As you all know Halloween was on Monday and the Super Kids were so excited. Anytime you have a holiday party on a Monday, the week is usually very interesting. Monday morning we talked about Halloween safety. The class came up with great things to remind each other of. Looking both ways before crossing the street, having your parents check your candy before eating it, saying thank you, wearing something reflective, and trick or treat with a buddy. As promised, we played our Halloween math dice game and challenged each other.
After lunch the class changed into their costumes. They were thrilled to share their costumes with each other. We even had a parade through the school before going to music class.
The afternoon was full of Halloween themed activities and fun.
This week many of the students wanted to use the left over plasticine from our dioramas, that I hadn’t returned to the art room yet, during centre time. They started creating a three little pigs scene and acting out the story. That got me thinking and before you know it we were reading different fairytales and different versions told from different points of view. We changed our tent to a castle and are looking for a very large box to make our own castle. If you have one let us know. 🙂 The class is asking to do plays so I guess we’re heading in that direction. I love when students direct our learning. The trick is to recognize their interest and set up learning situations to help foster that interest. I’m looking forward to seeing where we go together.
Remembrance Day is fast approaching, so on Friday we talked about why people wear poppies in November. We discussed how they’re made, why they’re made, where you can get them, and how the money goes to veterans and their families. As you can imagine, there were many questions and your child might have many for you on the topic. I find this topic difficult to explain to my class of 5-8 year olds. The concept of war is very big so the only way I know to explain it is to relate it to our playground. We discussed how the world is like a playground. Sometimes you get along with others and sometimes you have disagreements. It is how you solve those problems that is important. You have to us your words and listen to each other. Sometimes countries can’t use their words or compromise. They fight each other and Canada’s role is to try to help keep the peace and help those countries talk. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. One Super Kid said that the world leaders need to come to our school to learn how to talk to each other and use our classroom peacemaker book. 🙂
We then learned about the artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
She was an artist who looked at object close up and created wonderful pieces of art. She is famous for her flower pieces. Several of them are of poppies.
We created our own poppy art inspired by Georgia’s work and in honour of Remembrance Day. They are hanging on the large bulletin board in the hallway.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Winnipeg is supposed to get to 18 degrees celsius today! No one told mother nature that it is November yet. Usually it is cold and maybe snowing. SHHH…don’t tell her! 🙂
While out trick or treating J all of a sudden stopped and very purposely looked both ways and informed me that you had taught them how to do that so they would be safe on Halloween! I had a little chuckle! Thanks for helping to keep our kids safe! Also, the way you described war was so perfect! I never would have thought of it that way and it makes perfect sense!
Thanks for your kind words Melissa!