Thinking Outside Of The Box

This week was full of activities where the Super Kids could share their passions and learning with others!  We welcomed many of the student’s grandparents for senior’s day.  The seniors that joined us in the morning jumped in and played many different math games with us.  The visitors that joined us in the afternoon went with us to the school’s library and participated in several literacy centres when we got back to the classroom.

We welcomed Mr. Magill back to our classroom for senior’s day. He joined us for Remembrance day earlier in the school year and shared his thoughts as a WWII veteran. Just the other day he was honoured for his service by being knighted!  He was awarded with the rank of “Knight Of The Order Of The Legion Of Honour” from France.  You might have seen him on the nightly news or in the newspaper.  He brought his medal for us to see.  When he came into our classroom we started clapping and welcomed him by calling him “Sir”.  After all, that’s what knights are supposed to be called according to our research!

  

 

Check out the video below. Jet is chirping at the egg and Rosie is still inside. If you listen carefully you can hear her chirping back. Jet puts her head on the egg to listen.  🙂

The eggs are hatching!  The chicken eggs we have been observing started to hatch on  Thursday.  We couldn’t have been more excited to welcome these three little cuties.  Their names are Jet, Rosie and Fluffy.  A big thank you to Mrs. G’s class for letting us pick chick number 2’s name. We choose Rosie because we love the book “Rosie Revere Engineer”. This got some attention from the author of “Rose Revere Engineer” on Twitter.  One student said, “Two famous authors know our class! We’re famous!” He was referring to our correspondence with Paulette Bourgeois the author of the Franklin series and now Andrea Beaty.

  

 

April has been “I Love To Read” month at our school.  We welcomed Mr. Bell, our Vice Principal, into our classroom to read to us.  He brought a book from his trip to Iceland and a book that he enjoyed as a little boy.  I love when adults share their favourite childhood books with kids.  You can ask any of my students throughout my years of teaching.  What is Mrs. Didyk’s favourite book?  They all will say the same thing,  “Alexander And The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day” by Judith Vott.  I would take it out of my school’s library every time until my mom finally bought it for me the next time we went to a book store.  That was a big deal because I lived in a small town in Manitoba without a book store.  I can still recite every word of it and I would have dressed up as Alexander for character day, if I could only find railroad train adult PJs.  You get my point.  It’s so important for kids to see and hear the love of reading from the adults in their lives.  What was your favourite book as a kid? Have you read it to your child?

All the kids from K-3 got together in the gym for a few friendly games of book bingo on Thursday.

Friday afternoon was the first of four afternoons called “Explorations”. Students had the opportunity to pick their top four choices from a menu of activities run by the staff in our school.  Groups included cooking, soup making, gymnastics, gardening, STEM activities, coding, Mindcraft, and many more. Each student was placed in one of their top four sections.  There was so much excitement!  I ran a group called Storybook STEM.  Each week we are reading a storybook that inspires a hand on creative task.  This week we read “Iggy Peck Architect” that inspired structures.

   

The Super Kids came back from their explorations happy and excited to share their experiences.

   

I wanted to thank our school’s PAC for organizing a wonderful day for the staff on Thursday.  We were treated to many treats and goodies throughout the day and a special lunch from The Old Spaghetti Factory.  It’s nice to be appreciated and the staff was blown away by your generosity.

 

On top of all that excitement, we learned a new math game to help our developing math sense, research different classifications of animals with the Pebble Go website, classified foods into food groups, and learned how milk gets from a cow to our fridge.  Just another week in the Super Kid classroom! 🙂

   

 

Humpty Dumpty Challenge And Character Day All In One!

We had a crazy day last week!  It was “dress like your favourite character” day and our Humpty Dumpty challenge on the same day. Why the same day?  We had to use the 2nd floor learning commons when it was available and it turned into a fun and crazy day.  The designs the kids came up with was great?  How do you protect your egg? What materials do we need? How do I modify my design?  Seventeen of our prototypes worked!  The others cracked, but each student told me how they would modify their design.  We clapped for everyone and even had other teachers and classes come and checkout what all the excitement was about! Thank you to Mme. Nicole, our friendly library assistant, for her help dropping our eggs from the library.

Character day was wonderful!  Students came to school dressed as their favourite character with the books that inspired their costumes.  The kids were eager to share their books with each other and talk about why they choose it to share.

   

Check out a few examples of the characters:

 Neon Crayon from The Day The Crayons Came Home and Fly Guy from the Fly Guy Series

 Caption Hook from Peter Pan

 Belle from Beauty And The Beast and Ada from Ada Twist Scientist

 I was Waldo and our Educational Assistant was Scaredy Squirrel

We were invited to join Mrs. G’s class to take a closer look at the developing eggs with the farmer that we are hatching them for. With her expert hands and a flashlight we observed the developing chick!  We saw the nerves, heart beating, feet, and even the developing feathers.

They are scheduled hatch this week so stay tuned! We can’t wait.

 

 

 

Some “Egg”cellent Activities

Did Humpty Dumpty ever get over his fear of heights after the great fall? “After The Fall” by Dan Santat explores this idea.

We took it a step further and decided to help Humpty Dumpty by creating designs that can help him if he did fall again.  The kids ran with this idea!  Without prompting, they brainstormed ideas that related to our scientific learning throughout the year.  “How can we slow him down if he falls so he doesn’t crack?” one student asked.  Another one said, “We have to make a parachute so it can fill up with air.  Air is all around us we just have to use it.” The student’s knowledge of characteristics of objects and materials was referred too when they were planning what materials they need to help create a soft landing for the egg.  The class surprised me with their deep thinking, questions, and natural connections to our learning.  “Ok Mrs. Didyk, we need paper so we can start designing!” We plan to create our prototypes for our egg drops on Tuesday and test them on Wednesday!  We have a new student starting in our classroom on Monday and we just couldn’t do this STEM project without her.  If you still have your child’s design at home that they wanted to share with your family, please return it on Monday.  Stay tuned to see our results!

 

         

We read several books about life processes and the natural protection of eggs. The class learned that not all eggs are oval, they are different sizes, colours, and come from many different kinds of animals.  Through the use of the Pebble Go website, the class looked for not only animals that are oviparous, but the classification of the animal.  Is it a reptile, amphibian, fish, insect, or bird?

  

It was time we looked at eggs a bit closer.  So using some eggs from our local grocery store, the class did “The Incredible Egg Investigation”! After reassuring the class that the eggs did not have chicks inside of them, they partnered up to explore some math and science centres with eggs.  How many bear counters does an egg weigh?  Does an egg sink or float?  Can I estimate the circumference of an egg?  Using describing words can I describe the inside and outside of an egg? The class used smilies and adjectives for this.  My favourite simile about an egg was “The egg is as white as the Jets whiteout!”  This is a reference to our city’s hockey team being in the playoffs this year for those of you checking us out from around the world and not getting that reference.  GO JETS GO!

 

The class sorted definitions and picture cues such as hatching, albumen, yolk, oviparous, and viviparous.

These ladies along with others in the classroom decided that they wanted to help clean up or playground.  They spent their centre time creating these badges and signs that they wore outside to encourage others to help.  They brought gloves from home so they didn’t touch the garbage and even remembered to bring a bag.  With Earth day coming up, I couldn’t think of a better idea to encourage.  We will be going outside later this week to clean up our playground for Earth Day.   Earth Day is Sunday April 22nd.

  

Spring Activities

The calendar may say its spring, but we’ve been having a cool April so far.  Despite the weather, we’re diving into spring inspired activities.  Have you heard of the artist Paul Cezanne?  The class explored his artwork with a focus on his tulip masterpieces. With tulips on the tables for inspiration the class sketched their own.

 

         

 

   

After sketching and outlining, students painted with watercolour. The kids loved how bright they turned out.

      

In science we have started our inquiry into animal life cycles.  Our overall theme of patterns in nature continues by raising chickens!  Our 1/2 friends in Mrs. G’s class have an incubator with chicken eggs inside.  We have be been observing them and learning about their development.  We can’t wait for them to hatch!  In May we will be raising butterflies in our room and they will join us to watch them develop. The weather will determine when they arrive so cross your fingers for some warmer days ahead!

 

Observing the eggs generated a whole bunch of questions.  Why are they different colours? If the eggs are different sizes will the chick be different sizes too?  What colour will they be when they hatch?  Are there different kinds of chicks?  How big will they be?  How long will they take to hatch?

It’s “I Love To Read” month at our school.  We love to read every day, but this month we have organized activities as a whole school.  One is called”beams in the band room”.  Our school has windows everywhere!  We have a lot of natural light.  When you want to reading in the dark with flashlights there is only one place where you get darkness…the band room.

I love spring time in a 1/2 classroom!  The growth in all my students is evident and they are so excited to share what they can do.  Confidence as a reader takes time, but many of my students have been brave enough to ask to read to the class. I’ll admit it.  When I was their age the thought of reading in front of the class scared me.  I can still remember standing in front of the class having to read a reader (maybe you remember them too) as everyone followed along noticing all of my mistakes.  The thought still makes me nervous!  Confidence in reading develops over time, but a student will only take that risk when they feel comfortable and they know its ok to make a mistake.  I encourage my students to take risks, but we celebrate each other’s small steps so the big ones don’t seem so scary.

  

Enjoy your week.

Mrs. Didyk