Reading a Recipe

One of the areas that is often included in the Grade Three Provincial Achievement Language Arts exam is reading a recipe.  All the primary teachers help the students understand the unique way that a recipe is written.  This year I found a wonderful recipe on the "First Grade Parade" blog.  It was to make applesauce.  The students all got a chance to use a special spiral peeler to peel the apples, then we read the recipe, found the ingredients, followed the directions, measured and waited until it was done.  It was a hit!

 Everyone was encouraged to try a little taste.  We talked about the smell of the applesauce as it was cooking in the crock pot, and then the taste when we got to eat it the next day.

Those who loved it, really loved it.  Others, not so much!

We created a web, with the words in black being the words that describe the smell, and the words in red added to describe the taste.  Fancy Nancy would be impressed with the word 'spectacular'!

Here's the recipe from "First Grade Parade", just in case you have a few apples that need to be sauced!

Thanksgiving Celebration

On Tuesday afternoon, the students were an important part of the school celebration.  They chose things that they were thankful for and drew, then coloured their pictures.  These were taken and scanned and an Animoto video was created.  I need to learn how to make one of these!

The students read their sentence as their picture appeared on the big screen behind them that the rest of the school audience could see.  I was so proud!

Halloween

Just wanted to quickly share a little bit about the upcoming Halloween party. Traditionally, the Grade 1, 2 and 3 classes dress up after the lunch break, participate in the elementary school parade through the classrooms and then spend most of the afternoon playing a variety of games for prizes.  Once the games are over, the students have a healthy snack before getting ready to go home.

This year, the whole school will be celebrating on the afternoon of Friday, October 28.  The Jr. High classes will be having their dance, elementary students have some activities planned and Gr. 1, 2, and 3 will have their games day.  This will be the only day that the students dress up.  They will not dress up at school on Monday, October 31.

As with all of our classrooms, we are always very careful about the foods that are brought in to ensure the safety of all our students.  Please, if you would like to send a little something from your child to the other students in the class, do not send food items.  Little treats like erasers, pencils, stickers or other Halloween goodies would be much more appropriate.  One mother has volunteered to organize the food items for the class to eat, again to ensure safety, so we will be collecting money for the food as well as the prizes for the games.  Be expecting a letter in the BEE binder sometimes this week.

I also want to let you know that EICS has asked that volunteers in the school, or those going on field trips, have a criminal records check.  All it involves is taking a letter from the school, which I already have ready and will be sending home this week, to the RCMP station.  The check takes less than 1/2 hour and because it is being sanctioned by the school, there will be no fee.  It would be great to get that done before the end of the month so that we can have lots of parent volunteers for Oct. 28's games day!

It's here!

The 'ooohhh's and 'aaaaah's, applause and 'Hooray"s could be heard throughout our classroom when I announced that the IPad that I have purchased to use in the classroom had arrived!  Being older, these sweet little ones were able to teach me a thing or two about exactly how to use it and what each little button was for.

As most of the groups sit in pods of 4, it's hoped that we can just rotate through the room on a daily basis so that one group of 4 will be using the IPod Touch(es) and IPad at least once a week during 'Read to Self'/'Listen to Reading' time.  Here, one lad is trying the 'swipe the screen' method of turning the page in the electronic book.  I am so grateful to the generous parents from last year who knew that I planned to try these devices in the classroom this year and gave gift certificates at the end of the year to allow me to purchase the books that your children are now reading.

What a cool way for students to engage with text!  Reading is reading, and practice makes perfect!

The children are excited to get right to work, stay in one place and focus on reading!

Just a quick photo to show you the 'playaway' that I will be also using in the classroom.  These are being lent to us through the Strathcona Public Library.

Listening to Reading

In Daily Five, we are following what research tells us are the best activities to have children become successful readers.  Almost all of the students have built up their stamina to 20 minutes in the activity we call 'Read to Self' and most are ready to add another activity to their repertoire.  I have brought four IPod Touch into the classroom.  This is the reason that a set of earphones/earbuds was on their school supply list.  Using the wonderful gift certificates that I received last year, I have put a variety of stories onto the devices and the students are listening to the story as they follow along with a very motivational tool in the classroom.

I have also brought in a device called "Play-away" that can be signed out through our own public library.  Basically it is a device that has a story pre-recorded onto it, and by adding a battery and headphones/earbuds, it too becomes a listening device.  While some students are doing 'Read to Self' others are 'Listening to Reading'.  Once the entire program is up and running, the students will begin to make daily choices on which 3 of the 5 activities they will participate in each day.  Most often, I will be directing them based on their own individual needs that I will be assessing for (that's the whole assessment FOR learning aspect that I am sure that you have heard about!)

Yoga Monday

Every Monday our class heads off to our Daily Physical Education room right after morning snack to stretch ourselves, literally, through a yoga class.  Here's a few photos from today:

Moving into "Upwards Facing Dog", elongating our bodies.

This standing pose is known as the 'Mountain' pose.

If I remember correctly, this is the 'Star' pose.

This is known as the 'Child' pose. We were close to the end of our session and it felt good to listen to our bodies as we breathed in and out through our noses.

We have 20 yoga mats but 22 students!  If you have a mat that you are willing to permanently donate to our DPA room, it will be well used!

Spelling for Week of Oct. 3 - 7

This week our focus will be on the sound that the vowel a makes when it is 'short'.  This would be the sound heard in words like and, ham, cap, splat or ran.  There are so very many words that have this sound that the list is endless.  When I completed the assessment of the alphabet with the entire class, including Grade 3 students, I discovered that some students are still learning to distinguish the various sound made by the vowels and not all could share the long or the short vowel sound for all five vowels.  By focusing on the vowels now, reading and spelling longer and more complicated words will be less intimidating later.

This week I am asking the students to look at creating rhyming words using the short vowel a rimes.  Those that are ready for a challenge might like to create words that begin with blends or diagraphs (such as spl- or wh-) and those that are still remembering how to create a rhyming word will stick with basics.

Remember that there is no 'test', just learning that will move into their everyday writing.