Mrs. Didyk's Super Kids – Page 3 – A First Grade Classroom Full Of Wonder

November Highlights

Posted on November 21, 2021November 21, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Did you know that Diwali was on November 4th? Some of the Super Kids celebrate Diwali. We were excited to spend the day learning more about this holiday together. Ms. Natasha, our EA, shared how she celebrates with her family. We read books, danced a traditional dance, made a Diwali lantern, and an art project. The kids that celebrate this holiday with their family were eager to share their traditions with us. We even drew the Taj Mahal!

We continued this month to learn how animals adapt to their surrounds. Each student choose a nocturnal animal to learn more about. Using the Pebble Go website and library books for research, each student created their own project complete with diorama. Each diorama needed to include the animals habitat, water source, food, and a home. Then, using the iMotion app, the class learned how to make a stop motion video. Check out our movies below!

Mme. Meg, our teacher librarian, came to our classroom with a special visitor…her tortoise.

After reading the Indigenous story of the 13 moons, we each got to touch his shell. The kids loved watching him walk around the carpet and ask questions about him.

Remembrance Day is a day for each of us to stop and remember. Explaining this day to 5 and 6 year olds can be tricky. 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. 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 use 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. 🙂

We watched the following video and talked about what the kids thought was happening and how with no words just video the message was shared.

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 poppies.

We created our own poppy art inspired by Georgia’s work and in honour of Remembrance Day.

The Super Kids have been busy developing their number sense. Math centers, math chats, interactive activities, and practicing in their skill builders all are activities that help develop their understanding of number.

After reading the book “The Royal Treasure Measure” the class estimated and measured each other friends with their feet. The kids can’t wait to measure their parents during our home sharing for our virtual conferences! Be ready parents. 😉

We have two amazing Educational Assistants that help us in our classroom. Everyone in our classroom is learning something and some of our friends need some assistance throughout their day. I want to recognize these two wonderful ladies, that help all of us learn everyday. Thank you Ms. Natasha and Mrs. Fabrri for everything you do for all of our students. The Super Kids are so lucky to have you working with us every day. 🙂

The snowy weather finally came and with it came snowman building, snow angels, and forts on the playground. Watching all this take place outside my classroom window inspired me to turn our classroom into a winter wonderland. So far we’ve cut out snowflakes for our windows and create snowman artwork for our bulletin board.

This coming week is virtual student led conferences and the 5oth Day of school. Stay turned to hear all about it. Take care. 🙂

October Highlights

Posted on October 31, 2021October 31, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Thanksgiving was earlier in the month and we recognized the day by talking about what we are thankful for during morning meeting and then wrote it down in our journal.

After reading the book “A Plump and Perky Turkey” together the class was given a STEM challenge. Create a turkey hideout for the turkey they made earlier in the day. They could use any materials in the classroom. This was a big challenge for the class. Many needed to talk it out and remember to work as a team. This challenge worked on developing problem solving skills and critical thinking strategies.

The Super Kids also created their own colourful turkeys with watercolour paints.

We had the opportunity to spend some time with Mme. Meg our school’s librarian. She read us a great story called “Spare Dog Parts” by Allison Hughes and Ashley Spires. The picture below is of Mme. Meg reading to our class. She had just come in from outside with another class for a different activity for “Take Me Outside Day”. She still had her hat on. 🙂

The book is a story about a dog that was made out of spare parts, but is perfect for its owner. Mme. Meg asked us to make a dog out of the spare parts she laid out in the library. The class was eager to get creating!

“Take Me Outside Day” is a day where educators are encouraged to take their kids outside and embrace learning outside. Our class had both Phys. Ed and Music outside. We had story time at the outdoor classroom and played animal charades. We even spent our center time with Mrs. G’s grade 1 class on the red structures area. Our class finished the day by making a special treat for the birds in our community. Using WOW butter, toilet paper rolls, string, and bird seed, each student made their own bird feeder.

Our nocturnal animal projects are in full swing. The Super Kids have been busy learning about how fall animals get ready for winter by hibernating, migrating, or adapting. We have also been learning about how different animals adapt to their surroundings like spiders and owls. Nocturnal animals have some very interesting adaptations like big eyes, sharp talons, and super hearing.

Each student has picked an animals that they have researched and are now making a diorama of that animal and its habitat. This coming week we will be working on finishing these projects and becoming directors when we turn them into stop motion videos.

The Super Kids created two art pieces in the spirit of the fall season. So many kids draw pumpkins as circles with a little stump on top so we learned how to draw a pumpkin and give it a 3D look using both chalk and oil pastels.

The Super Kids also drew their own spider webs! Using white and black oil pastel, water colour paint, and salt each student created their own spooky creation. We first practiced drawing a spider web on whiteboards. This was a tricky skill that needed some extra practice before using pastel.

This past week was spirit week in our school. Each day we came to school dressed for a different theme. Monday was rainbow day and each cohort dressed in different colour of the rainbow. We were orange. Tuesday was PJ day. Wednesday was sport themed and Thursday was our school colours. Of course Friday was the last day before Halloween, so students were invited to wear their costumes or orange and black. To say the week busy and full of excitement would be an understatement. You could feel it in the school. The kids were pumped!

The Super Kids came to school on PJ day with their favourite stuffed animal, wearing their PJs, and knowing what time their bedtime was. The morning work was graphing our bedtimes and sharing our bedtime routines. I’m so glad to hear so many of them read a story before going to bed.

When learning to read it is so important to hear what fluent reading sounds like. It helps develop vocabulary and helps make connections. Our class read bedtime stories throughout the day. Have you heard of the classic children’s book “Goodnight Moon”? Be sure to check out the modern take of this book ‘Goodnight iPad”.

The class also did their daily buddy reading with flashlights! We turned off the lights, lowered the blinds, and share our home reading books with our partners by flashlight. It helps that it was a bit of a gloomy day outside which made it a bit darker in the room.

Next the class practiced estimating and measuring using their stuffed animals. The Super Kids were partnered up and asked to estimate and then measure how many cubes long their stuffed animal was.

The class was so excited for Friday! They couldn’t wait to wear their costumes and show their friends. The class came into the classroom with Monster Mash playing and an escape room game board projected on the wall. This wasn’t going to be a normal day in our classroom. This was an epic day full of challenges that the kids had to complete to get a special treat from me to take home at the end of the day!

The challenges began with our morning message that began the eyeball challenge. The kids had to create a spider or monster with the play dough, goggly eyes, and pipe cleaner provided. They then had to write about it their morning writing journal.

Next was the pumpkin challenge where students worked with a partner to estimate and measure how tall their pumpkin was, how many creases it had, how much it weighed, and if they thought it would sink or float.

Next, it was time for a detour…a movement break!

The spider challenge was next. The Super Kids had to “code” their friends in an unplugged coding activity with Halloween themed actions such as hissing like a cat or flapping like a bat.

The witch challenge was completing the witches brew graph. The kids had to determine how many of each item was being projected and fill in a horizontal bar graph showing their data.

After lunch was the candy challenge. Each student was given their own bag of 20 pumpkin candy and 20 toothpicks. They were challenged to build the tallest tower the could and measure it with blocks.

Next was another detour…Tic Tac Toe with ghosts and pumpkins.

The monster challenge had the class following a direct drawing lesson creating their own monsters. This was a huge hit! They just loved this activity.

The final activity had us going up to the library to visit our librarian friends to read a spooky story.

With all those challenges the class earned their special treat that they got to take home at the end of the day!

I hope everyone who celebrates Halloween had a great night. I look forward to hearing about their weekends. Take care!

🙂

Into the Swing Of Things…

Posted on October 3, 2021October 3, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

How can it be the first week of October already???? September has flown by and the Super Kids are into the swing of things. We have been busy learning routines and have even welcomed two new students this past week.

The Super Kids have been busy learning about how scientists use their senses to help them observe and study the world around them. We used our sense of sight and a magnifying glass to observe our school community close up. We used our school’s outdoor classroom to share our findings. Did you know that our school has a fossil wall? Looking at it up close with magnifying glasses was a huge hit!

“I Spy” centers had the Super Kids exploring their sense of sight. They did this by playing the game spot it, using magnifying glasses to look for hidden letters, sketching their eyes using a mirror , and searching I Spy books.

Have you heard of International Dot Day? It’s a day that many classrooms around the world celebrate in September inspired by the children’s book, “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds. It’s a story about how a girl didn’t think she was an artist and how she get unstuck, tries, and even inspires others. It’s about sharing your mark on the world.

To celebrate making our mark on the world we had a dot day! The class came into the room with dots on the floor. We started the day with an epic game of rock, paper, scissors. The class was divided into two teams, they had to hop on the dots, and try to win the battle. If they did then they took their opponent to their line. It was a great way to start our dot filled day.

rock, paper, scissors battle clip

Activities included:

Dot math (domino adding)

Connect 4

10 frame math games

Button sorting

Ipad dot animation

dot animation video clip

Kandinsky inspired pastel dots

Calder inspired dot sculptures

Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander Calder were artists that used circles and dots to create their masterpieces. We looked at them closely to find the different circles and colours.

Kandinsky

Calder

The day was filled with fun, laughter, and lots of learning. 🙂

As you know, our federal election took place in September. Explaining elections to 5 and 6 year olds can be a bit challenging. I tackled it by greeting the kids at the door with an election sign in sheet. Each student had to print their name to register to vote. Then they had to watch commercials for chocolate chip and Oreo cookies. These commercials were trying to sway their vote just like political ads do on tv. Then they each took their turn behind the voting booth to fill in their ballot just like their adults were doing that same day for the government election. We invited the other adults that work with us to come by our classroom and vote in our election while the polls were open. The library staff, Mr. Brain, Mrs. Styles, Mr Poirier, and Mrs. Vankoughnett came to vote with us. The votes were tallied and Oreo won by 3 votes!!

Buddy reading, independent reading, guided reading, and home reading have all started in the Super Kid’s classroom. Word cards have been sent home with sight words on them. These words are the most common words that are found in our beginner books. One students yelled out yesterday, “Mrs. Didyk I can read this book! I’m a reader!” 🙂 Practicing daily at home helps with your child’s confidence and reading development. Thank you for your home support.

Truth and Reconciliation Day took place on September 30th and was deemed a day that schools would close by our provincial government at the beginning of September. Many school observed the day on September 29th. That day was already scheduled as our school’s picture day a long time before the announcement of Sept. 30th being a no school day. Our school observed the day on October 1st. The class had rich discussions on honouring what makes us unique and celebrating those differences. We wrote about how people should treat each other and how we can learn from mistakes of the past so they don’t happen again. We talked about how I didn’t learn about this part of Canada’s history in school and how it is important that they do. We also talked about how rocks have a special meaning to the original peoples of Canada. The Indigenous people consider them to be living things that have lived a long life full of stories. We painted our special rocks orange and wrote special words on them before we placed them, one by one, in our reconciliation garden in front of our school.

I look forward to all the adventures awaiting us in October. Take care. 🙂

A New School Year!

Posted on September 12, 2021September 12, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Welcome to all of my new Super Kids!

I’m so excited to welcome all of my new families to a new and exciting year of learning together. This year I am teaching a grade one class that is full of energy and ready to learn! This past week I had the opportunity to meet my student’s families through virtual opening day conferences. Of course I would have loved to welcome all families into our classroom, but with the times we are living in this wasn’t possible just yet. I’m crossing my fingers that this situation will change sometime throughout our school year together. I still can’t believe that many of my families haven’t been inside our beautiful school yet since their children were in Kindergarten last year and we had restrictions then as well. I view this blog as a change for my families to get a peek into our school year together and to feel like they are an important part of our learning.

Many families shared that their child was nervous about starting school and worried about what the first day would be like. I made a video of myself reading a new book that I got in the summer to help with these worries called “A Letter From Your Teacher: On The First Day Of School” by Sharon Olsen. Many students shared with me that they watched it at bedtime the night before the first day of school. 🙂

The first two days of school flew by. The Super Kids were busy learning routines, learning what recess looks like, and making new friends to play with. Being at school for a full day is always a HUGE adjustment for grade one students. Some think it’s home time at lunch, but we’re getting used to it one day at a time. 🙂

I read the class another book by Sharon Olsen called “Our Class Is A Family”. We talked about how we will be spending a lot of time together this school year and we want to feel safe and happy together. We came up with a few promises for the class contract that we will be making next week.

The Super Kids learned a dice math game called “Tug of War”. This math game practices turn taking, one to one matching, and fair play. It was wonderful to see partners excited to play together and congratulating each other when they won a round.

After reading “The Pigeon Has To Go To School” by Mo Willems, the class dove into our Mo Willems book bin from our classroom library.

Many choose to look at and read the pictures during our quiet time after lunch recess.

We brainstormed and made a list of how the pigeon felt about going to school and how we felt about going to school. Our list included being nervous, shy, excited, scared, and happy. Each student picked a feeling word for the pigeon and one for themselves and wrote it on their book page for our first classroom book. Our book will be put into our classroom library this week. The class was so excited to be authors already and it was only the second day of school!

Friday afternoon we drew our very own pigeons with a direct drawing lesson. We first drew the pigeon on whiteboards before using sharpie marker to draw one on watercolour paper. Then we painted them and got creative with our pigeon’s surroundings. We can’t wait to put them on our bulletin board on Monday.

It was a beautiful day on Friday. After snack we headed outside to play together on the structure before it was time to go home.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing my class on Monday. Take care.

Mrs. Didyk

What A Year!

Posted on June 29, 2021June 30, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Well…some how we’ve made it to the end of the school year. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this has been the most challenging year in my 21 years of teaching! My class of kids were wonderful! Teaching through a pandemic with restrictions, constant changes to who I was actually teaching, and just trying to make the experience feel as safe and warm as I could for my students was a lot to say the least. Knowing that I was responsible for these children’s health along with their development as a learner, was a huge challenge. Having such a supportive cohort of teachers and administration really helped. We were in this together.

Every kid that I had the pleasure to teach this year, has a special place in my heart.

The Super Kids

Students who went to learning from home school

Students that came back from learning from home school

The new kids that joined me in May during code red aka “The New Crew”

We have had to pivot a lot this year, but these amazing kids have taken in all in stride. Their ability to adapt to wearing masks, social distancing, losing friends to remote learning in a day, making new friends, adjusting to a new remote teacher…the list could just go on and on. I’m so impressed with them and I tell them all every chance I get!

This past Wednesday I got to see ALL my Super Kids together again. My remote kids and my in person kids met for a year end celebration through TEAMS. We waved, cheered, drum rolled our accomplishments, and just laughed together. I had tears in my eyes when I turned around and my in person kids did too. They just missed their friends, but were so happy to see them again all together!

Thank you parents for entrusting me with your children. As a parent myself I understand the stressful situation this year has been for parents. Thank you for your support at home through this year. I get to go to work each day and watch kids discover that they can take a risk, try new things, make mistakes, create friendships, and develop their love of learning. What could possibly be a better way to spend my day?

Over the past few weeks the critical worker students aka “The New Crew” have continued to dive into learning experiences and further develop their new friendships. We continued our Eric Carle author study and even tried his technique of painting tissue paper to create our own very hungry caterpillar mural with Mrs. Rempel’s class.

Have you heard of Jackson Pollock? He was an artist who created modern art.

The class loved learning about how he used house paint to create his art. I shared some pictures of his artwork from my visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. We even watched a video explaining his techniques before trying to make our own.

We gave our finished projects to our dads for Father’s Day along with some homemade BBQ rub. We mixed a bunch of spices in the hall and we had many teachers commenting on how good it made our school smell. 🙂

The class became entomologists by learning about insects and how they are similar and different. Each student picked an insect to research and with the help of the Pebble Go website created their own research project and poster.

Thank you to the Saper family for donating painted lady caterpillars to our classroom! We were so excited to watch their life cycle and watch 5 butterflies hatch right before our eyes! We released them at our outdoor classroom, but we first closed our eyes and made a butterfly wish before each one. The kids spontaneously clapped. Mrs. Rempel’s class joined us for this special event.

Learning about butterflies and other insects naturally lead to several art experiences where we used different art media to show symmetry and our understanding.

Last Friday we “Unlocked Summer”in our escape room challenge! The class completed a series of challenges throughout the day to get to the end of our game board. Challenges included a flip flop math challenge, the beach ball challenge using a balloon, the sand castle challenge using an art hub video to follow to make their own art piece, the popsicle making words challenge, the palm tree math challenge, the pool noodle STEM challenge, and the sunshine challenge that had the class signing each other’s sand pails. Detours gave us summer themed movement breaks. The day was so much fun and the class asked to start it all over again when we finished! 🙂

This past Monday our 1/2 cohort teachers that were remote teachers throughout code red, organized a fun field day for the CWS students. Activities included Canada Day activities, outdoor fun, outdoor story time, a workout class, and a paper plane challenge. The class had a BLAST!

I want to wish all of my students and their families all the best as they move into their next school year. I”m so glad that I could be a small part of your child’s life. Thank you again for your support. Take care and have a wonderful summer!

Code Red Continues…

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Well…last Thursday our provincial government announced that our current code red level in schools would be extended to the end of the school year. While I completely understand the call that had to be made, I’m also sad that my last day with my Super Kids was my last. I’m hoping for an opportunity later in the month to meet with my class for some closure and virtual celebration of our year together. The 6 remaining CWS students and I would love the opportunity to see everyone again. Our school is currently taking this into consideration and trying to come up with a plan for everyone. 🙂 Stay tuned!

I’ve heard such lovely things from the remote teachers about my kiddos! How they are attending groups, practicing their math skills, and are completing activities that have been posted on Padlet. I’ve been checking them out too! Thank you families for helping with this process. I understand it’s a challenge and everyone is doing what they can. Your efforts are appreciated and will help your child as they move into the next grade.

“The New Crew” has been continuing to learn in person at school. Our current class is made up of 6 original Super Kids and other students from 4 other classrooms! We’ve been busy getting to know each other and making new friends. One advantage of of the current situation is that the kids are meeting other kids that they didn’t know before due to restrictions and playground zones.

The plan for the end of May was to study extreme weather and that’s what the New Crew did. We looked closely at thunderstorms and clouds by doing science experiments that demonstrated how they are formed.

cloud video 1

cloud video 2

My original 6 students explained what onomatopoeia is to their new friends. We had learned about this when we created our states of matter superheroes earlier in the school year. We then brainstormed what words would be used for different weather.

Each student picked an extreme weather event and researched it. How does extreme weather form? What season does it happen in? How can people stay safe?

We then created our own Weather Newscasts using a green screen.

Students brought in props to help their scripts come to life! Below are links to the videos of my original 6. I will only be sharing pictures and videos of those kids because I have permission to do that from the beginning of the year and not for the rest of my new class.

We were so excited to share our videos with Mrs. Rempel’s CWS class who also made them. We had a premiere viewing party spaced out in the hall with her glass wall open.

Continuing with our weather theme we watched clips of Gene Kelly from “Singing In The Rain”. Just playing the clip had the kids up and trying to dance. We even had a few tap dancers!

We then created our own “Singing In The Rain” art projects on what ended up being a rainy day. We look closely at the book inspired by the movie for our art style inspiration.

Patterns, growing patterns, and number patterns have been math concepts that we were focusing on before code red and continued to after. Making science and art connections to patterns is a natural step. We learned about kaleidoscopes, created 3D mirrored prisms, and create our own kaleidoscopes to show the pattern discs the kids made. This was a huge hit! We even created our on kaleidoscope inspired circle art.

After the recent news regarding residential school, we took some time to talk about the situation in age appropriate terms. To say this is a difficult discussion would be an understatement, but necessary so that we can learn from past mistakes. We went for a community walk after painting rocks to remind our community that talking about these things creates change. We placed them along paths, in trees, and in the outdoor meeting place not far from our school.

Kids can make a difference! That was our larger them this year in the Super Kids classroom as we learned about kids that changed the world. I felt that it was the perfect time to create our own “Speak Out” art. Kid’s ideas are important to listen too. Sometimes it just reminds us what is important. Our messages are now hung in the hall with Mrs. Rempel’s class. I didn’t take a lot of pictures of this process, but some thoughts were:

Smarten up people and be kind!

Every child should be allowed to go to school!

Everyone should have access to clean water!

Everyone should be treated equally!

Keep our planet healthy!

Plant a tree when you cut one down!

Learn from your mistakes so you don’t repeat them!

I hope that all of my students before code red and after remember that… “A person’s a person no matter how small.” They all matter.

Take care and stay safe. 🙂

Code Red…What Does This All Mean?

Posted on May 16, 2021May 16, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Well…the government of Manitoba has moved all schools in Winnipeg, Brandon, and some other communities in Manitoba to code red. All schools in those areas moved to remote learning as of May 12th. Critical worker’s children are allowed to continue to come to class in elementary schools. These kids have been put with other children within their cohort in the same situation. I have been deemed an in person teacher. I now have children from 4 different classes in my classroom learning together. 6 of my students are my original students and the rest are new. My remaining students have been welcomed into my colleague’s remote learning classrooms for the remainder of code red. May 31st is the timeline at the moment. We’ll just have to see if the number of cases in our community goes down enough for that to remain the date.

So we adapt, take a deep breath, and pivot.

My mind goes to the Friends episode with Ross, Chandler, and Rachel moving the couch. 🙂

Then I remember that kids are adapting and have all year. They will be ok. They just need to know that the adults in their life are there for them. That’s what I keep reminding myself during this year with my own daughter and her school experience.

My amazing students, old and new, are adapting. One positive in this situation is that they are meeting new friends that they didn’t have the opportunity to get to know do to our restrictions. New friendships are being formed as we begin to navigate what this will look like. I’ve been told by my colleagues, that my students in their remote classes have been so kind and lovely. This is no surprise to me at all! Thank you to those families that are at home with their kids navigating remote learning and with a different teacher on top of it all!

I wanted to take a few minutes and highlight what our class had been working on up until the announcement on Mother’s Day and what my new temporary class has been up to the first few days.

These past few days my new class of students have been busy getting to know each other and establishing a routines together. To be honest it has felt like September in May! We creates our own pattern spinners on Thursday that were a huge hit! They are very easy to make so my Super Kids learning from home might want to give it a try.

spinner 1

spinner 2

spinner 3

We’ve also been making predictions and experimenting together in fun ways that make us smile and help us get to know each other!

After the announcement last Sunday, many students in my class stayed at home. Those that did come to school for those last three days together before the shift, wrote a letter and sent a hug to a family or friend that they haven’t been able to see through the lockdown. We hope we make our loved ones smile. I will be mailing them this week.

Before the shift to remote learning, my class was in the middle of our air and water inquiry unit. We had learned about windmills and how they work to provide energy and water. We examined how windmills were important in the past and even examined paintings by the famous artist Claude Monet. He loved to paint landscapes. He often painted windmills in this landscapes from Holland. He spend a lot of time there. We created our own windmill art pieces inspired by his paintings.

We were also learning about weather tools and had created our own weathervanes. The Super Kids learned about directions and how to read them on their weathervane. After testing the out on a windy day, we discovered that the wind was coming from the Northwest.

Our sprout houses didn’t only start our bean plants, but gave us an up close look at the water cycle right on our window!

Have you played Guess Who as a family? This game practices questioning, deductive reasoning, and taking turns. You can play it socially distanced and have a great time too!

Math games that work on developing our number sense and growing patterns have also been a focus these past few weeks. These games can be played individually or with a partner.

To celebrate our mothers and special ladies in our lives the class wrote a special card, framed their tulip art work, and made lemon bath salts. The rose cards were made by chopping off the tops of a celery stock. We used the bottom as our stamp to form a rose. 🙂 We hope our moms loved their gifts!

Each morning our class has a morning meeting that beginning with a writing prompt. This is continuing to happen each day in our new situation too. The students respond to the prompt in their writing books. Then a morning message is read as a class followed by some distanced partnered work. Each day there is a chit chat, which is a question for the class to turn and talk about with a partner followed by a math problem that they discuss with the same partner. The morning discussion wraps up with the class being inference detectives. What can they infer about a picture. Honestly this is one of my favourite parts of the day. The connections to experiences, lessons, and their families is great to hear. When we first started doing this step it was difficult for them to make connections. Now its hard to move on from our discussions because they have so much to say!

Have you heard of Cosmic Kids Yoga? Our class loves to follow along with some yoga on day when we don’t get Phys. Ed It helps get our bodies moving and it also helps focus our minds for our tasks during the rest of our school day.

On the last few days before the announcement, our class completely some lovely flower art that we hung on our classroom bulletin board. We learned about artist Georgia O’Keeffe and how she painted flowers close up. Her paintings give you the feeling of being a small bug on a huge flower!

We were inspired to make our own colourful flowers using our knowledge of warm and cool colours. The kids are so proud of them. They really brighten up our room!

That wraps up our last few weeks together. I’m crossing my fingers that this situation is temporary and I will get to have my whole class back in June. I appreciate each an every one of your families. Thank you to my class’ families for your support this year as we have navigated what this school year would look like. It has been a joy to spend my days with your children! Thank you to my new student’s families for helping your children adjust to this new situation. Your kind e-mails or support over these past few days have been lovely.

Here’s to getting through this together!

Yes I do realize my vaccination sticker is upside down in my selfie. My daughter was quick to point that out. 🙂

Take care and stay safe.

You’re Never To Small To Make A Big Difference!

Posted on April 25, 2021April 25, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

This past Thursday was Earth Day and the Super Kids classroom has been spending the month of April learning how they can make a difference.

One of the science clusters in our curriculum is water and air. This inquiry is a natural fit for our discussions about sustainability, the 3Rs, and alternative sources of energy. During our inquiry on the Arctic, we learned about how global warming is changing the habitat of the animals. This concerned the kids and it was a natural transition into our water and air unit with a taking care of our planet twist.

We began our water discussion by reading “The Water Princess” by Susan Verte. It’s a storybook based on the true story of a girl who brought water to her family every day and when she grew up, worked to bring wells to villages like her own. Click on the link below to see the woman who inspired the book read her story.

So many questions were asked. Where does water come from? How come she didn’t have water or a well in her village? Where does ground water come from? How do you clean water from a river? It snowed the next day so I filled a jar with muddy water and I asked the kids if they would drink it. Of course they thought that was a terrible idea. How could we clean the water? We learned about water filtration with the help of “The Magic School Bus At The Waterworks”.

We filtered the water through small rocks and sand before boiling it.

This experiment convinced the kids that everyone in the world has the right to clean drinking water. We continued our examination of water by reviewing the water cycle and learning the difference between fresh and salt water. How can we keep our oceans clean? Learning about the pacific garbage patch really bothered the kids. They can’t understand why people can’t just clean it up. By watching videos and reading stories about the problem, they decided that recycling and reducing the amount of plastic we use is a big part of the solution. One Super Kid said “You mean it’s so big that adults can’t figure it out? Ok…I guess it’s up to us to solve the problem.” 🙂 After my heart melted I realized she’s right.

Next we focussed on alternative forms of energy and air pollution. We learned air pollution is a big part global warming. We also learned about solar and wind power. Just south of our city there are wind farms producing clean energy. How does this work? How does wind create energy? We started by learning about windmills. Windmills have been around for centuries. They were used to pump ground water too. We read the book “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind” and found out that a 14 year old boy brought electricity to his family and water to his village during a drought. He reused parts from the trash and learned how to build a windmill from books. Kids really can make a difference!

His story was turned into a Netflix movie. The boy grew up to talk at the TED conference and graduated from Dartmouth University.

We created pinwheels to test out how air can move a windmill.

The Super Kids used our Bitmoji Classroom during reader’s workshop to explore more about the 3Rs, when Earth day started, and much more.

Earth Day Classroom

Armed with their new found knowledge, the class recorded 4 newscasts that they shared with the whole school the week of Earth Day. Each day teachers shared our latest video with their classrooms. We got many thank you e-mails and the kids were getting recognized at recess as the news kids. Check out links to our newscasts below.

Mr. Bryan our school’s custodian showed us the amount of recycling our school made in just half a day!

Earth day was filled with activities. We stared out on a Zoom call learning about planting through storytelling. We even planted our own bean plants to take home. We also created seed houses that we put in our window to watch the water cycle and the sprouting of a seed.

Next the Super Kids created their own Earth day art project.

Then it was time for a neighbourhood clean up. We even meet a nice lady who thanked us for helping our community! 🙂

We put all of our Earth Day writing and art work into our own reusable bag that we decorated for home.

Let’s make everyday Earth day!

Take care.

Spring Has Sprung!

Posted on March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

Spring has sprung! Ok.. I thought it had until yesterday when I woke up to snow on the ground and crazy high winds! I guess that’s spring in Manitoba. I hope that my Super Kids and their families are enjoying their spring break. I’m making the best out of the no travel situation with my family and enjoying some time together.

To get into the spring spirit our class read the book “The Tale Of Peter Rabbit” written by Beatrix Potter.

This children’s classic was a favourite of mine as a kid and my class loved the story. Thank you to the two families that sent in the classic book (a family heirloom according to the inscription in the front) and the Peter Rabbit stuffed animal after lunch that day. These two treasures were perfect for our afternoon of art making.

Deep Space Sparkle has been my inspiration for art making for years and the Peter Rabbit project just jumped out as a perfect spring activity that incorporates our nutrition lessons, sketching practice, and spring! Despite it being suggested for older students we tackled this lesson head on! “There are no mistakes in art, just opportunities” is our art motto in our classroom and boy did my amazing kiddos enjoy creating their own Peter Rabbits! We looked closely at the illustrations in to book and discussed muted colours and how we could make them with our watercolour paints. We just loved how they turned out and so did our families. So many families commented on the art project during our virtual student led conferences!

Earlier in the month I presented the class with a challenge. St. Patrick’s Day was coming up and we needed to catch a leprechaun! I told them that last year a leprechaun came into my classroom and played some tricks and we would get a wish if we could catch him/her this year. Of course we would let them go and ask them politely for our wish. To say the kids were all in would be an understatement! After reading “How To Trap a Leprechaun” for some inspiration, the kids got right into planning. We reviewed what we knew about simple machines that could be used in our designs and made a list of materials that they needed to create their traps. Many designs included an incline plane, wedges, and even a few pulleys.

The day before St. Patrick’s Day was our designing day. Creating these STEM projects is one of my favourite things about my job. The creativity, patience, and problem solving that happens during these times is amazing. Kids develop critical thinking skills and have to pivot their designs when something doesn’t work. I love how it gives some kids the opportunity to shine and help others when they sometimes feel like they need the help in other subject areas. Check out the Super Kids and some of their amazing designs below.

The next morning the class was so excited to come into the classroom. Had we caught a leprechaun? They quickly ran to their traps and found a surprise waiting for them. Footprints!!!

Traps had been sprung! Nets were down! Secret hidden holes were pushed through! We didn’t catch a leprechaun that day, but we did get a challenge from Lucky the Leprechaun. It came in a small envelope addressed to our class.

The class had to complete a series of activities to earn each colour of the rainbow to earn a price. Each activity completed earn a matching coloured pipe cleaner. The game board had a few detour movement breaks built it. Our “Unlock A Rainbow” Day was a huge hit. Activities included math problems, rainbow science, bubble science, a rainbow foods activity and much more.

It was a day full of making connections to our science units, math skills, and word work activities. The kids had a blast and I did too!

Once all the challenges were complete the kids had to create a rainbow with the correct sequence of colours with their pipe cleaners and some plasticine.

I wanted to thank the parent readers who volunteers their time to join us virtually this month to read a family favourite to us. I know that many of you wish you could come into our classroom and volunteer, but unfortunately do to the Covid-19 restrictions we are unable to do that this year. I’m crossing my fingers for next year! Thank you for spending some time with us. I’ve added a few pictures of more parents that volunteered since our last post.

The week before spring beak our class concluded our nutrition unit with a focus on dental hygiene. Why is it important to brush our teeth? What does a dentist do? What happens if I don’t brush my teeth? We began the week with two experiments that lasted the whole week. What would happen to an apple if we poked it with a pencil and created a “cavity”? We observed the apple each day and discussed what would happen if we don’t take care of a cavity.

The second experiment involved hard boiled eggs, Coke, vinegar, and juice. What would happen to the egg when placed in the liquids? What does this experiment show about the enamel on our teeth? When we brush the stains do they go away?

Have a lovely spring break and Easter for those families that celebrate it. Take care and I’ll see you next week. 🙂

Mrs. Didyk 🙂

March Highlights

Posted on March 13, 2021March 16, 2021 by Michelle Didyk

First an important anniversary…

Today marks the year anniversary of the day our staff found out that our school was going to remote learning. It was for two weeks the government told us. We knew better. It lasted for the rest of the school year. The school exhibition, that my last year’s group of students spent so long preparing for, didn’t happen and we pivoted to learning together from my home office. This school year has been full of restrictions, masks, distance, and figuring it all out. I want to publicly thank my students from both this year and last, for being so amazing and putting a smile on my face every day! You really are special kids and I consider myself lucky everyday to get to spend time with you. Thank you to the parents of my students for their kindness and flexibility. I want to thank my amazing cohort! The team that planned vertical learning together on Zoom for hours in the evening after teaching online all day. The same group of ladies that come to school and have each other’s back. You make me laugh and your support has helped me get through this crazy year. A HUGE thank you to our administration who somehow managed to lead us through all this. I can’t even imagine the stress that you faced this year. I appreciate you all so much!

March 2nd was Dr. Seuss Day. The Super Kids read “The Cat In The Hat” before tackling a rhyming word game and creating our own artwork inspired by the cat character. After reading the book, one Super Kid asked me why they were home alone all day and if their school was closed because of the virus like ours was. I had to explain that the book was written a long time ago and I’m not sure why they were alone. We then brainstormed reasons. Maybe their mom was just running to the store quickly or she had to work and the kids were actually older. 🙂

Doing a direct drawing lesson of the cat together took some patience. The class created their own “Cat In the Hat” inspired characters that they couldn’t wait to take home and show their families.

We took a closer look at the Inuit art form of soapstone carving. One student’s family had some pieces that they were kind enough to let us borrow. I also borrowed some pieces from my parents. I lived in Thompson Manitoba for a few years a child. My dad was a RCMP police officer for 36 years, so I moved around a bit as a kid. My mom got a few of these pieces as gifts from her students and the large polar bear from an artist they knew. The class took a closer look at the pieces and watched a few videos on how soapstone carvings are made. We then took bars of ivory soap and attempted to make our own carvings!

We wrapped up our Arctic unit by finishing our Arctic animal research projects and creating a diorama of their habitat. Each student had to incorporate the animal, the habitat, food source, and a water source. We then learned how to make a stop motion animation video! The kids became directors and videographers. They were so excited!

Check out our video links below!

v ideo 3

Reader’s workshop and math workshop are daily activities that our class looks forward to. Students rotate through activities that help practice their skills and work with me in small groups. The Super Kids are working on counting back and subtraction skills. We often stand in a large circle and count back from 100. If you are in a spot that you hit when you count by 5s you have to sit down. The last person standing starts the game the next time we play. This is a big challenge for many of the kids.

We took a closer look at the artistic works of artist Norval Morriseau. He is also known as Copper Thunderhead. He is an Indigenous artist that uses bright colours and layering techniques to depict animals. We were inspired by his piece “Spirit Bear” . We created our own bears using paper and shapes.

Unfortunately, our family members are unable to volunteer in our school this year. To welcome them into our classroom we decided to invite our parents to virtual story time. Any parents that would like to set up a virtual time with us to read a family favourite is welcome. The class is so excited to meet each other’s parents. We’ve had three so far and more scheduled for next week!

March is nutrition month and the class has been learning about the new Canadian Food Guide.

We started our inquiry with our snacks and lunch kits. What food groups do our snacks fall into? Why does it matter what we eat? Why do our parents tell us that we need to eat our vegetables? Each morning at snack time I have been reading a nutrition book. These books have been about our bodies, our digestive system, bones, our heart, and healthy habits. The class had been really expanding their vocabulary and knowledge about our bodies! Thank you to those families that send in a picture of a healthy meal from home. Students have been sharing their meals with the class and explaining what food groups are represented. It also has been so interesting to learn about different foods that many of the students haven’t had before!

Next week is St. Patrick’s Day and the Super Kids will be making leprechaun traps and learning about rainbows! We know that leprechauns can be really tricky. 🙂 Our design and construction day is Tuesday so we can see if we catch one on St. Patrick’s day morning. Students are to bring in their supplies by Tuesday so we can get creating! Stay tuned…:)

Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the sunshine!