Tag Archives: Art

Week 2!

2 Replies

Hello Everyone!

Week 2 is in the books! I hope everyone feels a little more settled in their routines and is finding some time to relax this weekend!

Here is a recap of last week!

-We started our new Question of the Day morning routine! Each day a question is posted for the students to answer. It should only take a few minutes to do, but I feel like it might help with developing a morning routine that prepares us for the school day. Before the students start to answer their question they get unpacked and settled. So far…we have been doing better than ANY other class I have taught with bringing the purple Communication Folders (aka Home Reading). Keep up the good work!! FYI-in case your child has not shared it with you…we have filled out our September calendar. Please check it over for important dates and feel free to add anything you think we may have missed OR something that is important for you as a family to remember!

-We are on a roll with The Problim Children! I love it when students ask if I could read for longer or ask me to read for a second time in the same day! There are so many benefits to reading to your child. These kids are NOT too old to be read to. They love it. It is a great opportunity to model what good readers do, to teach/learn new vocabulary and discuss comprehension 🙂

-We are getting the hang of those Number Puzzles! If you are finding the Puzzle Helpers (at home practice) a challenge, please let me know. I’m here to help!

-Back by popular demand….zentangles (images created by repeated patterns)! Each year I attempt to do something different for the Inquiry Log covers and I am outvoted! I am very excited for these projects to be finished. They are all going to be amazing and unique. BUT you’ll have to wait until Meet the Teacher night to see them!!!

New to zentangles? Here are some examples!

-It is International Dot Day today (Saturday!). They say Dot Day is September 15ish…because it is more important to celebrate the message than to celebrate on the actual day! “Just make a mark and see where it takes you”. I love it! We often talk about Dot Day in the form of art, but it can really be about anything! Take a risk, try something new, test out an idea…see what happens!

Dot Day Song

-I attended the Manitoba Nature Summit with Lori on Friday/Saturday. We had the BEST time learning about the importance of outdoor play, free play, even ‘risky’ play. We heard from some excellent keynote speakers and even participated in a mini forest school session. We have so many ideas to bring to Montrose…stay tuned for exciting news!

         

What’s Happening This Week?!

-It’s the Terry Fox Run @Assiniboine Park this Sunday (tomorrow). Registration begins at 8:30 and the walk/run begins at 9:30. Since I am already registered I won’t be there too early, but Hudson and I will be there rain or shine. We’d love to see you there too!!!

-No School on Monday

-We are beginning some common work times with 122 & 126 this week. During these common working times students will be in mixed groupings and may or may not be working in 123 (with em). We really enjoy working together as a 3/4 team and find that the students create a great bond with one another when we use this approach. Each term we change the groupings so the students can work with a variety of other students and teachers too!

-We will finish our zentangles and start another art project as well! Earlier this week I had asked for driftwood for our next project. If you were able to find any, could you please send it in on Tuesday for us? Thanks!!

-On Tuesday we have a special presentation from Ms Mary! Mary is from the Green Action Centre. She will be doing about 8 presentations for us throughout the year. Each presentation has an environmental focus to help us become more aware and more educated to make more environmentally friendly choices! Our first talk will be about Littlerless Lunches!

-The 21 students (7 from each room) that were randomly selected for the farm field trip will be away on Wednesday, September 19. Please dress for the weather and pack a lunch. Again, if your child is not coming to the farm, he/she will be going on a different field trip later this year. Once details have been finalized I will let you know what we will be doing/where we are going! Lori and I are going to the farm with the kids. The rest of the 3/4 students will be doing something fun too…any guesses?!

-Book orders will be submitted on Thursday. Thanks for the orders so far! Once I order it will take 1-2 weeks for the books to arrive. *Is anyone interested in being my book order helper? The task consists of putting together the orders once a month. It is an “at home” job. Let me know if you want to help us out with that!

-Monday, September 24 is Meet the Teacher night! Order forms for pizza were sent home on Friday (with the oldest sibling). I am looking forward to chatting with you whether you are new or returning to the 123 community!

-The Ask Me question is now up! Please let me know via typed or oral comment what you have done to connect with nature this weekend! Haven’t been outside yet?! There is still lots of time 🙂

Until next time,

Danielle

Louis Riel Weekend!!

Leave a reply

Hi Everyone!

I’m not sure about you…but after such a busy week I’m super excited it’s the long weekend! I hope you all have a chance to relax and spend some time outdoors. That’s my plan anyway!!! Oh…and read. I just started a new book and I’d love to finish it this weekend!!!

Here is a recap of our busiest week yet!!

-Genius Hour is still going strong. Some students are almost ready to present their first project! As students finish their projects they will share and start a new inquiry! The next Genius Hour work period will be on Wednesday. Please come prepared to work!!

-The Circle of Life performance was truly amazing. I hope that those of you were able to attend enjoyed it as much as we did. Seeing things come together was such a neat experience. Now I know what 1000 kids on stage looks like! Thanks to Ms V for all her hard work. She did an awesome job teaching us 17 songs with coordinating actions. That is quite a feat!!! I’m also pleased to report that your children were fantastic Montrose ambassadors. They did everything we asked of them and more! Great job remembering to arrive early, wear the black shirts, hair up and pack a lunch!!!! #BAM

-We had a fun, yet relaxed Valentine’s Day! The students came up with so me pretty fun valentine holders and showcased the 4Cs as they created and executed their plans! We made kindness cards for each other, exchanged cards and had a few treats. I opted out of giving traditional cards and put up a picture of a heart I found in nature and wondered what the reaction would be…to my surprise the class told me I brought enough joy to them and they didn’t need a card. How sweet! I’ll take it 😉 !!! A few students chose to make their own homemade cards and some wrote their name in handwriting. Good job everyone!

-Winter Fun Day was postponed again. The weather hasn’t been kind to us 🙁  I’ve heard it might be this upcoming Thursday and will confirm that later on this week.

-Art with 122: The art looks amazing. Anyone who has missed or not completed a task will have a “make up day” sometime very soon!

-The green screen project with Murray is…what should we say…a work in progress! We have 3 videos completed BUT we have a few students who know how to create these mini movies (which contain the love letters to our favourite food) and they will work with all the other students to finish those up next week! These will be posted to Seesaw…you are in for quite a treat!

-We are about 70 pages into the Magic Misfits. The kids seem to like it so far and we hope to read more next week!

-The Ask Me question is posted on Seesaw. I’ve attached the blog link again so you can access this easily and get some ideas. Basically the kids and I thought that after a busy week it was fitting to write our Top 3 Things About the Week! Please write the responses in the Home Reading folder!! Speaking of which…no luck in bringing the Home Reading folders more regularly in February 🙁 Sometimes I don’t see folders for weeks and weeks. I like to know what the kids are reading at home so I can make suggestions for reading material, have them make reading suggestions to other kids, see if regular reading is happening and the folder is a great tool for taking notes back and forth between home and school. It’s a communication tool that helps keep things organized. Let’s put forth a better effort in using our folders for these purposes. Also, if you haven’t  updated your monthly reading graphs please do so. It’s much, much, much easier to record the monthly reading IF we are current with the daily recording. Please remember that the students are more than capable of recording their own data and being responsible for bringing the folders daily.

What’s Up for Next Week?!

-No school on Monday (Happy Louis Riel Day)!!

-Tuesday: Students in Helen and Ms Solomon’s WTW groups have spelling tests. They were asked to transfer their words this week and in case they have forgotten I have attached the word lists to Seesaw. The cherry group has a test on Thursday (unless there is Winter Fun Day) and the word lois has also been sent via Seesaw. The actual list and instructions of how the test will be done will be sent home Tuesday.

-Math: Some students have brought home some subtraction work to complete or correct. Grade 4s are to do any 15 questions per page of the subtraction and Grade 3s are asked to do 8 questions per page! Please have the books ready to hand in on Tuesday!!

-Time! We talked about what we know about time and here is what we came up with…

Some students are able to tell time easily and some cannot yet read the clock. Check in with your child this weekend to see what your child knows about time! It seemed like a good “time” to bring my this up since the Olympics are on and we need to know what time it in in Korea!!

Here are a few flashcards and a new magnetic clock we have at school to help learn how to tell time (not to be confused with ‘times’ which is actually known as multiplication;)

-The grade 3s will start working in their Mental Math Dictionaries and start to do multiplication this week. So far we know that multiplication is repeated addition. It is easier to learn how to think of numbers in groups than it is to skip count. It is also time saving AND sometimes in math we look for shortcuts and get to be “lazy”! Choosing to multiply instead of skip counting and doing repeated addition is one of those opportunities!! Being able to skip count by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 10s will be very helpful for now. Need some practice at that? Spend a few minutes each day skip counting on paper or orally!

-The grade 4s will continue to work in their Mental Math Dictionaries with Helen. They will also review subtraction and work through some reminders for multiplication before they jump into some new concepts.

-For health we are ready to talk about the food groups and learn to read nutritional labels. Please send in any labels you can so we have an assortment to choose from. We will talk about calories, vitamins, serving size, etc. We will also talk about what kind of nutrition athletes need in order to train and compete!

-On Tuesday we will have some time in the lab to do some research for our animal/habitat projects. IF you have your recording sheet at home please bring it back to school. Throughout the week we’ve seen some cool tweets about animals and the impact humans have on their life. I’m attaching a link that Helen found that has some good information on many different animals! Feel free to check it out!

http://www.arkive.org/

That’s it for now!!! Have an excellent weekend!

#GoJetsGo

Until next time,

Danielle

 

Bye Bye September…Hello October!!

1 Reply

Hi!!

I’m not sure about you…but I feel like this week has flown by! However, it might just be because we did a ton of great things!!!!

Let’s start with that! The “Ask Me” question for this weekend is to parents to “Ask me about my busy week!” Have a conversation about some of things we did this week, then students are asked to “Write the top 3 things I learned”. We talked about how this does not mean writing things like “math”, but instead writing something more specific about the math like: a strategy they might have learned or a concept or a tool. That shows more about what they “learned” versus something that they “did.” Need some conversation starters? Read on to get some reminders of what we did this week at school!!

*As a class we talked about tallying up the September minutes for Home Reading. Please take some time to help your child add up all the minutes he/she has read this month and then graph it in the front of the home reading folder. Reminder: September ends on Saturday, so don’t add Sunday’s minutes into that! If we keep up with recording the minutes read each day it makes this monthly job A LOT easier! Can your child try this task? Can you support them? Try to turn it into a learning opportunity rather than just doing it for them. Just like the recording process. Allow it to be part of their routine to record the title, amount of minutes read and weekly questions. It helps them take ownership of the task.

*Your child may have brought home word cards in their Home Reading Folder. These are Words Their Way sorts. Students in my group AND Helen’s group are having their spelling assessments on Tuesday. The other groups will send their words home once they are ready to move onto the next sort. Please take the time to have your child sort the words and tell why they are sorted that way and also review the spelling pattern to help them be prepared for the assessment.

-Field Trip to Mariash Quarry: Monday’s field trip to the quarry was super fun! It was a little chilly, but the sun came around as we were searching for fossils 🙂 We learned some facts about the quarry and what once existed there, we learned facts about rocks and minerals, did some investigations, went on a scavenger hunt and of course…went fossil hunting!

These are some of the fossils we saw!

-Meet the Teacher: Thank you to all the parents who were able to make it to Meet the Teacher on Monday night. It was a great turnout! I hope you enjoyed the mini tours that your child took you on…they were so excited to show you where they spend so much of their time and some of the work they’ve been busy doing so far. Please come visit again! We are always excited to have parents come and help out 🙂

-Nature Art: On Wednesday we used the rocks and fossils that we found at the quarry as well as some other pieces of nature to create some really beautiful artwork. We were inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. I’m so happy with how all of them turned out. I think that doing this each season will turn into an amazing year long project!

-Terry Fox Run: Thursday was the Terry Fox Run at school. We learned some facts about Terry’s life, his sickness, his idea to make a difference, his determination, his success, his legacy.

Terry Fox Heritage Minute

Some of the amazing facts we learned are: that Terry was born in Winnipeg and has family that still lives here! He was diagnosed with cancer when he was only 18 years old. Terry started his journey and the Marathon of Hope in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. He ran 42 km each day (a full marathon). Terry’s journey ended in Thunder Bay after 143 days and 5 373km…his cancer had spread into his lungs and he passed away just before turning 23. The first annual “Terry Fox Run” started in 1981. in 1992 the Terry Fox run became a worldwide event. As of 2016 $715 million has been raised for cancer research in Terry’s name. Want more facts? Check out the Terry Fox Foundation for more information!

-Orange Shirt Day: Orange Shirt Day takes place each year on September 30. Today we all wore orange at school. We had 100% participation which is AMAZING! New to the idea of Orange Shirt Day? This Orange Shirt Day video is a great introduction to why we are wearing orange. We also read the story called When I Was 8, which is an adapted version of the story Fatty Legs. From the story and the video we were able to generate some really important conversations. These kids really understand that #everychildmatters. We talked about the importance of language and culture and how Canadians are on the path to truth and reconciliation. Residential Schools are part of our history and we need to know what happened in order for something like that to never happen again. I was really impressed with the class today 🙂

-Math: This week we continued to work on some number concepts and the idea of place value. We are talking about the difference between standard and non-standard form and how you can change a number from standard to non standard but the value of the original number remains the same! To prove that it is still the same value you can write it out in expanded form.  Need more? See examples below.

This is something you can definitely practice at home. Give a number (could start at a 2 digit, 3 digit or 4 digit), have your child write the standard form then challenge them to see how many different non standard forms they can come up with and prove the value is the same by showing the expanded form!

What’s Happening Next Week?

-More place value! It is necessary to understand place value for so many other parts of math so please practice at home if you are able to 🙂

-We are doing our first Number Talk…stay tuned for more information on what that looks like!

-We will do another Letter to Danielle. This is where students write to me about their weekend, something they are looking forward to, questions they have, a book they are reading or just something they’d like to share with me. I read them, correct for spelling and grammar then write them back!

-We will continue our Rocks and Minerals Inquiry and gather more wonderings and questions to help guide where the inquiry will lead us!

-We will finish our first Read Aloud book and jump right into the second one! Note-my intention is not to read the second book about the Fitzgerald-Trouts, but to start a new book. I have been known to be swayed by the students to continue a series…so we will see!

-We are going to be looking at some wordless picture books and starting some poetry writing

-AND we are going to brainstorm some Manitoba animals and choose one to study throughout the entire year to compare where and how it lives throughout the changing of the seasons!

Have a fantastic weekend. I hope you get a chance to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

Until next time,

Danielle

L.W.O.S.-Last Week of School!

4 Replies

Seems strange to say that this is the last official post of the school year!!!!…Well unless you are participating in our Summer Book Club and reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with us!! Communicating through the blog and Instagram will be an exciting way to remain connected. Just a little FYI-the 3rd instalment of the Harry Potter series is quite a bit longer than the first two AND there are slightly ‘darker’ characters. If you are not interested in reading Harry Potter with us and would rather read something else please let me know what you’ve decided to read. You can still pop by the book chat and see if anyone else has read the book(s) you are reading and maybe give a recommendation! On that note…We are starting to read right away so if you need to…please grab a copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban and be ready for our Room 123 Summer Book Club!

*On this last week of school we will have many things to finish up and clean up. Here is a quick rundown of the week…

-Monday (26): Last rehearsal for our Robert Munsch Reader’s Theatre

-Tuesday (27): Reader’s Theatre Presentations, Grade 6 Farewell (p.m.), report cards go home

-Wednesday (28): Final Math group with 122

-Thursday (29): Meet the Teacher 1:10 (students only) & Awards Day Assembly 2:30

-Friday (30): Happy Birthday Canada ‘parade’ 11:00, dismissal 11:30

Throughout the week we will be taking work home so it isn’t all being sent home on Friday!

*I hope that all of you who were able to join us for our Canada 150 celebration last Wednesday enjoyed yourselves. It was wonderful to see so many families and share what we have learned about Indigenous Languages and Culture as well as Residential Schools and Treaties.

I love the idea of the Heart Garden to symbolize Truth and Reconciliation. Beautiful and thoughtful messages were displayed as families planted as a community.

*If you were at the school that night I hope you had a chance to take a look at our self portraits. I think they turned out great!!!

*I found this photo online the other day and feel like it is a nice end of year…advice…teachable moment type of thing!

Have a great summer everyone! Thank you so much for following the blog and letting me try something new.

*If you are joining the book club…we’ll chat soon 😉

Until next time,

Danielle

and Hudson!

May Days!

Leave a reply

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Here is a little recap of what happened at school this week and what’s on the agenda for next week!

30 Day Challenge: Our 30×30 continues to be awesome! This week we did some read to self, spent time with our buddies, had outdoor gym with Mr. Strachan, had a sharing circle, spent loads of time playing after the Emperor’s New Clothes performances, listened to Harry Potter while eating birthday popsicles and did Yoga with Murray. On many days we spend more than 30 minutes outside…the nicer weather makes it being outdoors so enjoyable! This week we are hoping to get to some planting, we will go out with our buddies again and I’m sure Mr. Strachan will continue taking the kids out for pays. ed. too! I hope that you are enjoying the 30×30 at home too. I know a few students have also decided to extend their challenge at home by not playing video games or limiting T.V. I am so proud of everyone!!! My water/tea drinking is still going strong …I am missing my morning coffee though! There is still time to add in another mini challenge…any takers?!

All The Water In The World: Our art display is up and ready to be seen…so here it is!

Isn’t it beautiful?! It depicts the story of the water cycle along with the message that all the water in the world really is ALL the water in the world. We need to take care of it and not waste it or take it for granted. It is for us now and for the future. What are we going to do to make sure our clean water lasts forever?

The Emperor’s New Clothes: It was so great to see so many of you throughout the performances. I hope you enjoyed the show. Much love goes out to all who helped put the show together-from acting to singing to sets to dance to Yoga to makeup to sound to costumes to the small jobs that often go unnoticed AND of course to the kids! They put on quite an amazing show. Well done kiddos!

Math Groups: Now that Literacy Circles are over we are now doing Math Groups 3 x per cycle for an hour with Room 122. Right now the two classes are split into 3 groups. One with Helen, one with Ms Davies and one with myself! Our first focus is on reviewing and learning grade appropriate Mental Math strategies. The goal is to use mathematical language to describe our thinking and demonstrate many different ways to solve the same problem. So far we have reviewed 4 strategies…

  1. Estimate using 10 as a referent: First we need to know what it means to estimate (which many students weren’t sure of). To estimate is to make an educated guess. Not a wild guess, but one that makes sense. An estimate is the guess. One thing that is common is that students make an estimate, then change it after they’ve found the actual amount because they want to be ‘right’. Estimating is about trying to get as close as possible, but changing your estimate doesn’t make you ‘win’! Next we need to know what a referent means. A referent is an item that is used when estimating. It can be physical (like an actual object) or mental (a picture in your mind). So when estimating using 10 as a referent we can see what 10 looks like then compare the rest of the set and think about how many groups of ten we can see in the set. Using this strategy should help with estimation 🙂

Example: If you know that the second pile of bingo chips is 10, then how many could be in the first pile?

Example #2: This is a similar idea…but using 20 as a referent.

2. Taking one addend/subtrahend to the nearest 10: First we need to know what an addend and a subtrahend are. An addend is any number added to another. (addend+addend=sum) *There can be several addends in one number sentence. A subtrahend is the second number in the subtraction number sentence (minuend-subtrahend=difference). By taking an addend or subtrahend to the nearest 10 it makes it easier to do math problems using mental math. We would only use this strategy when the numbers in the problems are close to zero (such as 1,2,8,9). It wouldn’t make sense to use it with a number such as 24+35.

Above are a few examples of how to use this strategy 🙂

3. Using Compensation: This is reformulating a problem (whether it be addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) to one that can be done more easily (using the nearest decade)

In the example at the top we had to ‘take’ one from the 43 and ‘give’ it to the 59 to create a new problem of 42+60. In the example at the bottom we had to ‘give’ one to the 52 and ‘give’ one to the 29 to create a new problem of 53-30. This is very similar to taking one addend or subtrahend to the nearest 10.

4. Adding from left to right using the place value structure: When we do traditional algorithm we always ask students to add from ‘right to left’. This means adding the ones column first and then the tens column. However, in mental math we suggest the opposite! Add from left to right…meaning add the tens first, then the ones.

*Students are not required to use every strategy that they learn. They need to understand how to use the strategies and show that they can use them, but like all of us they will have their ‘favourite’ strategies. We are trying to expose the students to as many strategies as possible to allow them to see that there are many ways to solve problems. In class we have many conversations about how each of us solve problems and there are always a handful of different strategies that come up! It is so exciting to share our ideas and strategies!

Next week we will work on Commutative Property for Addition , Compatible Numbers, Using Arrays and Skip Counting for Multiplication Products 🙂

Wellness & Kindness: It was really lovely to make a compliment card for students in the class. There were so many positive messages shared amongst the class. The students shared about how they felt making a card for someone (excited, nervous because they wanted it to be special, proud, etc.) and how they felt when they received the card (excited, proud, appreciated, etc.). The kids actually suggested that we do this again because it felt so great. May 7-13 is Kindness week and May 10 is Conscious Kindness Day in Manitoba so let’s continue making people feel appreciated, valued, special as a result of being kind. What will you do?!

Ask Me…This week’s question is 3 parts: compliment cards, mental math & 30×30. Please talk about these activities and write or draw a response, make a poem or a song…do something to reflect your ideas or feelings!

*Students were given a new home reading sheet for Monday since there is no school 🙂

Reminders:

-No School on Monday.

-Please dress for the weather when we are outdoors as it gets warmer!

-June book orders are due on May 15.

-Run Club is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12:00 (run first, then eat). *The one exception to this is on May 9 (Tuesday). We are running on May 10 (Wednesday) due to our monthly staff meeting on Tuesday. Only students who have signed permission forms are allowed to join the run club. Murray only has a few volunteers for the Fit Run at Assiniboine Park. If you are able and interested in going to that even please let me know.

Have a great rest of your weekend. See everyone on Tuesday!

Until next time,

Danielle

Spring Ahead!!!

Leave a reply

Good Morning & Happy Weekend!

First things first…this is your friendly reminder about the time change tomorrow! I feel like if I say it enough times that perhaps I will remember and not miss my morning Yoga class lol!

This Week At School!

-We are working hard to get everything ready for Student Led Conferences next Thursday and Friday. Your child was given the yellow sheet that they handed in with your time preference marked on it. This time the specific time is written in the right hand column. If your child did not return a yellow sheet, we gave you a time. If any of the times do not work for you, please call the office or let me know and we can work something out. Be prepared to see some amazing work! Conferences are Student Led, and not for meeting one on one with me. If you have any concerns, please make another appointment with me. This conference is meant to be a celebration of learning. There may be up to 4 families in the room at one time, and you may go through the “learning tour” in any order that works for you. Report cards will be sent home on Monday 🙂

-We had our first full session in our vertical teams for Canada 150. It was really fun to be mixed up from grades 1-6 and focus on one aspect of Aboriginal culture. We are looking forward to our next session in April. Mrs. Silk’s group is working on Aboriginal dance and I found this video online to show the kids. We thought Erik Pipestem is pretty amazing! Check out the video! (It is a link to a Facebook video so let me know if you can access it. Seems to work from my viewpoint!) P.S. We watched it on our new Interactive Whiteboard!!!! Pretty excited to have that up and running!

Hoop Dancer at Calgary Flames Game

-Yogis! Our yogis are almost finished! Here is a glimpse at the progress…then no more pictures until you can see them in person!!! The colours of the Yogis are inspired by the feeling that the students feel in that post. I love them so much!  My Yoga instructor is super impressed with our project!

Ask Me…There is no formal Ask Me…question this week. Since our day was so busy yesterday, we didn’t have time to write a question down. Some students still wanted to do one so here it is…Ask Me…about my Yogi! Some of the kids wrote it down after school ended, some said they’d remember it, and some don’t want to do it at all. These options are all fine with me!

I look forward to seeing everyone either Thursday or Friday. Have a great weekend 🙂

Until next time,

Danielle

World Famous Structures!

1 Reply

Our world famous structure drawings are amazing…I just had to share them! After choosing a structure that interested each of us we printed a picture, cut it in half, drew the missing half and then did research to find out: the name, location, when it was built, why it was built (or what it’s function is) and at least 3 interesting facts.

How do you think they look?!