Month: December 2016

It was surprising calm today, even though it was the last day before winter break.  Last night was our holiday concert and I think that it completely tuckered out the class!

We started out the day with our morning meeting and shared what we were looking forward to doing during our vacations.  Then we visited our learning buddies in Mrs. Dutka’s 3-4 classroom and shared some fun movement breaks we enjoy in our classroom.  After we read with them in the dark.  Their class used finger lights as part of their concert performance so we decided to use them and read in the dark together like we did for our PJ day last week.

 

After recess we watched “Arthur’s Perfect Christmas”.  The class enjoyed learning about how all of Arthur’s friends celebrate different holidays.  After lunch we had choice time.  Most kids decided to colour and go to the art centre.  Others enjoyed the abcya website on the computers.  This is when I really noticed the class tuckering out.  We were listening to holiday songs singing along, but not pulling out the games, blocks or lego.  Very unusual for this busy group of Super Kids.  Having a late night yesterday caught up with us all.  Everyone seemed to be having fun by chatting with their friends, singing along, and eating all the yummy snacks that families brought in.

 

 

It seems like some families have elf on the shelf friends visiting their houses!  Some very excited kids found their lunches all wrapped up this week.

 

The class had a busy Wednesday with the dress rehearsal, matinee, and evening performances of our holiday concert.  They did great!  I’m so proud of them. While waiting for our turn on stage we watched “Olive The Other Reindeer”.

  

I told my amazing group of kids I wanted them to have a wonderful holiday, eat cookies, play in the snow, and enjoy time with their families.  I’m looking forward to hearing all about their adventures when we get back together in a couple of weeks.

Happy Holidays everyone!

 

How did you spend your Friday?  I got to spend mine with a class full of PJ clad six and seven year olds and a whole lot of special stuffy friends!  You could feel it as soon as the morning bell went.  Excitement was in the air!  Everyone loved sharing their favourite stuffy during morning meeting, graphing their bedtimes, measuring their stuffy, and having a pillow fight all before recess.  The class was partnered up and estimated how many unfix cubes tall their special friend from home was.  Then they measured them to see how close they were.

 

Pillow Fight!

After recess the whole school had an assembly on generosity.  It is amazing how many student driven projects our school takes part in.  Some include collecting skates for refugees, tabs for wheelchairs, and cheer board hampers.  Volunteers from our class talked to the school about our winter mission and mitten tree.  We plan to sort all the donations Monday morning so I can deliver them to schools that can put them to good use next week.

Volunteers from the other 1-2 classes talked about all the cookies we helped baked last week for Siloam Mission.

After recess we joined our neighbour 1-2 classroom for a special surprise movie.  We watched “The Good Dinosaur”.

To end the day we turned out the lights, pulled the blinds, and got our flashlights out.  Buddy reading is so much more fun with a flashlight!

We have a busy week ahead with concert prep and our performances.  Four days until winter break! 🙂

 

 

The snowstorm we had this week and our concert prep, inspired our snowman art.  The class is performing “Snowman At Night” as a poem and three songs for our concert.

The kids have been practicing in music class and every chance we can get in our classroom.  While listening to our songs and singing along, we created our own snowman at night.  The concept was a bit tricky for the kiddos, but using a new art media takes time to learn.  After a while of using chalk pastels, they got the hang of it.  We discussed the moon, the light it reflects, and shadows to help understand why they needed to blend the pastel to show contrast.

The class invited Mrs. Haines’ class to share our fairytale reader’s theatre plays with them.  The Super Kids put a lots of time and effort into practicing their performances and were thrilled to perform them for their friends.

 

The Big Bad Wolf visited our classroom on Friday.  Well actually, it was me with a really big fan!  The class was challenged to design a house that wouldn’t blow down.  The kids brought supplies from home and the used the supplies we could find in our school.  They got creative and designed some amazing houses.  It became an all day event! We read the book ” If I Built a House” by Chris Van Dusen and watched the original Disney “The Three Little Pigs”video for inspiration.

  

One adult walked by our classroom and commented about our mess, and one Super Kids said, “No, it’s not a mess, it’s learning.”  🙂

 

  

 

In Social Studies we have been talking about families, traditions, and holidays celebrated around this time of the year.  After reading a book about Hanukkah, we learned a dreidel game.  It was a big hit!

 

On Wednesday, we had a special guest…my daughter Anna!  Her school bus was cancelled and we didn’t realize it until we were already at the bus stop, so she joined our class.  She loved spending time with the Super Kids, even if she was in her school uniform and had no indoor shoes. 🙂 She even headed outside with the kids at recess.

Stay warm everyone.  We only have nine day until winter break. 🙂

 

Wow!  I can’t believe that the calendar says December.  Time flies when you’re having fun.  This week the class was busy creating a snowflake art project, working on Dream Box, reading every chance they could get, learning about their sense of smell, and starting our service learning project.

   

It snowed on Monday, so we decided to make snowflakes!  We used watercolour paint to create our backgrounds and added salt before it dried to create the effect we wanted.  The kids then glued their snowflake to their backgrounds in a way that made it look like it was falling.  Their creations are hanging in our hall and the kids are looking forward to sharing them with their families.

This Friday, we started our winter mission and we couldn’t be more excited!  The Super Kids have challenged our whole school community to donate new or gently used winter gear to our winter mission.  There are many kids in our own school division that come to school not dressed for the harsh weather.  Many schools in our division welcome donations so they can give these items to their students.  Our classroom motto is, “A persons a person no matter how small. – Dr. Seuss” .  We strongly believe that we as 6-8 year olds can make a difference and help.  After first asking our principal for her help and support we got to work.  Our custodian got one of our school’s Christmas trees out for us to decorate with mittens, scarves and hats. We plan to wrap boxes to go under and around the tree for our fellow students to put their donations in.  We even have made a connection with our local high school’s knitting club.  They plan to knit scarves and donate them to our cause!  The ball is rolling and I’m so proud of my students for tackling this challenge!

  

We plan to support other charitable class projects this month too!  Our 3/4 buddies and our class will be partnering up to support a local family for the Christmas Cheer Board, and we plan to bake cookies with the Kindergarten classes for them to donate to local charities.  It really is amazing what a group of kids can accomplish and how we can make a difference.  We hope we inspire your family this holiday season. 🙂

Check out some of the week’s highlights.

  

Using our sense of smell to try to identify items.  The kids couldn’t stop laughing!

“Read to Self” time

Dream Box learning

Looks like there is a lot of snow in the forecast this week!  The Super Kids will be thrilled!