Mrs. Didyk's Super Kids

The Super Kids have had a very busy February! We began the month by celebrating Lunar New Year.  Several students in the class celebrate it at home and we were excited to learn more about it.  This year was the year of the dragon so we had to make dragons and have a dragon dance.

Dragon dance class video

All the grade 1 and 2 English classes enjoyed a fun filled outdoor day at The Fort Whyte Centre. This field trip included:

• tobogganing
• a scavenger hunt
• a marshmallow roast
• outdoor Arctic games
• snowshoeing

tug of war video

seal race

sledding video 1

sledding video 2

sledding video 3

sledding video 4

Mrs. Didyk sledding

Valentine’s Day and the 100th day of school fell on the same day this year. The Super Kids rotated through each grade 1 and 2 English classroom participating in different activities celebrating “100 days of friendship”. When they completed each activity they earned a friendship bracelet.  After the activities they exchanged their Valentine cards! Math games with a Valentine theme were also explored throughout the week.

Soapstone carving is a traditional Inuit art form.  I brought in a few examples that I have at home and a few from my parents house.  My dad was in the RCMP before he retired and one of the places we were stationed when I was a kid, was Thompson Manitoba.  My parents collected some of these beautiful pieces.

The class was given a piece of ivory soap to carve their own “soapstone” carving.

The class researched polar bears and snowy owls using the pebble go website and boom cards. A polar bear art project inspired by the artist Ted Harrison, a northern lights project, and even a giant cardboard polar bear were all done to show their creativity.

Our grade 3/4 buddies are currently helping the class research an Arctic animal of our choice.

Our school celebrates Festival du Voyeur each February. What is the Festival Du Voyageur? It’s a local festival that celebrates the French culture and history in Manitoba. Our class has a special pancake breakfast and participated in a whole school French concert in the afternoon.

This year was a leap year!  We used the extra day to learn about frogs and rotate through leap day math centers with jumping frogs. My daughter Anna didn’t have school that day so she came and volunteered in the class.

jumping frog math video_

The class then sculpted their own frogs that they are painting next week, and created their own pastel frogs.  It was a fun filled froggy day. 🙂

Stay tuned for more of our learning! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!  It’s 2024 and I’m looking forward to welcoming the Super Kids back to the classroom in just a few days.  I hope that everyone has had a wonderful winter break full of laughter and family.  I just realized that I haven’t added a blog post from our classroom in a while.  I guess time just got away from me. 🙂 I’m adding a few highlights from November and December below to get all caught up.

December Highlights

We hope that our families enjoyed their special gift from us for the holiday season! It contained many of our art projects and a special snow globe with a their child inside!

Gingerbread theme – After reading many versions of the classic “The Gingerbread Man”. The class created their own gingerbread village with the help of our grade 3/4 buddies. The class was also challenged to create a boat to help the gingerbread man get away from the fox in a STEM challenge using recyclable materials.

STEM Challenges- We had an afternoon of challenges that included creating a jingle bell maze made out of lego.  The kids started out making their own and quickly wanted to put their mazes together to create a giant one! The second challenge was to make a parachute for Santa, just in case he needed it on his long sleigh ride.  Taking their time and realizing that the string had to be the same length took some time, but the kids were so excited when they tested their projects.

PJ day had the kids reading with flashlights, comparing their stuffed animal sizes, and reading bedtime stories.

 

December had us working on holiday themed art projects and games.  We learned about Hanukkah and learned a fun dreidel game too.  Our winter concert was early in the month and the kids loved sharing their music learning from their music class with Mrs. Styles with their families. Being in the school at night was so interesting,  They weren’t sure what to do. 🙂 One student started to put out our binders and I had to remind them that we already had school that day.

The class started to learn about coding with the help of the program Kodable.

November Highlights

Diwali is a celebrating that some students in our classroom celebrate.  We learned about this celebration with the help of one of our classmates families.

Our school had a Remembrance Day assembly where we honored the brave men and women who have defended our country in the past and do so in the present. We learned about the poppy and what it represents. The following commercial helps the class understand and began our discussion. The class created a wreath for the assembly and made their own poppy art after learning about the artist Georgia O’Keeffe. She was a famous artist best known for her close up flower paintings,  A few of her painting are of poppies and the kids created their own out of pastel that are inspired by her artwork.

Georgia O’Keeffe artwork

Reading practice and exposure to a variety of literacy activities

End of October – Halloween activities and pumpkin centers with our buddies

I’m all caught up!  New Year’s resolution… to stay more up to date with our blog. I’ll see everyone in 2 days.

It’s hard to believe that we are nearing the end of our second month together!  The Super Kids have been busy learning and growing as a class.  Since our last post we have had some events happen in Manitoba that are wonderful learning experiences for young kids.

Sept 30th is the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. Since the day fell on a Saturday our school recognized this day on the 29th. The concept of this day is a big topic that can be challenging for young kids to understand, but important to explain.  The founder of orange shirt day was Phyllis Webstad. She has written children’s books to help children understand the importance of the day.  We read several of her books and watched the following videos.

We then spend the afternoon painting rocks and putting words and messages on them that meant something to each of the kids.  Truth, kindness, you matter, and love are some of their choices.  We then placed them in the garden in the front of the school.

On October 3rd our province held the provincial election.  This provided our class with a great opportunity to learn what an election is and what their family members were voting for.  The kids came into the classroom and were told that they had to “register” to vote.  They each printed their names on the sign in sheet.  They then were told that it was election day and their vote mattered!  They had to make a very important decision.  Which cookie is the best…chocolate chip or an oreo? As you can imagine, they were very excited.

After scanning QR codes and watching commercials for both cookies to try to sway their vote, we talked about how this is what happens in an election.  People who want your vote make commercials, send out flyers in the mail, set up signs, and even come to your house.

Next it was time to try each of the cookies before voting in our secret ballot.  Mr. Brain, our custodian, even came by to vote. We helped him with the voting process and gave him a “I Voted” sticker. We then tallied up the votes by actually making tallies on the board.  This was very exciting and you can imagine.  Chocolate Chip won in our classroom by 5 votes.  Oreo won in Ms. Goodbrandson’s class by 1 vote.  This was a great way to explain how different part of the province might vote in different people from different parties just like we did with the cookies.

The Super Kids have been learning about their 5 senses by exploring the world around them and using science tools to help.  We took magnifying glasses outside to look closely at our school grounds.  The class has used their senses to describe things they hear, smell, touch and taste.  The class is extending their understanding of the 5 senses by researching nocturnal animals and exploring their super senses.

 

Thanksgiving was a time for the kids to reflect on things that they are thankful for.  The class created their own turkey art and had their first STEM challenge.  After reading the book “The Turkey Escape” the class was challenged to make a turkey hideout where I couldn’t see the turkey inside using materials from the classroom.  Part of the challenge was to work together in a group.

Reader’s Workshop is a time during our day were students rotate through different stations that focus on their literacy skills.  One of the stations is working in small groups with me.  Some activities include magnetic word building, decodable text reading, Boom Cards with word building on the iPad, Raz Kids, and much more.

Our 3/4 learning buddies came down to our classroom to get to know us better.  Each group created their own rainbow of things that they had in common.  We look forward to working with them this year.

We created our own pumpkin patch!  Through a direct drawing lesson, students learned how to draw a pumpkin.  They used both oil and chalk pastels to create their art pieces.  They are hanging on the bulletin board and will be coming home for Halloween.

Take care and stay tuned for more highlights of our adventures together. 🙂

 

 

Welcome Back!

The Super Kids have been busy getting used to their new classroom, new routines, and making new friends. Establishing our classroom community has been my top priority.  We read “Our Class Is A Family” by Shannon Olsen to help with this process.

After reading the book we created our own classroom family promise.  We decided that our classroom needs to be a safe place where we can try our best, where it’s ok to make mistakes, and we all support each other to achieve our “yet”.  What does that mean.  Well, we all have a “yet”.  Something we are working on learning.  Something we can’t do independently yet, but we will in time.  Everyone’s “yet” is different, but we are here to help our friends grow and cheer them on.  We create our own classroom family poster with our promises and we all signed it.

• to be kind to others
• to listen and support others
• to learn from our mistakes
• to be bucket fillers

What is a bucket filler? Just ask a Super Kids!  A bucket filler is a person who does kind things for others and helps other feel good.  In turn, it helps them feel good too.  Check out the book I read to the class explaining bucket filling to the class.

 

What is a scientist?  This is the essential question that is leading our scientific inquiry into the 5 senses.  Scientists use their senses to observe and interpret the environment around them.  The Super Kids are scientists too!  We are diving in by first learning about the eye, it’s parts, and scientific tools that help us see the world more closely.

International Dot Day was on Sept. 15th. The class was excited to do dot themed activities.  “The Dot” is a book by Peter H. Reynolds that inspires kids to make their mark.  The Super Kids had a blast exploring different dot themed activities and creating a dot collaborative art project. Twister, Connect 4, dot day interactive art, and domino math are just a few of our activities.

We also learned about two artists that used dots in their art work.  We read “The Noisy Paint Box” which is a story about the artist Kandinsky.  He is known as one of the first artists to paint what is now called “abstract art”.  He painted what music felt like to him.  After looking at some of his paintings, we began creating our own dots that will be put together to create our own version.  We had to put on some classical music while we did this. 🙂

The second artist we learned about was Yayoi Kusama.  She is a modern artist that loves to create immersive environments and art pieces with dots.

Stay tuned for more adventures and we start our new year together. 🙂

 

It’s hard to believe that it’s the middle of June and we have a few more days left of the school year.  It’s amazing to me how much the kids have grown!  Yes, every year I says this, but it’s so true.

At the end of May all the grade 1-3 students in our school division head to St. Vital Park here in Winnipeg to dance together.  The division is divided into two so it actually happens over two days.  The kids practiced there folk dances during music class with Mrs. Styles.  We were lucky to have such a beautiful day.  To be honest…I have been to this event every year of my teaching career and I’ve been there in every weather situation imaginable!  The weather on our day was perfect.

 

dancing 1 video

dancing 2 video

dancing 3 video

The month of June is always a busy one, but this year the weather heated up earlier than normal.  When the weather gets hot you can feel it in the school.  The kids are ready for summer and so are the teachers.  To keep my class engaged and still learning we have been enjoying weekly themes.  These themes encompass  all subject areas and are just long enough to get excited about and just short enough that the kids don’t lose interest.  Our first week wsa a camping theme.  The class rotated through camping themed literacy and numeracy games,  had a nature scavenger hunt, read camping themed books, and was challenged to use their knowledge of 3D shapes and materials to make a tent that was waterproof.

After reading “Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping”, the class created their own camping emergency kits.  What would they take with them on a camping trip?

 

The weekend before our camping theme began, I was driving up to my cottage when a bear with her 4 cubs crossed the road.  The mother bear stopped, turned and stared at me.  She was waiting for her last cub to cross the road.  It was amazing and I just had to share it with the class. We also had to make a bear project and learn about bears.  Norval Morrisseau also known as Cooper Thunderbird,  is a famous Canadian Indigenous artist that is well known for his animal artwork.  We learned a bit more about him and created our own bear artwork inspired by his colours and style.

We finished the week creating our own solar ovens out of materials that would attract the sun.  We used the heat to make a tasty treat! We made smores and it was a huge hit.

The second week of June was beach week.  Activities related to water, ocean animals, and sand.  The kids loved coming in to ocean waves on our projector and watching ocean animals during quiet time.  The class learned a new game called flip flop math, researched ocean animals, created their own sandcastle art projects, and were given a STEM group challenge to create a tall structure with pool noodles and toothpicks.  They then had to measure it.  We even went fishing for words during word work time. 🙂

This past week was games week.  We play games all the time in our classroom, but this week it was turned up a notch so to speak.  We enjoyed some quality time with our 3/4 buddies outside, learned a card trick to teach our families, enjoyed field day organized by our Phys. Ed teachers, and made our own spinners and kaleidoscopes.  To end the week the class was challenged to create a mini golf hole using materials borrowed fro the gym and items in our classroom.  We partnered up with Mrs. G’s class and created our own 9 hole mini golf course! It was a blast to play the course. 🙂

spinner video

kaleidoscope video

This weekend was Father’s day. The class made their dads a special gift. Gifts for our families in my classroom are always art.  After learning a bit about Jackson Pollock the class created their own “art in motion” projects. Splattering paint and rolling marbles helped the kids create their own masterpieces.

As you can see from our busy month so far, we’re always learning.  Take care.

Good morning and happy mother’s day!

The class created their own versions of “Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge” painted by Claude Monet as a gift for their moms.

After learning about Monet and his waterlily garden, the class used pastels, watercolour paints, and a bit of salt to create their own versions.  The kids created cards and decorated their bags before putting their artwork into a frame.

Our class along with the other grade 1 and 2 English classes, enjoyed going on a field trip to MTYP.  The Manitoba Theatre For Young People, was hosting a production from Australia called “ZOOOM”. Yes, it has three Os. The interactive production was inspired by the classic book called “Harold And The Purple Crayon”, but with a modern twist.  I have to be honest and say that it was my favourite production that I’ve seen at the theatre with a class and I’ve been to a lot of them!  The kids were asked to come with a piece of the dark.  We talked about what that could be in our class and decided that since we were learning about the Earth, Moon and Stars we should make a representation of that.  When the kids entered the theatre they were greeted by kind people who took their dark and gave them light in a form of a hand held light.  The production used lasers, screens, and the hand held lights to create an imaginary world.  There was even a dance party with the light switching colours!

 

Part of the grade 1 science curriculum is daily and seasonal changes.  We have been talking about these changes throughout the year as the season’s changed.  We have been examining this process a bit closer this month with the essential question, “How do patterns affect daily and seasonal changes?” Our inquiry explored how we have day and night, how the sun is the center of the solar system, how the Earth moves in an orbit, how the moon orbits the Earth, and how we have seasons.  Making connections to time was a big eye opener for the class.  A year is one orbit around the sun, a day is on rotation of the Earth etc.  The class made stop motion videos to show their understanding of this process.  The videos are on the ipads at the school and I’ll add a few to this blog post later this week.

We read the book “The Sun Is Kind Of A Big Deal” and learned that the Earth is in the perfect location in our solar system to support life.  The Sun gives us heat and light.  We also have to protect ourselves from the Sun and the class brainstormed ways we can do that.

The kids are in the middle of using the Pebble Go website to research the Sun, Moon or the Earth for a research project. They are working in partners to find information.

Earth Day was earlier this month and the class learned that we only have one Earth so we better take care of it.  The class participated in activities and stories related to the reducing, reusing, and recycling.

 

Each students made their own reusable shopping bag and recycling truck art project.

Dental hygiene was a focus in health this past month.  Why is it important to visit the dentist, brush our teeth, and eat healthy?  We found out through a variety of books, videos, and experiments.  The class even made a tooth ninja to help remind our families about the importance of dental health.

Earlier in the month we had a big down pour.  The sky opened up and it rained!  I took the opportunity to drop everything and talk about bit about why it rains and the water cycle.  We read the book “The Big Umbrella” from our school library and painted our own big umbrella art pieces.  We discussed what an umbrella had to be made off to protect us from the rain and what materials are waterproof.

Easter was a few days after spring break.  We read the book “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter.  We looked at the way the illustrated painted to pictures and how the pictures were a muted colour.  The kids then followed a direct drawing lesson to sketch and then paint their own versions of Peter Rabbit!

I Love To Read activities also happened that week.  Dress as your favourite book character was a hit!

Math activities this month have focussed on partnered math games reinforcing addition and subtraction strategies.  The class has been learning the names and attributes of both 2D and 3D shapes.  Guided math groups have been working on fact families.  More examples and pictures of our math time will be in our next blog post.  During this time I’ve been focusing on the groups and haven’t taken that many pictures. 🙂

Until next time…

 

 

Each March our school has a special evening called Exhibition Evening.  Each classroom shares their learning in a different way.  Our school hasn’t been able to have this special evening due to Covid restrictions for the past 3 years.  When our school shut down the first time we were just 6 days away from showcasing our learning.  It was great to welcome families back into our school in this special way.  Our classroom has been diving into a fairy tale inquiry for the past few months.  With each fairy tale we made connections to ELA, math, health, social studies, math, art, and science.  As you can tell from previous posts, these connections have lead to some great learning opportunities.  Our Exhibition Evening had a variety of activities for families to rotate through.  Families were greeted by a carousel in the hallway with documentation of our learning, art project connections, and explanations of curriculum connections.  Families then entered our classroom through the drawbridge into our fairy tale classroom.  Centers included:

1. Our classroom created book based on the traditional Indigenous story of the 3 sisters.  Mme. Meg, our teacher librarian, helped us with this process and the class was so excited to share their book with their families

    

2. The Jack and the beanstalk station had our classroom created beanstalk, kid created castle made of 3D shapes, parts of a plant activity, and measuring using Jack and the Giant’s footprints as measuring tools.
3. The Three Little Pig station had the students retelling the story with a storyboard, showing their learning about maps and compass directions, and punctuation.
4. The Little Red Riding Hood station explained what a healthy meal Little Red should be bringing to her Grandma.  Students shared their learning by explaining the food groups and sorting food examples.
5. The Goldilocks station had students share their understanding of hot and cold through the use of thermometers.
6. The Humpty Dumpty station was based on the book “After The Fall” where Humpty faced his fears and turned into a bird.  Students shared their writing on what they don’t feel comfortable doing yet, their STEM activities, and what other animals Humpty could have turned into other than a bird.
7. Reader’s Theatre Videos

 

Check out the video and pictures of the exciting evening below.

 

We hope that our families enjoyed the evening as much as we did!

The set up of our classroom, castle door, and art projects were the highlight of our inquiry.  The class loved creating the environment to showcase their learning.

About a week before the exhibition our class, along with the other grade 1 and grade 2 classes, went to The Fort Whyte Centre for a field trip.  We were supposed to go in February, but the day was the coldest day of the year!  Our re-scheduled trip was a huge hit! Activities included sledding, a marshmallow roast, a scavenger hunt, outdoor games, and even snowshoeing.  Thank you to the volunteers and educational assistants that came with us and helped make it such a fun day.

sledding video1

sledding video2

outdoor games video

It was a fun filled day and many of the kids fell asleep on the way back to the school.  This tired Super Kid fell asleep on his friend.  🙂

Festival Du Voyageur was celebrated in our school at the end of February.  Festival Du Voyageur is held in the city of Winnipeg each year to acknowledge and celebrate French culture and history. We had a pancake breakfast in our classroom, made bannock with some parent volunteers, participated in whole school bingo, attending a French concert in the gym, and enjoyed stop drop and jig daily.

French concert video 1

Jig dancing video

Stop, Drop and Jig video

I hope everyone has had a wonderful spring break and I look forward to continuing on our learning journey on Monday.  Take care. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week the Super Kids celebrated two big days! Valentine’s Day and the 100th day of school. The kids were so excited to celebrate their classroom friendships and making it through the first 100 days of learning together.

Valentine’s Day began with our 3/4 learning buddies from Ms. Lagimodiere’s classroom joining us for some acts of kindness bingo and reading stories that they picked from the library about friendship.

Next, the class exchanged Valentine cards with each other.  They couldn’t wait to deliver the cards to each other and open them.  If your child brought Valentine cards, thank you for sending cards in for the whole class so students didn’t feel left out.

Valentines themed centers were a highlight of the day.  The kids rotated through activities such as sight word heart bingo, coding a friend with valentine’s actions like blowing kisses and picking flowers, building a structure out of foam hearts, reading Valentine’s themed books, and themed math games.  We even had a timer set for 10 minutes per station with hearts and music. 🙂

 

The 100th day of school was on Friday and the class was told that there was going to be a mystery for them to solve.  The class was invited to wear black, sunglasses, and come ready to investigate like secret agents.  The class came in and I greeted them with an app to confirm their identify with their fingerprint.  When they were granted access to the classroom they were asked to find their secret agent badges and be ready for a top secret briefing.  To say they were excited would be an understatement!

Classroom setup 100th day video

   

All the grade 1 and 2 classes on the English side of our school and the grade 1 classes on the French side of the school rotated through activities set up in the rooms to help them earn words that when put together at the end of the day formed a sentence clue.  With this clue the class would hopefully solve the mystery of who agent 99 was and why they stole all of the zeros in our classrooms!  Activities involved fingerprint science, ninja training, a laser beam obstacle course, secret message in invisible ink, 100 cup towers, coded messages, bowling, and special glasses.  The kids were so pumped!  These activities took the whole day with some breaks for snack, recess, and lunch.  At the end of the day they all headed outside for some Phys Ed time before solving our mystery.

When arranging the words collected it formed the sentence…”The zeros were not stolen, they are just lost!”  Where do things go in our school when they are lost?  The lost and found in the office.  We took off to the office and found them!

The kids left school with smiles on their faces and a bit tired from their day being a secret agents.  It was a great day where the kids got to spend time in many classes in our school and I got to spend time with so many kids that go to school in our building.  I missed being able to do that during our Covid restrictions and I’m so glad that we have the opportunity to be a school community again in these meaningful ways.  🙂

Back in early January, (I guess it’s been a little bit since my last post :)) we celebrated Lunar New Year and the year of the rabbit.  The Super Kids explored the zodiac calendar and learned what sign their birth year was.  We listened to traditional music and learned about the traditions surrounding this holiday.

We then created our own rabbit art with a red backing for good luck.

Cosmic Kids yoga is a fun way to get our bodies ready for learning.  Living in Winnipeg Manitoba during the winter can result in some indoor recesses.  25 first graders can get a bit restless, so activities like this help us get moving.

 

Feb. 2nd was supposed to be our outdoor field trip to The Fort Whyte Centre.  Unfortunately, it was the coldest day of the year so far at -44C with the windshield.  We had to reschedule, but we had a great day as school learning about groundhogs and shadows for Groundhog Day.

We were fortunate that the cold snap only lasted for a little over a week and we could head back outside for some outdoor fun together.

Math games are a big part of our classroom learning and help our developing number sense.  The Super Kids love getting into partners and practicing their skills with a fun game!

Our fairy tale inquiry is in full swing!  We have been reading many fairy tales and fractured fairy tales over the past month. Curriculum connections are being made to all areas of the grade 1 program.  Learning about parts of a story, predicting what comes next, summarizing the plot, and making connections is a daily experience as we read a new tale.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears was a story we focussed on earlier in the month.  After reading a few versions of the story told from different points of view, we wondered if the science around the story was actually possible.

Would the temperatures of the porridge bowls be possible? Could Mama’s bowl be colder the Baby Bear’s bowl?  First, we needed to learn more about the thermometer and how this important science tool works.  The class then learned about the different systems used to tell temperature and noticed that the thermometer had a number line on it.  The kids then experimented by putting thermometers into hot and cold water and noticing what happened.  There were a lot of excitement watching it go up and down.

After testing the porridge, setting a timer for 15 minutes, and then checking the temperature again, the class came to the conclusion that it wasn’t possible for Mama Bear’s bowl to be colder.  We then had to brainstorm reasons why it could be that way.  One student thought that maybe Papa Bear put it in the fridge to cool it down like his mom does for his baby sister.  Another student thought that maybe the porridge was poured in the bowls in a different order.  Then the class created their own Goldilocks art.

Next we tackled the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty”.  Now I know what you’re thinking. Humpty Dumpty isn’t a fairytale, but there are several fractured fairy tales with Humpty as the main character.

“After The Fall” by Dan Santat the story of how Humpty faced his fears and climbed back up eventually only to fully crack open and become a bird.  This opened up some writing opportunities to talk and write about what our fears are.  We then wondered what other animals Humpty could have been.  There are more than just birds that hatch from an egg.  The class then learned the difference between oviparous and viviparous animals. The class was challenged with two STEM projects related to Humpty Dumpty.  First they had to work together in groups using loose parts found in our classroom such as lego, blocks etc. to create a wall that Humpty could sit on.  Each group was given a plastic egg to test with.  After the wall was built the group then had to measure how tall and wide their structure was.

The second challenge was to create a parachute for Humpty to use so he wouldn’t fall and break again.  The plastic egg had to stay in the cup to show this.

Next, we experimented with materials that we thought might protect a real egg.  We have an egg allergy in our classroom so the eggs were in ziploc bags with the materials we wanted to try and only I handled and dropped the egg.  The kids first predicted if they thought that the egg would break when surrounded by bubble wrap, Easter grass, cotton balls, water, and yarn.

egg video

The week wouldn’t be complete without a fun Humpty Dumpty art project.  We plan to use watercolour and oil pastels to finish our project this week.

This week we will be celebrating our classroom friendships on Valentine’s day and the 100th day of school on Friday.  Stay tuned for more adventures. 🙂

 

 

 

I hope that everyone is having a restful holiday season!  We’re on winter break for another week, but I was looking through the pictures from this past month and decided to write a blog post before the new year starts.

Our class has grown with two new Super Kids recently and we are excited to welcome a third beginning in January.  We found out about our new class member on the last day of school before winter break, so look for another updated contact list in early January.

When the weather gets cold, we end up having indoor recess from time to time.  Some movement breaks are necessary.  Sometimes these breaks can be to get our bodies moving, but other times it’s to calm our bodies for focused tasks.  Cosmic Kids yoga helps us do just that.  If you haven’t heard of it before, check it out on Youtube.

 

 

Partner work through math games, literacy games, and buddy reading activities helps us practice our developing reading and mathematical skills.

Computer science week was held earlier this month.  The Super Kids learned about the coding app Kodable and became computer scientists!  After learning how to code on the program, we took that knowledge and applied it to an unplugged coding activity. Can you code your gingerbread man to his house? Groups then tried to follow other groups instructions to see if it would work.

 

Have you noticed that there are many versions of the classic “Gingerbread Man” story?  We did!  Our class signed out all the different versions our school library had to compare and contrast them. We looked at the settings, characters, and if the fox actually eats the gingerbread man.

Each student drew their very own gingerbread house and outlined it with a glue/paint mixture to represent the icing.  Next chalk pastel ws used to add detail. We created a gingerbread village on our bulletin board. 🙂

We even learned to sew with the help of a parent volunteer!  Students sewed, stuffed, and decorated their gingerbread man before taking it home as a gift to their families.

I then challenged our class to build a boat out of recyclable materials to help get the gingerbread man across the river and away from the fox.  This STEM project had the kids working together, problem solving, and re-designing.

Our 3/4 learning buddies spent some time with us the last week of school.  We headed outside to play and then shared some hot chocolate.

Throughout the school year, we have been learning about family traditions and different holidays celebrated.  Hanukkah was a holiday that began the last week of school.  We read stories and learned a dreidel game.

One of our art lessons this month was to create our own reindeer!  The class first had a direct drawing lesson on whiteboards before drawing their reindeer on watercolour paper and painting their creations.

The last week of school was spirit week and the last day was PJ day.  The class brought a stuffy from home to read to with flashlights and to uses our estimating skills.  Students partnered up to estimate how many blocks long their stuffy was before measuring them.

I’m looking forward to hearing about everyone’s holiday when we return in a week.  Enjoy the rest of your break and I’ll see you next year. 😉