Month: February 2017

When was the last time you sat down and read a Dr. Seuss book?  Did you know that Dr. Seuss’ birthday is coming up on March 2nd?  This week we began an exploration into Dr. Seuss books.  We had some brave student readers who read to the whole class.  We created a “What We Notice About” chart full of things we noticed about his books.  They are usually hard cover, they have silly rhymes, he used his imagination to create characters, the pictures don’t use a lot of straight lines etc.

  

 

    

The class noticed different word families that Dr. Seuss used in his books and the way they flow when we read them.  We talked about how these books remind us of poems because some poems rhyme too.  This lead to us looking at other rhyming books in our classroom and noticing the word choice in them.  Naturally we decided to create our own Dr. Seuss inspired rhymes!  We worked through the steps of ” I Do” which means when I work through my own rhyme on the chart paper.  I shared my thought process and editing by using crosscuts and carrots when needed.  Next it was time for the “We Do”.  Together we worked through a rhyme that painted a silly picture in our heads.  By this time the Super Kids were eager to try on their own, which we call “You Do”.

      

The poems that they have started to create are wonderful!  They are creative and paint a silly picture in the reader’s head.  As you can see they could pick their own writing paper and we aren’t finished yet, but their ideas are fantastic!  We plan to make a book of our silly rhymes to share with our families at conferences and our buddy classes.

Keeping on our Dr. Seuss theme, we created our own Seuss inspired houses in art class! We welcoming our 1/2 buddies from Mrs. Haines’ class for our lesson too.  We began by watching a video about Dr. Seuss houses and through some direct teaching, the students learned how to draw stairs, 3D doorways, and windows.  We practiced on our whiteboards first and when we felt comfortable we tried on our drawing paper.  The results are fantastic!  I can’t wait to display them.  🙂

  

  

If you are noticing some Dr. Seuss books coming home for home reading you now understand why.  We are eager to read them, work on our flow, and notice the silly language.

Hope you have a great weekend.

 

 

Friday wrapped up French week at our school.  We headed outside to enjoy some exciting activities organized for us by our amazing french committee.

Activities included snow sculptures, tug of war, sled races, and snow soccer.

 

 

After tug of war, we were exhausted! We had to take a rest and enjoy the sunshine.

   

We headed inside for a few activities too.  Curling was in the gym and the dress like a voyageur race was in the community room.  We even got hot chocolate! 🙂

   

At the end of the day the kids were tired and wet from the sticky snow.  They couldn’t have been happier.  We had our afternoon snack and most laid on our classroom pillows.  A few almost feel asleep!  I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.  Monday is Louis Riel Day in Manitoba.  See you next week Super Kids.

 

 

Happy belated Valentine’s Day everyone!  On Tuesday, the Super Kids loved spending the day talking about friendship, exchanging cards, and working through valentines themed activities.

  

 

My favourite thing to do at our party was to exchange cards.  Every child had a bag sitting at their spot and they loved handing out their cards to each other.  Of course we had to open them and thank each person for their gift.  We watched “Franklin’s Valentine” while enjoying our yummy snacks provided by some of the Super Kid’s families.  You might notice that some of the students are wearing scarfs around their waists and hats.  That is because it was also dress like a voyageur day.

 

We hope that our families enjoyed the valentines that we made for them.  Each student put a special written message to their families on the back of the watercolour hearts we made last week.

Wednesday was our special pancake snack.  The middle school students in our school served us pancakes that our principal and vice principal very kindly made for the whole school.  We headed down to the gym and enjoyed our treat and listened to french music.

   

Today was the 100th day of school!  How is that even possible? One Super Kid even came dressed for the day…

After I had a good laugh, and gave her a big hug, I told her that we have actually been together for almost 300 days!  She is one of my awesome grade 2 students. 🙂

This morning we made a class book called “100 Days Smarter”.  Each student was asked to think about what they didn’t know, when we started this year of school, that they know now.  There were so many different answers.  I didn’t know how to add big numbers.  I didn’t know who Vincent Van Gogh was.  I didn’t know how to stretch out words when I am reading.  I didn’t know how to make new friends.  I didn’t know I had so many questions I wanted to find the answers to.  🙂

After recess all the 1/2 classes worked together.  We had different 100 day centres set up in the 4 classrooms.  Kids had a passport that guided them through the centres.  When they completed the activity they got a stamp.  In our room the students played race to 100 and the 100 second challenge.  The idea was to stay moving for 100 seconds.  They could do jumping jacks, hula hoop or just move!  It was a hit.  Many came back multiple times to do it again.

  

Our grade 3/4 learning buddies joined us this afternoon and we played three new 100 themed math games with them.  This practice will help us next week when the games will be used during our guided math time.

  

Tomorrow is the final day of french week.  In the morning we will be making a french craft and in the afternoon it’s winter fun day.  Activities include sledding races, tug of war, snow soccer and many more.  The kids are going to exhausted at the end of the day.  I will be too!

 

This week was “I Love To Read” week at our school.  There were activities throughout the week like mystery readers, DEAR time, and the cookie thief mystery.  I set up the mystery in the library for the whole school to participate in.  The idea was for each class to come to the library for a special story on pyjama day with Mrs. Z, our school librarian.  After she read “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” by Laura Numeroff, she would give each child a cookie, but someone stole the cookies!  The students had to follow the clues, which lead them around the school, examine the three suspects fingerprints and determine who stole the cookies.  One student wanted to call the police!

 

When they solved it they marched down to the office to confront our principal to find out why she took their cookies!  Of course she played along and told them that she had to make sure that they were nut free. 🙂 She then gave every student a cookie.

             

The Super Kids loved the activity and it sounded like everyone else in the school did too.  You could hear students running around the school solving riddles and rushing to the office to confront the principal.  Thank you to the amazing middle school teachers who helped create clue that would challenge the older kids in our school.  When we got back we took time to examine our own fingerprints and to determine if we were a loop, whorl, or arch.  We even found a cookie themed movement break on the Gonoddle website.

DEAR time could happen anytime, so we were prepared.  As soon as Mr. Baker, our vice principal, announced it was DEAR time we dropped everything and read.

 

  

This coming week is very busy!  It is French week at our school so we will be participating in many activities including a music guest on Monday, dressing like a voyageur on Tuesday, pancake snack on Wednesday, craft day on Thursday, and winter fun activities on Friday!  In the middle of all that there is Valentine’s day on Tuesday and the 100th day of school on Thursday.  We may need oxygen at the end of it all!  The kids can’t wait and to be honest, I can’t either!   🙂

 

 

We had to share our new favourite movement break with everyone!  This week is “I Love To Read” week at our school and to get into the spirit we have discovered “Don’t Read Like A Robot” on www.gonoddle.com

https://app.gonoodle.com/channels/blazer-fresh/dont-read-like-a-robot?source=channel

Today we had an assembly to talk about our exciting week and ended with the whole school reading together.  Kids could go anywhere in the school they wanted to read.  The whole school was filled with all kids reading together.  It was wonderful!  I don’t have a picture because I was reading too!

Our reader’s workshop centres have a valentine’s day theme.  One centre had the students making words out of the words “Valentine’s Day” and the other has the students matching contractions.

  

With so many students away last week, many used their choice time to catch us.

 

 

Other students were inspired by the recycle talk we had on Monday morning.  They decided to use our left over newspapers to get crafty.

Stay tuned…”The Great Cookie Mystery” happens tomorrow and its PJ Day too!

 

This week has been a bit of a strange one.  So many of my students were sick and it seemed like we had a rotating door of students coming back and others falling ill.  Monday we had 6 away, Tuesday 7, Wednesday 8, and Thursday 5.  We didn’t have school on Friday, so I hope that everyone is on the mend!

We took this time to finish projects, review skills, and talk about staying healthy.  During morning meeting we discussed how we can prevent spreading germs by washing our hands, coughing into our sleeves, and sneezing away from friends.  We read books about it and even watched a “Sid the Science Kid” video about germs.

The Super Kids worked on their space research projects this week and shared them with each other.

One exploration centre this week was all about constellations.  The student got to create their own constellations using glass beads.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, so we decided to create our own hearts using pastels and water colour paint.  Each student was encouraged to create their heart using a variety of shapes and designs.

On Thursday, we started the day with genius hour.  As a class we discussed how you can generate questions about a topic.  We reviewed what are question words like who, what, when, where, did etc.

They were off!  Each Super Kids grabbed their folder, a computer if they needed it, and were off thinking and questioning about a topic of their choice.  Subjects range from Lego, Pokemon, tigers, legends of lake monsters, and many more!  They are pumped!  Make sure to ask your child what they want to learn about.  What are they excited about?  You may be able to help guide, provide information, or help encourage your child’s enthusiasm.

On a different note, I love watching my students play games.  I enjoy watching them strategize and plan their next move.  Three of my students challenged each other at centre time this week.  It lasted days!  When centre time started they would run to the checkers board and shout out checkers!  It put a smile on my face every time.  🙂

I hope all of my Super Kids are feeling better and I look forward to seeing them on Monday.  I’m crossing my fingers.  🙂