Friday 19 December 2014

Friday's News


We did it! We have all survived the last week of school.  Yippee!

It's been a crazy  week.

First let me share with you some of my favourite gifts from my students.  My daughter and I made these tacky sweater cookies last night.  They were a lot of fun.


Here's how they turned out.  Tacky and Yummy!



Next I received this teacher survival kit.   It included Advil, Chap stick, Hand sanitizer, face mask, hand cream, gum, and mini chocolates.  


And finally, we have been working on our snowman stories.  First I read my students the story Snowmen at Night.  

Then, we brainstormed ideas of what else snowman could do at night.  After that, we made our good copies of our stories.  I have to say they turned out really well.  Can't wait to put these up on our writing wall. 







And finally, who's feeling like this today. Woot woot!

Happy Holidays' folks!





Friday 12 December 2014

Friday's News



Happy Friday!

We hope you have all been having a great week.  What have you done to survive this week?

This week we have been focusing on paragraph writing.  Students are working hard to give a strong topic sentence, three juicy details, and finishing with a fitting conclusion.  


For our bell work we are focusing on the short U sound.  These visual posters really seem to help my low learners.


As a school we are holding a draw for students to enter to win a gingerbread house made my the older students at our school.  These gingerbread houses are outside the main office and I have to admit, I usually catch several students hanging out and looking them over rather than on their way to class.  lol.

Along with a Gingerbread house draw, we are also holding a school wide toy drive.  I have to say I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of our community.  I love watching how excited my students are to go and play a toy they have brought in for needy family under the tree.  
Makes my heart warm.


This week we have continued with our 15 days of Giving.  Our Librarian asked if we could help her decorate her windows for Christmas.  So an amazing EA at our school came in and taught us how to make these beautiful snowflakes.  I have to say I was really proud of my students for all the hard work they put into these.  

Now it's your turn, how has your week been?  How have you survived? Go ahead and share all your news by linking up below with InLinkz.

Friday 5 December 2014

Friday's News



This week we started are 15 Days of Giving.  For Day 1 we were to tidy a neighbour's classroom.  I have been really sick this week and was away the first day of our 15 Days of Giving.  When I came back on Tuesday it was reported to me that my students had told the class that had cleaned our room that they didn't' do a good job.  I know.  Enter shock and horror face here.  So needless to say we took a lot of time Tuesday morning talking about how much thought and effort goes into doing a good deed for someone and why it's important to show appreciation.  I asked them how they would feel if the other class had responded the same way, and of course they said their feelings would have been hurt.  I challenged them to make this right and hope our little chat sunk in.   

It's these little life lessons that don't come in the curriculum, but are so important to teach. 

Needless to say the rest of our 15 Days of Giving have been a blast.  


I think our favourite part of the 15 days of giving was making these cute cards for a retirement home. My students loved colouring and decorating them.



Our next big news is that we will be preforming Stone Soup for our Holiday Show.  Our students have been hard at work getting our play and props ready.  I have to say I really like the way our signs and car have turned out for the play.  

We also decided to use this play to make our own stone soup.  Each student brought in something to add to the soup.  We cooked it up and then all sat down at lunch to enjoy it together.  Not gonna lie, was one of the most memorable moments of my teaching career.  You see many of my students come for homes that struggle to put food on the table.  I heard one little boy shout, "this is the best meal I have ever had".  It will now be a tradition in my classroom because of that comment.



And lastly, TGIF!!!!!  Anyone else feeling like this???



Happy Friday everyone!


Tuesday 25 November 2014

Holiday Giveaway




Ho Ho Ho, ah yes it is that time of year again. The festive season!! If you are like the rest of us in Canada you are bracing for the snow that comes with Christmas time. Let's be honest it is not a true Christmas until there is snow. However, did you know that there is quite a few countries around the world that don't get snow during the holidays.



Take for instance Argentina. They are below the equator and celebrate the holiday similar to us however they use cotton balls to simulate snow on their decorations. How about in Australia they celebrate Christmas during their summer, Santa gets so hot down there he changes into shorts and t-shirt and also uses "6 tiny boomers" to give his reindeer a break. How about in Belgium where the kids are visited not just by Santa but also his assistant Zwarte Piet.


Grab your passport and travel the wonderful ways that 12 different nations celebrate this great holiday with our new package "Christmas around the world" In this package you will learn about Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, Czech Republic, Finland, Mexico, Sweden, Israel, Africa, USA/Canada. You will also get to complete a traditional activity that each one of these nations par takes in during the holiday season. As well don't forget to have the students record what they learned about in their own passports which is included in the package.




If not looking at the holidays around the world of interest how about finding 15 different ways to give back to your school before the holidays. Remember it is not always about what you get but rather what you give. You can find an advent calendar type print out to put up in your classroom with our 15 Days of Giving activity.

Happy holidays or as they say in Argentina "Feliz Navidad"
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday 21 November 2014

Teaching Drama

This year I have what I like to call a dogs breakfast in the afternoons.  As a part of this "breakfast" I teach grade one drama.  I am having a blast with it.  
We are currently working on fairy tales and are using headbands to remember which character we are when we reenact the story.  Along with the headbands, we are using a booklet to retell the story in our own words. 






Here are some examples of us retelling the story using First, Next, Then, Finally, After that.




Students are enjoying retelling the story through writing, and reenacting the story with our actions and words.



Here is an example of one of the headbands.

I love linking drama with language. It helps to reinforce many of the concepts students are already learning. 







Thursday 20 November 2014

Wordless Wednesday



You know it's cold when it's time to run Ninja style.



How do you get your workouts in when the weather turns bad?

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Wordless Wednesday

This week we are linking up with Miss Decarbo at Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday.



Making poppies with our students.


What activities do you do with your students to help them remember?

Friday 7 November 2014

Five for Friday


Before we get started I just had to include this pic of Jeff in his Montreal Canadians onesie.  
This was a gag birthday gift.  He was so happy to get it.  lol.



My class was lucky enough to have the chance to participate in a very cool event put on by our local legion hall. The event was around the theme of "Why do we Remember" in regards to our war veterans. It was amazing the response and engagement our my students had at this event. We were greeted by this 93 year old piper who served in the Battle of the Atlantic with the Canadian Forces. 

We also got to hear several more veterans speak of their experiences in World War II and it was capped off with a reading of the great and stoic poem of In Flanders Field. 



Our master of ceremonies even emphasized the passing of the torch from the poem to my students. It was simply marvellous.




After getting to partake in that event my students just wanted to study the war. So we took time out of of our language program to discover components of the war and the significance behind the sacrifices made by those very veterans that they met. We created a Remembrance Day package because of this and have used several of the activities this past week. One of the activities was that of Hand Poppies which we did with our Kindergarten buddies. My grade 4s painted the hands of their younger buddies and then our Kindergarten buddies painted our grade 4s hands. Together, each pairing created the symbolic poppy together. It was great for our grade 4s to teach the younger students about the significance of Remembrance Day.



One of the activities from our package is creating post cards for Veterans thanking them for their service time. This came from the idea of instead of writing one big class thank you note for our special field trip we had several individual notes thanking the Veterans for their time. 

The kids took great pride in colouring these in and then filling out the back of them. 


We have mailed them off so that Veterans should receive them either the day before Remembrance Day or the day after. 


It would be great to see the look on their faces when they get these heartfelt notes from students who view these men and women as true superheroes now. 




My students also recently finished their famous person biography box unit. It was amazing to see the creativity put into these boxes. As well as the through information included in the summary of these famous people. It will be a fun and interesting read while marking them. 

 




To cap a busy week we completed our first Readers Bistro of the year. It was a smashing success! The students loved their "lemon lattes" (OK it was lemon ice tea). They also loved when the Principal came to sit in on some of the book talks. We even found a few recommendations for our next class novel study. 



Wednesday 5 November 2014

Wordless Wednesday

This week we are linking up with Miss Decarbo at Sugar and Spice for her Wordless Wednesday.









How have you been affected by someone who has served for our country?