We have just completed our Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. unit. I was very proud of the students’ insightful comments and connections they were able to make to their own lives and how treating people fairly and with kindness is the way to be! Well done class, you should be proud of your efforts.

Parents will enjoy this video as well as the “wallwisher” board we created about what students’ dream or wish for our world today. Again, I was very impressed with their ideas.

You are welcome to leave a comment, we love reading comments. (Remember your own email is not required)

I Have a Dream 2012

Our dreams and wishes for our world – Wallwisher   

2012

Welcome back to the new year. We did some group writing today about what kinds of goals we could think about for the coming year. You can read our ideas with this link:

Div. 6 – Thinking about goals for the new year 

On Friday I will be sending home a notice about how to set up a google or gmail account for your child. I’ve included instructions. The document above is an example of how we can use google in the classroom and work collaboratively on a writing piece. Here is a .pdf of the note if you want to get a head start.

Gmail account set up 

Could you please ask your child if they are needing any school supplies and if their inside shoes are still comfortable. Thanks!

The students enjoy looking at the weather maps in the morning, they are now available on the Science page.

Christmas Concert 2011 

The link above should allow you to see our class singing “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” at the dress rehearsal on Tuesday. I have also added a few photos to “December” on our photo page. I will add more over the next few days.

Again, thanks for all your support. I hope everyone has a restful break and enjoys the  time with family

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!!

Just doing some searching on the web and have come across some fun Christmas themed websites. You can use the links in this post to explore them yourselves. If you know of any great sites you think the students would enjoy then let me know about them by leaving a comment on this post. Remember to have parent permission before you are using the internet.

Here are some sites:

Decorate a Gingerbread Man 

Build a Snowman 

The North Pole

National Geographic kids is a fun and interactive site where you can learn about lots of different things, play games and see some great photos of our world. Check it out. If you find something you find interesting and think your classmates would also enjoy it you can blog about it and share what you discovered.

National Geographic Kids

Friday, November 11th is Remembrance Day. We have been discussing in class the importance of this day, what the poppy symbolizes and how many men, women and even animals contributed to the war effort. I’ve posted some links that you may find interesting and may want to share further with your child.

Veterans Affairs Canada

Pittance of Time, Song by Terry Kelly – this is a Youtube video so students make sure you have parent permission

Students I would like you to take a moment and think about what you will be thinking about on Friday, Remembrance Day. Please make a comment to this post and remember to use your username, you do not need an email. Parents, you are welcome to comment as well.

We have read together The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Suess. It is a story about 2 “people” that live on opposites sides of the wall. The Yooks believe the only way to eat bread is with butter side up and the Zooks believe the only way to eat bread is with butter side down. There inability to accept each others preferences escalates to conflict. Your child has been assigned the role of either being a Zook or a Yook and was asked to think about over the weekend creative ideas why their way is the ONLY way to eat bread with butter. We will have a debate on Tuesday followed by discussions about being willing to accept differences can avoid conflict. Have fun, I’m looking forward to hearing all the great ideas!

Monster Exchange…part 2 is now online. With the link below you should be able to see your child’s descriptive writing, their monster drawing and how their writing was interpreted by their partner in Mr. Campbell’s class. This was a great project that encouraged students to write with detail or as we call it in class “writing to show”. We hope to do another project in the Spring as writing continues to develop. There was a lot of cutting and pasting going on with the website, so please let me know if writings or drawings are mismatched. Thanks! 

Monster Exchange Part 2 

On Tuesday, November 1st we will be having a “curl up & read morning”. Students are welcome to wear their jammies, bring a blanket and a great book or magazine to enjoy. We will spend some time reading and sharing the kinds of reading material we enjoy reading. Students have also earned a reward day as part of our 5 Star lunch program. We may also watch a movie! 

Wow, it is exciting to see such great posting and commenting going on with your blogs. We’ll continue to learn more and share our thinking and ideas with our classmates. 

Monster Exchange Update: I have emailed Mr. Campbell your monster descriptions and will post the writings and pictures to the Monster Exchange website when Mr. Campbell lets me know his class has draw our monsters. Here is the link to all your great descriptions. Some of you might want to draw the monsters and then check in class how close they are to the originals.

Monster Writings

Reminders:

- Home reading book exchange happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays

- Our library book exchange day is Friday

- Please make sure you have inside shoes as the weather is getting wet and we want to keep our floors clean and dry

- Parents, please try and sign the planner daily (thanks )

- Our Math textbook is available under the Math page to help with learning and should some work need to be completed at home

These past few weeks we have been focusing on descriptive writing or “writing to show”. Our class was signed up with the Monster Exchange Project. This site allows teachers to match up from around the world with same aged students. Students create, draw and colour their monster creation and then write the detailed steps to create the monster. 

We are partners with Mr. Campbell’s Grade 3 class in Springfield, New Jersey. We received the instructions about how to create our partner’s monster last week and have done our best to redraw the monster.  You can see the matches on the Monster Exchange website, just scroll down to our class and you can start clicking on the monsters to see the original and the redrawn monster.

Click here to go to the Monster Exchange Gallery 

Part 2 is in the works…we’re drawing our monsters and will do our best to write in detail describing to Mr. Campbell’s students how to redraw our monsters. Exciting!!! Stay tuned as I will post the new monsters when this part is complete.