Belated Photo Friday

I thought I'd put up some pics of what we've been up to the last week or so!

This isn't the greatest pic but it shows our price list for the Bond bucks you earn. I used to do a treasure  box and realized how impractical this idea was so now I do more free stuff such as sit with a Friend at lunch,gum chewing pass, 15 min on the computer pass, guest friend for lunch, sit in Ms. Bond's wheely chair for the day and the kids favourite: fun Friday pass where they can purchase a fun gym class of activities of their choice! It takes awhile to save for that one!

These aren't anything new but are some postings in my room for the year!

Helper board rotates each week.

It's important for students to understand the big ideas and themes in various read alouds, here are some of the ones we've done this year!

This is a shot of my smart board, students have been learning about annotating and I asked them to pick two annotations they felt were interesting or important to them. They pulled them from a read aloud we read called A Green Apple by Eve Bunting. I gave them a typed copy of the story to annotate on.They copied two of the annotations on to stickies and then placed them where they fit in terms of reading strategies. We then discussed what was popular and what we need to do to come up with more inferences etc that students didn't choose.  It was an interesting exercise as well of what students perceive as their most interesting annotations.

This is the example of the modelled annotating I did with one of our shared readings. It was cool to see many students attempting after I explained what it was I was doing! It is what we are working on for the next little while. My goal is that by eqao time, students will automatically annotate their readings, helping their comprehension and assist with answering open response questions.

This is our poster our group made from journeys into literacy, there was only four of us but our goal was to make our thinking visible while reading. I realize now I should have taken better close ups!

That's all for now! Have a great weekend!

Kathleen :)

Measurement Olympics!

To start our measurement unit I wanted to do something fun that got everyone moving and really thinking about how we can measure items and what role estimating plays. I googled measurement Olympics and printed off a package to get me on my way. I used one published in 1987 by AIMS Education Foundation. There were seven or eight events but I went with five. Event one was the sponge squeeze, students had to pull a sponge out of a bucket of water and squeeze in to another, they estimate how much water, then measure. It was definitely the messiest station!

The next station we did was called the marble grab BUT I could not find marbles so it became a station with linking cubes. For each station one studnt on a team of four or five did the event while others assisted with recording and estimating. The student grabbed a handful of cubes and placed them in one side of a balance, them students estimated how much they thought the cubes weighed. They added weights until they balanced out.

The next station was the foot measuring station, students had one student trace a foot on centimetre grid paper, they had to estimate how much area the foot covered, then calculate.

The next station was the javelin, students stood behind a taped line and threw the javelin (coloured straws). They had to estimate how far they thought it travelled and then measure, this station was cool because I saw many strategies for estimating and calculating. Some were asking for metre sticks, some were using the length of their foot as a benchmark and others were eyeballing it before measuring.

Last was the discus and again many strategies were being used, students had to throw a paper plate and estimate and then calculate.

After each group had finished each station we had a discussion about what was the easiest to estimate and measure, which stations did they feel like they had a good grasp of the units of measurement and which did note we talked about some conclusions and insights we discovered. I thought it was a good way to keep a busy group with cabin fever engaged and I can now relate lessons we are doing back to our Olympics. Up next I saw on someone else's blog a surface area and volume activity using Lego so I hope to try that! Have a great rest of the week!

Kathleen:)

How I s It February Already???!!!

Hi everyone! Have you been wondering where I've been? Life is busy, I am immersed in three different professional development opportunities and coaching boys basketball as well as trying to get to boot camp and futsal! This entry will be mostly a view of items going on in my room or past activities. Hoping they are helpful to others!!! 

This is from our community circle in December, we talked about what we could improve and what we are doing well. We have this posted just outside our classroom so we see it as we enter each day!

This is one of the choices students had after we read the story Fatty. Legs, focusing on the experience of a girl named Olemaun at a residential school, students had the choice of one of nine options, if any would like the choice board, message me and I'll send you a copy! Student s other choices included a speech as Olemaun, a skit, a song and a research presentation amongst other options.

Students working on bulletin board, we used the ACT resource published by UWO and TVDSB to work through an NGO simulation. One group took on the role of the local NGO focusing on West Nile Virus, a concern in our region, naming their organization Get The Spray! The other group focused on an international initiative on malaria, naming their organization Stop The Bite.

This was the final product, they presented to the rest of the class.

Students working on Canadian lap books, this resource can be found on Rundes Room teachers pay teachers store, amazing product!!!

Some of the finished products!

 These are students monitoring their thinking. In one of the sessions I went to our school decided we would be focusing on making our thinking visible, students do this by filling out sticky notes or directly in their reading journals about their thinking, one sticky has "what I read" while the other has "what I think." Students explain ideas that pop in to their head, themes, ideas, questions, connections, inferences, images etc. 

I had to show you this pic of the work station after students completed their art, if you are a teacher or work with kids you will appreciate the chaos, enjoyment and mess that ensued!!! Teacher fail for not putting down newspaper. Note the chart paper.... Here are the finished products! I am thrilled with them!!!

I think that's enough for now! the good thing is that I found out blogger has an app for iPad so expect more posts now that I've figured that out!!!!

Have a great weekend!!!

Kathleen

PS I have it on good authority that this art was the best day of school so far....love it :)