Catching Up

It’s been a while since I last blogged about what we’ve been doing in our classroom, so here are a few snippets showing what we have been up to.

Two of the expectations in the Grade Four curriculum are:

Identify the characteristics of healthy relationships; and

Identify the challenges and responsibilities in their relationships with family and friends

I wanted a good read aloud and stumbled upon Because of Mr. Terupt.

My class LOVED this book. Every day they would ask me if we were going to read the book, and when I finished reading for the day, they would beg for just a few more pages.

The story is about a class of fifth graders who have an amazing and inspiring teacher named Mr. Terupt. The kids in the class are very archetypal; there’s the mean girl, the brainiac, the class clown, the kid that hates school, the overweight girl that gets picked on, the bookworm, and so on. The kids in the story were so easy for my students to relate to and we had some great conversations about how to handle various conflicts with family and friends.

A word of caution: this book may not be suitable for all classroom communities. For example, there is one character who comes from a very religious family. She often prays when she is upset or in need of some guidance. My class had a good talk about how some people have different beliefs and it’s important to respect that.

Also, there is a girl in the story whose mother was ostracized because she was a teen mom. Again, we had a good talk about what matters most when it comes to family. As one girl so perfectly put it, “It doesn’t matter how old Anna’s mom is, it matters how much she loves Anna!”

One of the characters mentions having a worry doll to help her deal with anxiety. Social-emotional health is a big area of focus in our school community, so we had a whole class conversation on the things that make us anxious; fighting with friends, math tests, etc. Then, using little foam doll kits I got from Dollarama, we made our own worry dolls. Some of them were very creative!

 One of my gymnastics girls made this headstand worry doll

I’m really not sure what’s happening here but hey, it’s definitely one of a kind!

Because of Mr. Terupt is emotional but authentic and like I said, it was a real hit with my class.

Here are some other fun things we’ve been up to…

Mexican Tin Art

One afternoon, I was looking through an OWL magazine that was delivered to the classroom and I saw this craft idea. We haven’t really painted all year so I thought the kids would enjoy it…and they did! 

You'll need:

-small cardboard squares (we used cereal boxes)

-tinfoil

-paint

Math

We finished our unit on fractions and we started a mini unit on time and temperature. To make it more interesting, we are pretending we are going on a vacation to Disney World (and now I really just want to hop on a plane and go to Florida).

 This is an actual picture from my trip to Disney in 2012

Grade Threes have to be able to read and record time to the nearest five minutes, and Grade Fours need to do the same to the minute. To help them out, I made this beautiful (?) flower clock.  Click HERE for the link on Teachers Pay Teachers.

The petals are actually supposed to be applied to your classroom clock but my clock was too large

Each day we estimate the current temperature, record the actual temperature on our thermometer, and record the time we looked up this data.

The Dress

One more thing…was anyone else shamefully obsessed with “The Dress”? I discovered this trending topic one Friday afternoon and was baffled by it all weekend. So when we got back to school on the Monday morning, I used it for a morning math question. I put up the picture and we graphed how many kids saw either white and gold or black and blue. Some kids had seen it themselves over the weekend and some were just blown away. I think I’m over my obsession now.

That’s it for now! I hope everyone is enjoying their March Breaks!

Turkeys, Scribbles, and Sound

We’ve been pretty artsy these past few weeks in Grades 3 & 4. Long ago (like, really long ago; a throwback to second year university, in fact) I bought a book called Scribbleville and I packed it away and totally forgot about it. But then I stumbled across it at the beginning of the school year and saved it for a line art lesson.

The book does double duty: it’s about people who live in Scribbleville where everything is made of scribbles. Then a stick man moves in and the citizens of Scribbleville need to learn how to accept people with differences. That triggered a great conversation. Then we made our own scribble art.

Then it was time to dive into our Thanksgiving Day art. We read the story Turkey Trouble. It’s about a turkey who is desperate to find a good disguise so that the farmer won’t find him and eat him for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was our job to take our own little turkeys and create a good disguise. Some of them were hilarious and very creative!

Santa Turkey

Queen Elsa Turkey

Georgina Blaze Hockey Turkey

Magician Turkey

Traditions and celebrations are part of the Grade 2 curriculum but I still think it’s very important to talk about and teach other celebrations that occur at this time of year. I have one little girl who celebrates Eid so I basically let her be the expert and tell the class what her family does for that holiday. We then traced our hands and arms and decorated them with our own henna designs. It was a hit. And then my sweet girl brought me in some left over food from her Eid celebration so I could try it.

Science

For those who teach split grades, it can be challenging to teach subjects like science because unlike language and math where the expectations are very similar, the units themselves can be very different. Not always; sometimes they go hand in hand quite nicely. This year, I’m only assigned to teaching my Grade 4 science because another teacher teaches my Grade 3 science while I’m on prep. So my Grade Threes receive the content as I teach Grade 4 science, but I just don’t assess them or evaluate them on what I’m teaching. Shhh, don’t tell them, though ;)

We started our Grade 4 unit on Light and Sound. This first week was spent specifically on learning the properties of sound.  We have learned that sound is caused by travelling vibrations and we did some fun experiments and games (Broken Telephone was a fun warm up; putting our ears on the fence posts and soccer nets and hearing how the sound travels through metal; and creating echoes with cardboard tubes and a metal cookie sheet)

And of course, no science unit would be complete without a little help from Bill Nye the Science Guy.

My SSC (student support centre) kids join us for science and I need to be mindful to teach to their needs and most of them respond well to watching videos, so Bill Nye was a hit with them.

The Ontario curriculum also puts a big focus on societal impacts so we talked about the wind turbine farms and how they have had mixed reactions. Although they are good for the environment because they provide clean energy, some people think they are awfully noisy. This debate sparked a great discussion in our classroom.

 Sneak Peek

I spent a lot of time this past week planning with my grade partners for our new math and language units. I can’t tell you what they’re about right now, but I can tell you that I’m extremely excited about them. We’ll be kick starting both of those on Tuesday and then I can fill you in.

Well, that’s it from me…for now. I need to go get ready for Thanksgiving dinner 2/3. I may just have to wear stretchy, comfy clothes when I go back to school on Tuesday…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Art and Gym

Hey there! It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about Grade 3/4 life because life has been nothing but busy these last few weeks. I’m still figuring out where my students are at and seeing where I want to go (aka making my long range plans) with the two curriculums this year. As you know, I’ve put a big focus on community building so that we have a safe and comfortable learning environment. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past two weeks talking about the 6 learning goals (responsibility, independent work, collaboration, initiative, organization, and self-regulation). For some of these lessons, we just had discussions. For some, I did a read aloud. For organization, we had a much needed desk clean out. Did I mention I’m a neat freak?

(Collaboration)

(Self-Regulation)

Art

I like to start the school year off with an easy element of art: line. We made our name posters using a technique I found HERE. I don’t have pictures, but they turned out great!

Then we explored dot art because September 15^th was International Dot Day. YouTube has The Dot online so we watched the story before we made our dot art.

In another art lesson, I read this book. It’s illustrated by students who use the same line to make a totally different picture.

My Grade threes and fours then had to take two different lines and make a different picture out of each. They got really creative!

Gym

We are continuing  play cooperative games. Have you ever played Chuck the Chicken? If not, you should. It’s fun and hilarious. I first played myself a few years ago when I was doing a team building session with some coworkers. It’s a little confusing to describe (especially to kids) so I showed my class the video before we went out to play. Click the picture to go to the link.

Looks like fun, right? My class had a blast. We talked about how the same person couldn’t always be the last one in line to chuck the chicken for the other team, so it was interesting to see who was able to take turns easily, who was a leader, and who was able to follow instructions.

And the best part of all…the kids thought the chicken’s name was Chuck; they didn’t quite realize that “Chuck” is more of a verb in this case. Oh well.

Chalk Art

One of the expectations for Visual Arts is for the students to “express their feelings and ideas about art works and art experiences”. I wanted to find something really cool to look at and talk about. I figured if I chose a painting that wasn’t important to them, they wouldn’t be engaged for very long.

So with the help of Google, I searched for sidewalk chalk art. Sidewalk chalk art is amazing. I’ve never actually seen it in person, but the pictures online are incredible. It’s amazing how the artist can transform an every day flat surface into a spectacular piece of art that plays with your eyes and your mind.

I showed the Grade Ones five photos one at a time and talked about each one.

As the first image I showed them, they thought it was real for a good 10 minutes. They were shocked when I told them it was all art.

I was really impressed when one little girl shouted out, “Hey! It’s the Beatles!”

They were so into it. We talked about how one piece made some of us feel amazed, and how the same piece made some of us feel scared (I’m talking about the lava one).

I had prepared to have them write out their responses, but we had already done so much writing that day, I thought it would be better to keep up the momentum and assess their reflections and responses orally. I had them determine which piece they liked the best and stand with others in a group. I walked around and listened to them as they told each other why they liked it and what they felt when they saw the art.

As an extension to this activity, I brought them all outside and we made our own art with sidewalk chalk that I brought in. There were fabulous beach scenes, rainbows, sun shines, and of course, a duck.

Just trust me; it’s a duck.

They know me too well.

Pirate Art

As you know, we’ve started a pretty awesome unit on pirates, and the kids are just loving it. As I was engaged in my nightly Pinterest browsing, I came across a really cute pirate themed craft that I just had to try. Click HERE for the original posting.

Here’s how ours turned out.

Still waiting on a few to finish theirs so I can hang them up!

Love all the detail on this little pirate!

Happy Sunday!

Ahoy There, Matey!

Long time no blog, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been pretty busy lately. My attention has been snagged by house buying and cancer curing, so my blogging had to take the sacrifice and be put on hold for close to a month!

Yes…Rob and I spent Easter weekend running back and forth to the real estate office signing papers. It’s now official. 42 days ‘til move in; but who’s counting?

And what’s this about me curing cancer? Well I haven’t actually cured it, but I’m doing my part! I’ve been running Relay for Life for the past 8 years, but since my dad died of cancer three years ago, I’ve decided to kick it into high gear and raise as much as I can for my team. I organized and threw a dance, invited friends and family, hired a Rolling Stones tribute band, and raised over $4000!

But now that the house buying and cancer curing has settled down, it’s time to regain focus on what’s been going on in Grade One.

We finished our units on heroes, structures, and subtraction, and started super fun units on communities, pirates, probability, and mapping!

The Grade Ones have to learn about the local community, so we started off (as I always like starting off) by brainstorming what we already know.

And we learned about what our community was like when it was first founded, and discussed the idea that communities change over time.

Cute story time:

Me: What do you think Georgina looked like 195 years ago when William Bourchier discovered the area?

Boy: I think everything was in black and white.

Someone’s seen a few old movies.

Anyways. The idea of a community has been the starting point for everything else in the other units. I can’t take any of the credit for these upcoming amazing ideas. Back when I was a student teacher, Melissa and Stacia planned this terrific unit on pirates. We tied in the ideas of community and working together. It was such a fun unit, I decided to do it again with my own kiddos.

The kids now sit in “pirate ships” which is essentially three desk groups of six. They have to work as a community and demonstrate strong teamwork skills.  I, of course, am the captain ;)

Pirate books have become the main texts for our literacy unit.

This week, we have started looking at character and setting. These are some books we’ve read so far:

There are SO many pirate adventure stories out there and they’re fantastic. The kids totally love acting like pirates. Even during morning and afternoon attendance they say, “Arrrgh, Captain Lawrence!” instead of, “Here”.

We all know that pirates need maps to find their buried treasure. So we’ll be learning all about positional language and the relative location of objects. At the same time, we’ll be learning about probability. We’ve had lots of fun with some pirate spinner games that I created. Click HERE for a free copy.

Finally, we have a wonderful CYW (Child and Youth Worker) at our school who comes in each week to teach my onesies about various life skills. Lately, she’s been teaching them about manners and how to be kind to one another. She read them this hit of a book.

Then they made their own buckets, where they can leave  kind comments to one another and fill each other’s buckets. What a great way to build that sense of community.

Well, that’s it from me. I’ll leave you with a picture of our pirate name flags we made in aaaaarght. I mean, art.