Dem Bones!

The students had a lovely day exploring the skeleton

on Friday.  The books "Dem Bones"by Bob Barker

helped the students see how the bones were connected

and the story "Skeleton Hiccups" by Margary Cuyler really 

got the whole class giggling.

If you can imagine, they used an unusual item

to create their own skeleton.....q-tips!  The idea

came from a magazine a few years ago, but is a

favourite to do each year.

I try not to promote eating candy in the classroom, but I could not

resist the little packets of colourful 'bones' that I was able to find.

The students are just learning how to put information onto a graph.

We have done a few examples as a group but

each little packet had a different number of each colour of 'bone'

so it was a perfect time to see how the students were able to

manage on their own.

There were steps to follow, and someone to check up on them,

but overall, they were able to line up the bits, colour in the

boxes, count and record almost all on their own.

The 'bones' were sent home so that they would not equate the

math activity with candy!

Aren't these skeletons just the cutest?

Each child could decide how they wanted the arms

and the legs to be put onto their own skeleton.

Each one has such personality!

In our exploration of the seasons, the students sat under the same tree that

they sat under in September.  The photo taken then was during the season of

summer, and the one on Friday was, of course, during the season of Autumn.

It will be hard for the students to believe that the season of Winter does not

begin until December 21st!  Will the snow stay away until then?

Fall is in the air!

The students worked on finishing up their multi medium art

projects that were started with the painting of the background.

They were able to add a photo of themselves with their hands

high above their head.  In this scene, it looks like they are

throwing up the beautiful Autumn leaves into the air.

The leaves were made using their pincer grips to tear tiny pieces of

construction paper.  They turned out lovely and are proudly hung

in the hall for their friends to see.

They were very focused,

and really wanted to take them home.  They will be saved for

their scrapbooks.  By the by, I have 16 scrapbooks.  Did you remember

to send one in for your child?

Friday was also the first of the four Yoga lessons

that are part of the extracurricular activities that our

class will be taking part in.

Miss Teagan led the students through a number of poses.

encouraging the students to breathe

and try to enjoy the various ways their bodies were being stretched.

They were so 'into' the experience!

Here's the 'turtle' pose,

and the 'tree' pose

and the 'cobra' or 'snake' pose.

A little bit late!

Somehow or other, I sort of forgot that I had not put these photos onto the blog.

Father Jim came into our class on Maunday Thursday.  He worked with the students to make the connection between Jesus' words and actions at the Last Supper, and the gift of His Body and Blood that the children will receive through Communion.  He was very impressed with their understanding.

He also thought that the students were doing a lovely job of recreating Leonardo Da Vinci's painting. The students were trying to remember the names of all of the 12 Apostles.

It was a lot of work....

...but I hope that you were able to display this labour of love at your Easter table.

The students also worked hard on telling the story of Passion Week.  The stories will continue as they hear more about Jesus' work with the disciples, helping be ready for his final ascension into Heaven.

We have finished our stories about Kaya, an Indigenous girl from the New Perce nation in the USA.  It is an important new curriculum requirement that students in Alberta have an understanding and appreciation for our First Nation peoples, and I believe that the students in my class see that those who came before us, lived a life that reflected values based on respect for the laws of nature. 

Who Doesn't Love to Learn?

Here's one of the ways that the students have been practising their new skill of subtracting two digit numbers.

Each student had a bag of dominoes, and to create their subtraction equation,

they took out two dominoes, recognized which two digit numeral was larger and wrote their equations onto their own whiteboard.

The students were encouraged to talk outloud as they went through the steps.  The step that most students are still having some difficulty is recognizing that you cannot do 0-2.  Some of the students will say 0-2=2 instead of 0-2 means I need to regroup.

Curious George is the main character in the books that will lead our language learning.  We are focusing on answering questions in complete sentences, finding answers within the text, and recognizing the elements of a story.

The students are also continuing their work on becoming better authors, so the focus this month is on finding interesting ways to start and end a story.

The students got a chance to practise drawing this cute monkey through directed drawing lessons.

They transferred their work onto a smaller piece of watercolour paper, outlined their drawing with a sharpie pen,

and then used watercolours to complete the picture.

The watercolour paper is taped in place until it dries.  This prevents the paper from curling.

You can see all the great monkey portraits on the bulletin board picture above.

Look what one little smartie was able to do.  I think we were talking about how we were going to have to make groups of students because I only had 7 copies of the book we were going to read.  This cutie said "I know what to do.  There are 21 students here and we have 7 books.  We need to put the kids in groups of 3."  I then showed the other students how to write this mathematical thinking in an equation.  They thought it was so cool!

I think they are so smart!

Exploring the North Through Art

Thanks to Rubble Road for coming and spending the morning with my class this week.

The students had the opportunity to work with rasps to carve a pre-cut piece of soapstone.

They learned that having something wonderful happen takes hard work and they were all determined to create their own version of a famous Inuit sign post.

Inukshuk stand like sign posts in the bleak northern landscape, showing the way to hunting or fishing locations or even where food has been buried.

Once the edges of the rock were smoothed, and some details added with the rasps, the students used three different grits of sandpaper to smooth the stones.

I love the look of determination and

of joy, as they created and knew that they were very capable!

One boy even said "This is going to be my job when I grow up!"

What a wonderful opportunity to try something new!

Once the stones were all dried out, they were coated with tung oil to bring out the colour.

They will be sent home after the conferences of Wednesday night.

On Friday, the students used a new medium, chalk pastels, to create the dancing Aurora Borealis.  Though the students had the same materials, just like each time we see the Northern Lights, they are different as they vividly dance across the night sky, so too were their final products different and unique.