Month: September 2016

Do you ever have one of those days when you start off with a plan and it goes in a completely different direction?  You don’t mind because it was a great day and better then you planned.  Well, that was our day.  This morning I decided to take my class on a nature walk to find signs of fall.  The forecast was perfect…warm and sunny.  We headed out armed with ziploc bags to fill with our nature treasures and magnifying glasses to explore our community.  We were gone for a whole hour!  The class loved our walk by the ponds in our community.  They picked up leaves, goose feathers, twigs and anything else they could stuff in their bags.  We even read a story under a beautiful maple tree.  Well, half of a story until we had to change locations because of some wasps!

  

    

We headed back to school and the kids dug into their bags to examine their findings, just like real scientists.  The rest of the afternoon plans went out the window. Actually, there saved for tomorrow.  We sorted, categorized, counted, created nature pictures, and even shared our treasures with our 1/2 buddies from another class.  We watched a few science clips from “Sid The Science Kid” with our buddies about using magnifying glasses.  This is my favourite kind of day!

 

 

  

The bulletin board outside our classroom door is full with our fall birch tree art!  The class discussed the differences between warm and cool colours before creating our backgrounds for our art pieces.  The process took us a few days, but we are thrilled with the way they turned out.  If you are able to pop by the classroom or happen to be at our school, come check out our display.

  

Reader’s Workshop has taken off this week.  The kids understand how the centres work and are able to rotate through them.  During this time, I am able to pull over a “book club” to work with me.  This is a group of students at a similar reading level working on developing reading strategies.

I had to add one more picture. 🙂 One of my awesome Super Kids decided to draw me at choice time.  She even had my clothes right. I think she nailed it!

Wishing you all a super night!

Home Reading has officially started this week in the Super Kid’s classroom.  The kids are very excited to pick “just right” books and share them with their families.  We talked about how books are like shoes.  What do I mean? Well, a “just right” book fits us like a shoe.  If the book is to easy it doesn’t help us practice our reading skills, just like we can’t walk in a shoe that is too small.  A book that is to hard doesn’t help us either.  We end up getting frustrated just like wearing a shoe that is to big.  Of course I had to demonstrate this by trying to put on a student’s shoe and then my husband’s shoe.  I’m encouraging the students to begin to pick their books independently with a watchful eye from me.  We have talked about how we can look at the first page of text and try to read it.  If it is to hard or to easy, we should try again.  Of course during this process some books may come home that are not “just right”.  It happens. Many of my grade 2 Super Kids are experimenting with the books from the classroom library.  Many are fascinated by the Moe Willems books.  I realize that some kids are able read these very well, but I’m encouraging the students to read them with expression.  Some are asking to read them to the class during story time.  This is great!  Kids encouraging and inspiring other kids to read is wonderful to see.  Once their “book club” reads with me during guided reading lessons this coming week, they will be taking books home at their level from that group as well as books from the classroom library.  I’m encouraging the students to right down a book they are reading at home in their home reading folder too.  The most powerful reading happens from a book that student’s pick themselves.  Thank you to all my Super Kid’s families for supporting this process at home.  I can already see my amazing students fall in love with reading.  It is my favourite part of my job!

Our 1/2 buddies from next door, came by this week for some cooperative play.  I broke them up into groups and gave them a floor puzzle to put together.  Some struggled with the idea for working together, but quickly realized that this was a team activity and that everyone needed a turn.  Many hadn’t done a puzzle in a while and needed reminding that straight edges are the outside of the puzzle.  This activity works on cooperation, team work, and spacial awareness.  Puzzles can be tricky!

Our Kandinsky art is up in the hallway!  If you’re in the school, be sure to check it out.  Now what can we make to put up on the bulletin board by our room???? Stay tuned. 🙂

 

We have a class cheer that we like to due at the end of the day or whenever we feel like a little pick me up.   We bang the floor with our hand and yell “1, 2,3, 102…..1, 2, 3, Super Kids  DO DO DO!”  The kids stick their arms out like they’re flying Super Heroes into the circle.  There are always lots of smiles and giggles.

Next week, our school has picture day on Monday and the annual Terry Fox Walk on Friday.  Have a great weekend everyone!

This was our first full week of school. The Super Kids were busy learning new routines and getting to know their 3/4 buddies.  This past Thursday was “International Dot Day”.  Haven’t heard of it? Well, the children’s book author Peter H. Reynolds wrote a series of inspiring books for children about being artists, making your mark, and being proud of your accomplishments.  As you can probably tell, I love these books!  The first of the series is called “The Dot”.  “International Dot Day” was created to celebrate this book and the way it encourages children to be creative.

Peter H. Reynolds also wrote the following books with the same theme.

     

After reading “The Dot” the kids were excited to create their own dot art.  Thanks to the help of a parent volunteer, we painted our classroom window with many different sizes and colours of dots.

We also learned about two famous artists that used dots as the inspiration for their art work.  First we learned about the famous Russian artist, Kandinsky.  We looked at his artwork and talked about what shapes we saw.  We found out that he was inspired by music and his paintings represent what he felt music looked like.

I read “The Noisy Paintbox” to the class to introduce Kandinsky and to help us understand his life.  Many students noticed that the book had an award on the front.  It has won the Caldecott Award, which is an award given out annually to books that are recognized for their illustrations.

  

We then created our own abstract dot art inspired by Kandinsky.  We put on some classical music and got started.  We used pastels and water colour paints to create our own masterpieces.

  

The second artist we talked about was Yayoi Kusama.  She is a Japanese artist who creates modern art by using dots.  She encourages children to make their own artist mark on the world and has created many interactive rooms, for kids to create dot art.

  

 

The class thought her art was fun and made them giggle.  We used the following website to create our own Kusama inspired dot rooms.  There are many art inspired kids games on this website.  It is the Queensland Art Gallery website from Queensland Australia.  Check it out. 🙂

www.qagoma.gld.gov.au/learn/kids/home

As you can tell it was a great day!

This week we also got started on math workshop.  We began practicing math activities, how it rotates and getting used to the different stages of games so everyone is challenged in the classroom.  Beginning next week, I will be pulling groups of kids over to work with me on the different math skills that they are working on during this time.

 

    

Our grade 3/4 buddies came to our room for our first buddy time.  I’m not sure who was more excited, our class or our buddies!  Many of the 3/4 students have been in my class before and were excited to be the older buddies this year.  We got to know each other, read some books, played some cards, and we even taught them a new movement break.

  

Friday afternoon was HOT in our classroom.  The air conditioning is broken in our school and the room was so humid.  We decided to go outside for our centre time.  Sometimes you just have to swing!

  

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.  Remember there is no school on Monday, so I’ll see all of my Super Kids on Tuesday.

Mrs. Didyk

 

 

 

The Super Kid’s classroom has been learning about being bucketfillers.  Do you know what a bucketfiller is?  A bucketfiller is a person who helps others feel good, includes others, and is kind to friends.  We read “How Full Is Your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and discussed how we could be fill someone’s bucket.  Check out the link below to watch a video of the book.

We then brainstormed different ideas for our class contract.  Everyone had great suggestions.  We came up with:

The Super Kids promise to:

• be kind and helpful to others
• treat others the way we want to be treated
• take turns
• include others
• be bucketfillers
• have fun

Then we all signed it and hung it on our classroom wall.

Our class started reader’s workshop this week.  Each groups gets to cycle through two different literacy activities each time we have reader’s workshop.  The kids were very excited to get started.  We made new profiles on the app “Epic” for each of the new Super Kids.  The returning grade two students helped set them up.  Epic is an app we use on the iPads that is like Netflix for books.  It is free to classrooms.  The kids love personalizing their profiles and finding books that are interesting to them.  Check it out at home if you are interested in using it.

  

The Super Kids started their journals and were excited to share their writing with other students in the classroom.

Each day we have centres.  This is a time where the kids get to pick their activities independently.  Many are picking to go to blocks, lego, computer, games and puzzles.  Some students are generating questions at the science centre.  “What is sand made of?”  and “What lived in this shell?” are just a few examples of the questions being generated already!  A few girls are making their own bucketfiller play that they want to present to the class when they are done.

It has been a wonderful start to our year together.

Mrs. Didyk 🙂

Welcome back everyone!  I want to thank all the families that visited the classroom for opening day conferences.  It was great to meet new families and reconnect with returning ones.  I enjoyed showing each student around the room and helping them feel comfortable with the beginning of our year together.

 

The past few days have been a busy time in our classroom.  Many are experiencing what it is like to be at school for a full day for the first time.  It is wonderful to see how my returning grade 2 students are helping their new grade 1 friends adjust.  The cooperation during centres, recess, and at desk work is wonderful.  I found myself just standing back today and watching them interact with each other.

Today we went to the library for the first time.  Mrs. Z and Mr. Baker read a story to us and we picked out our books for the week.  Remember to return them for next Day 4.  Many of the super kids decided to keep reading their library books during choice time.

During math time, we became apple investigators!  We measured, estimated, and weighed our apples.  We even tasted them after counting how many seeds were inside them.  Yummy!

An important part of our day is movement breaks.  Everyone needs to move and get their wiggles out.  “Just Dance” videos do the trick!  Today we danced along to Ghostbusters.

I hope all of my super kids enjoyed the first couple of days of school.

See you Monday. 🙂

Welcome back to school!  I hope everyone had a fantastic summer with family and friends.  I am very excited to welcome my new students and welcome back my returning super kids.  I’ve been busy getting our classroom ready for our year together and can’t wait to show it to you.

  

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone for opening day conferences. I can’t wait to see where the year takes us. 🙂

Mrs. Didyk