied the traditional way to use up the butter, milk and eggs (making pancakes) with the upcoming 100th day of school.

We read this story, The Wolf's Chicken Stew, and then wondered if the 21 students in our class could eat 100 pancakes.

We took a quick pole and the results are shown above.

We use a hundred chart every morning during our Morning Meeting.  In a practical way to see if the students understand and can use the 100 chart, recognizing the rows and columns and the way that the numbers relate to each other, the 100 chicks from the story scattered around our classroom.

Together, we figured out, through lots and lots of discussion, how to put the chicks onto a blank chart with 100 spaces.  Once done, the children went looking around the classroom, trying to find the rest of the little chicks.  As each child brought back a chick, he or she put it onto the chart, explaining their thinking or reasoning.  It gave me a practical opportunity to assess where the students might be making mistakes in their understanding of the place of numbers in relationship to other numbers.

In the meantime, our volunteer mom was busy making 100 pancakes!

They were silver dollar size.

100

We passed them all out and found out that almost every student had a pile of four pancakes, but some students got to have a heap of five!

Along with syrup, an apple juice and some banana pieces, the students enjoyed

their Shrove Tuesday treat.

Yes!  21 students can eat 100 pancakes!

Winter art and writing our first reports

Sometimes I forget to take all the pictures that I need....the watercolour paper was taped down onto each students' desk when they walked in.....that caused quite a stir!  Where you see the white vertical lines was where there was also strips of painter's tape.  The students used the sharpie pen and drew a line across their page to act as the horizon.

 For most of the students, this was a new term....where the sky and earth meet is the horizon.

The students then painted with LOTS of water and some acrylic paint to create the sky.  The pages were taped down to allow the papers to dry without too much crinkling and curling.

Having the desks out of commission meant that most of our work in the morning was done on the floor.  Not a single child complained!

The students used a gray crayon and lightly went back and forth about half way on the left side of the white vertical lines, to offer shading  to the trees.  Using a Sharpie pen, each tree was outlined and six pairs of small lines were added to the right side of the tree to suggest that these are birch trees,

The students then were given a choice of two Alberta animals that might be found in the forest in the winter.  The animal pictures were done in silhouette and with all the little details, the students had to cut very slowly and carefully in order to ensure they scene looked right.  I think they did a fine, fine job!

Click here to watch a beaver work on repairing a dam

We watched a few little videos about beavers, as we continue to talk about things that identify us as Canadian.  We've talked about our flag, our country, the RCMP, Niagara Falls and have been talking about moose and beavers this week.  Together we created this chart....which can become sentences by using the words "Beavers are   or  Beavers can   or    Beavers have" at the beginning.

The students made those choices and then decorated their reports so that each looked like a beavers.

They were very proud of their completed work.

Not all the sentences start with uppercase letters or end with periods but it was a great start to having the students believe that they are writers!

Some of our visitors

Last Friday, our Grade Six buddies came to our classroom and helped the Grade One students transform a white sock, some elastics and a few other odds and ends, 

along with some rice,

into a handsome little snowman!  Thanks for Reagan Tunstall for the original idea!

Father Raj did not have time to visit us last week but we were pleasantly surprised to welcome Father Jim into our classroom today.  The students asked him a few questions, the best one being "Do we have to get baptized?"  Father handled that very tough question with grace and love.  The students just LOVE when he comes to visit!

Tuesday, Zero the Hero came to visit our class, as he does every ten days.

He arrived to announce that it was the 90th day of school and he left the students a 'craftivity', which they completed today.

Zero the hero wanted to know what the students would look like when they were 90 years old.

The pictures and the writing that the students did eventually will become one of our classroom books.

They were just too cute, so they went up on our wall to enjoy for a while!

Do these two look the same?

Enjoy the following...

love the beard,

and the wrinkles,

and the bald spot!