Month: March 2016

Well it’s finally here…SPRING BREAK!  I’m sitting at my cottage in my sunroom looking out over the fresh snow we got last night and hoping it will all melt soon.  Yesterday I didn’t have a jacket on and now this!

 

March seems to have flown by.  I can’t believe we had Saint Patrick’s Day, reports went home, and conferences all happened within a very short period of time.

 

The Super Kids had a blast on Saint Patrick’s Day.  We learned about the story of who Saint Patrick was and the legend of how he drove the snakes out of Ireland.  We also discussed why people celebrate this holiday.  We learned that many people in North America have ancestors who immigrated from Ireland and that it is a national holiday in Ireland.  I explained that my own Grandmother came over from Ireland as a teenager with her family.  Of course this started a discussion about what the Super Kids knew about their families.  It tied back to the holiday discussions we had in December.  Many of our Super Kids were not born in Canada.  I set up some fun Saint Patrick’s Day centres such as graphing Lucky Charms cereal, a word search, how many words can you make out of Saint Patrick’s Day, and a leprechaun race to 100 using place value. We had a great time.

In science, the class has been learning about the water cycle.  We created our own water cycle by making clouds and raindrops.  We even have a puddle on our floor!  We watched a “Sid the Science Kid” and a “Magic School Bus” video to reinforce our learning.  The kids enjoyed sharing their knowledge with their families when they came for student-led conferences this week.

After spring break we have decided to take our new knowledge about the water cycle and study rainforests.  The Super Kids are excited to make our own kapok tree and understand why the rainforests are being cut down.  Is there something that we can do to help?  I can’t wait to see where the class run with this.  We started to paint the trunk of our tree we made out of the washing machine box that I made my husband keep.

Check out the video some of my Super Kids made with our student teacher this week.  They were experimenting with dominoes and slow motion animation! I have a feeling its just the beginning.

dominoes

Have a wonderful spring break!

Did you know that March is nutrition month?  The Super Kids have been talking about healthy foods and looking for the food groups in our lunches and snacks.  We’re getting pretty good at picking the “always food” rather than the “sometimes food” at snack time.

Many of the Super Kids are loosing their teeth!  The tooth fairy has been very busy lately.  We decided to talk about dental health and use our knowledge of “how to”writing to write about the steps to having healthy teeth.  We read several books, watched youtube stories, and talked about our own trips to the dentist.

One Super Kid decided to make a poster for our class at centre time.  She showed her learning by drawing pictures of a healthy tooth and an unhealthy tooth.  She even labeled the parts of the tooth!

 

We went to the our school’s  “Make Tank”  on Friday and explored the different materials and activities.

I’ve noticed that our centre time, which is independent choice activities, is become more focussed.  The centres used to be more play based in the beginning of the year.  As the year has progressed the activities have too.  This week there was a writing centre where students were choosing to write stories with descriptive language.  There was a timed block tower centre.  Some kids decided to time each other and see who could build the tallest tower during a specific time.  Other kids found a box and made a puppet centre.  The computers in the classroom are being used to research their passion projects.  One boy brought in a rubix cube and it was huge deal!  They even took it outside for recess. One student decided to design a purse for another student complete with handle and a sketched design.  Cards in another big hit in the Super Kid’s classroom.  The class loves to play games with them, but this week they decided to build card towers too!  I could go on and on.  Watching kid’s minds develop by questioning, wondering, exploring and creating is my favourite part of this job!

 

Have a great weekend!  Spring has sprung in Winnipeg!

We finished our “Cat In The Hat” art on Thursday and they turned out fantastic!  I love how kids dive into an art project without hesitation.  I’m so proud of them!

Friday we had three genius hour presentations.  The Super Kids keep coming up with amazing projects to share and they are getting very good at asking questions.  One Super Kid even asked the class about the vocabulary in his power point! He had the definitions ready to go.  Their presentations are really developing.  The topics this week were The Winnipeg Jets, dolphins, and birds.  Check out the pictures of the kids presenting below.

I took a few pictures this week just because I loved seeing my kids engaged and helping each other.

  One Super Kid helping another with her word family matching.

Choice time centres.  They could pick any activity and these two girls wanted to work on their genius hour projects.  The substitute educational assistant that was in our room couldn’t believe they were grade 1 and 2 students.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.  I can’t believe it is already March.  Time flies when you’re having fun.

 

Today was “Dr. Seuss Day” in the Super Kid’s classroom.  You might not know it, but today is Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  He would have been 112 years old.  The class has been talking about all of the authors that he inspired and we enjoy today.  These include Mo Willems and Robert Munsch.  The class was eager to learn all about him and read his books.  The kids were greeted with their very own “Cat In The Hat” hat when they entered the classroom.  Of course I had to take a picture.

Our morning work was to find rhyming words in the Seuss books from our class library and from the books brought by students.  The class eagerly got to work and found tons!  Dr. Seuss books are full of opposite words too.   We found lots of them.  After recess we watched the story “Green Eggs And Ham” off of the Barnes and Noble website.  It was read by Rachel Ray and some students actually recognized her voice.

Next it was Seuss centres.  We had a Seuss puzzle, the Seussville website, graphing coloured  goldfish inspired by “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”, a Seuss inspired math game, and a spinner game with real or nonsense words.

 

In the afternoon, the Super Kids sketched “The Cat In The Hat” and we plan to paint him tomorrow.

After recess we made and tried green eggs and ham.  It had mixed reviews. 🙂  We even offered some to Mrs. Cormack our principal.  She seems to enjoy it.

It was an amazing day of learning. I loved the class’ enthusiasm, energy and willingness to try something new.  Horton said it best “A person’s a person no matter how small!” These kids take that to heart.  We have it above our classroom door now.  They know that they are important and valued.  I hope your day was as fantastic as ours was.

Mrs. Didyk and the Super Kids