Bunnicula

Having two grades in one classroom can be a bit challenging, but it does assist students in learning to become more independent learners.  They also learn to rely on each other more and to assist each other through positive interactions.  The Grade Three students are reading a novel called Bunnicula.  The vocabulary is challenging, the story is told through the eyes of a dog, and like most novels, the reader needs to make connections with the text to help understand the story.

As the students read, they use small coloured post-it notes to flag parts of the story.  For example, a yellow post-it means that the students can't read the word, while a blue post-it means that the part that the  student just read, confuses them.  If the student makes a connection, they use a pink post-it note.

Being able to talk to another student about the story is a bonus!

Words like tranquil, decipher and mongrel allow the students to use a variety of reading and comprehension strategies to figure out how the word is said and what it means.

Now the question is:  Is Bunnicula really a bunny dracula that sucks the juice out of vegetables?

Week of October 17

This week we are focused on the short vowel sound of e.  The specific rimes that we will be looking at in the classroom are -est, -ed, -en, and another one that I just can't remember tonight, but it is in the Spelling duotang.  The purpose of the practise is to get the students to see what words they can spell.  Some may be able to spell west, but others may be ready for the challenge of the word blest.  By working with your children at home, their areas of weakness should be noticed and through your support, those weak areas will be eliminated.  It's a win-win situation!  They get your attention and you get to be so very proud of their accomplishments!

School Pride

We are embarking on providing a school wide Character Education program. There are six pillars that are the focus of the program.  From the beginning of the school year until Thanksgiving, we have been focussing on Citizenship.  The mayor, Mrs. Osinchuk, came to our school to speak about how we need to be good citizens to ensure a community we all want to live in.  On Friday, the students showed our neighbourhood that we could be active citizens and they all participated in a Student Council led project, cleaning up the school yard and the areas near the school.  To identify our pride in being part of this school community, each student in Grade 1 through 6 were given a t-shirt to wear for our spirit days.  You may have noticed this cost was part of your school fees.  The students were SOOO excited to get these and wear them!  Our next pillar is Caring and we will be having a guest speaker at tomorrow's assembly to kick off this aspect of character development.

Didn't our lovely model do a great job of showing her pride?

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.