Happy Halloween!

We had a Halloween party. We watched Charlie Brown, people handed out Halloween treats, and we got some Halloween colouring sheets from Mr. H. - Jenna
We were going to the Library, but then it was cancelled because Mrs. Solar wasn't here today. - Marie and Joey
Today we had Grade 1 reading buddies, and the Grade 3 students got to pick their Grade 1 partner. - Taylor
The people that didn't get their book orders last week got them today, because Mr. Hoeppner was away sick when we handed them in, and didn't find all the orders until the other day. - Cam H.
This is Taylor's last week at school, and we're all going to miss her! - Mr. H.

I hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween - don't eat all of your candy tonight... whether you're a student who's been out trick-or-treating, or a parent who's handing out candy at the door!

Halloween is almost here!

We had Reading Buddies with the Grade 1's. Ms. Derkson partnered us up. Today was the first day that they got to read to us. - Gal & Robyn
Some people got a Fuel For Fun pass at lunchtime. You get one if you have a fruit or a vegetable. You get to go for extra time in the gym at lunchtime. - Jenna
Tonight is the Halloween Howl at the gym. We get to dress up in our Halloween costumes and we get to watch a movie. - Marie
At the Halloween Howl, we're watching Spooky Buddies. - Dylan
Today we had our last Halloween gym. There was rope jumping called Snake Pit, the Pumpkin maze, the Pumpkin Patch, and the spider web. - Taylor
Today we got to finish our pumpkin writing. The papers are fat and round, they have a little stem at the top, and we coloured them orange. - Hailey M.

We Skyped!

We did Skyping today with another teacher in a different school. Mrs. Malkoske read 'The Incredible Book Eating Boy' by Oliver Jeffers to us. - Cameron W.

Today after Daily 5 in the afternoon, we went to Phys. Ed. and had Operation: Halloween. Our Gym teacher, Ms. Beach, set up a bunch of fun Halloween stations. - Cam H.

At Operation: Halloween, there were two TV's that had pumpkin, witch, alien, and cyclops faces popping up. We ran away from the witch because she said she would cook us! - Robyn

At the last recess, we stayed in because another teacher was reading us a book on Skype. We had our own recess after that. - Hailey M.

After lunch, we had a new helper in our classroom. Her name is Ms. Evens. - Jenna

We did Number of the Day. We shared with our classmates a lot of crazy number sentences. Most of us don't use times or 'groups of' yet. - Gal

It was a big day in Room 18 today, as the students got to use Skype in the classroom for the first time! For those of you who aren't familiar with Skype, it's a program that allows you to have real-time video calling to any other computer in the world that also has Skype installed, as well as a video camera. I got a webcam a couple of weeks ago, and tried out Skype for myself earlier this week with my friend Erin Malksoke, who teaches a Grade 1/2 class at Dr. F.W.L. Hamilton School (http://200awesomedays.blogspot.com/). Today was a big test though, as first, I used Skype to read a book to Mrs. Malkoske's class (I read 'Pumpkin Circle: The story of a garden' by George Levenson to them), while my students were at Phys. Ed. Afterward, when the students came back to the class, Mrs. Malkoske read 'The Incredible Book Eating Boy' by Oliver Jeffers to us. We're looking forward to Skyping with Mrs. Malkoske's class next week, and talking to them about setting criteria for making good Skype calls (Mrs. Malkoske's class has been using Skype for a while, so they're pros at this!). Isn't technology cool?!

Busy, Busy, Busy

What a busy time of year it's been (so busy, I didn't even get a chance to post on our blog yesterday)! I can't believe that the school year is nearly 20% done already! We are well into the swing of Daily 5, during which I've been able to spend more time meeting with students one-on-one, to assess their strengths/needs in reading. We're also starting to work on our writing a little more (I'm looking forward to sharing some Halloween pumpkin writing they're doing with you soon!), and yesterday, we started working on how to leave good comments on someone else's blog. We were looking at the blog for Mrs. Malkoske's classroom (http://200awesomedays.blogspot.com/) at Dr. Hamilton school, and beginning to comment on some of the neat things they've been doing. With the exception of the pumpkin writing, all of these student activities I've mentioned are things I've never tried in the classroom before - it makes it really busy, but we are all learning so much (me included) that it's totally worth it! We're going to keep on trying these new things, and telling you all about them, so stay tuned...

Just another manic Monday

Today we wrote stuff about 'Green Woods' and 'Landscape No. 36'. We wrote what adventures happened in them. - Joey
We wrote about Landscape No. 36 and Green Woods. We were picturing what it would be like if you were in that picture, and what it would feel like. - Jenna
We had two periods of Phys. Ed. We played pin dodgeball, where you had to knock down pins. We also played Benchball, where people had to catch the balls. When they caught they balls, they had to stand on the bench. When one team was all on the bench, they won. - Robyn
Today we had two fire drills. We had two fire drills because Mr. H. forgot it was a cold weather fire drill, and we didn't grab our jackets for the first one. We had a second practice one just for our class, and we practiced to bring our jackets outside for when it's cold. - Taylor

SAGE 2011

While all of my students had the day off from school today, I was busy learning with other teachers! SAGE (Special Area Groups for Educators) happens every year in Manitoba, in October. On this day, teachers from all over the province sign up to go to sessions of their choosing, dealing with a wide variety of educational topics. In years past, I have gone to sessions on Math and (mostly) Science. This year, however, I decided to do something different. I signed up for two sessions through MAME (Manitoba Association of Multi-age Educators). The morning session was all about blogging - seeing as how this is my first year of blogging with my students, I wanted to go to this session to see what new tips, tricks, and ideas I could pick up. It was a great morning, and if you look closely at our blog, you'll find a few new gadgets on the right-hand side of the page that I discovered and added! The session in the afternoon was all about free webtools that can be used with students in the classroom, or on my own to broaden my professional resources and contacts for learning more about 'Ed Tech' (educational technology). I'm not going to tell you what great tools I learned about this afternoon, because I don't want to 'ruin the surprise' when I decide to start using some of these in the classroom!

As a final note, the two presenters for both sessions were fantastic! They are both teachers in our school division - Erin Malkoske and Leslie Dent Scarcello. I highly recommend you check out their classroom blogs (hopefully, our classroom blog will one day be almost as good as these two!): http://200awesomedays.blogspot.com/ and http://missdentsclass.blogspot.com/ Thanks to Erin and Leslie for a great day!

Just another Wednesday

The gym has gotten spookier today because the next gym class is 'Operation: Halloween'. - Jenna
Ms. Beach and some Leadership students helped put Halloween decorations up in the gym. - Dasia
After afternoon recess, we finished our Art from the 'Green Woods' picture. Some people are working on it right now. - Cam H.
We're learning about football in Gym. - Lexi
For Number of the Day today in Math, we had the number '29'. We do a whole bunch of math activities that all have to equal 29. - Robyn

When things don't go as planned

We had a sub for the morning, and his name was Mr. Pudsey. We called him Mr. P. - Cam H.
When the substitute teacher was here, it was pretty fun. - Dylan
At lunch, so of us went to soccer intramurals, but there was only three girls there. - Robyn
It was our turn on the new play structure. - Jacell
After lunch, we did Tumblebooks in the lab. - Joey
When Mikayla and I were doing Tumblebooks, we had to log off as soon as we got on because lots of people were trying to get on the website. - Marie
I was so excited to do Tumblebooks because we hadn't done it for a long time. But as soon as I logged on, it wasn't working. - Braylin
After recess, in Music we got to watch a movie called 'Pink Panther'. - Jenna

After being sick at home yesterday, and at a meeting this morning, it felt really good to get back into the classroom this afternoon - I really missed my students! I had planned to have the students go on the Tumblebooks website, and listen to reading (one of the parts of the 'Daily 5'), while I worked with students one-on-one. However, when we got into the computer lab and tried logging on to the Tumblebooks website, we encountered a whole host of problems. We kept getting messages telling us that there was too much traffic on the website (which I've never seen before), but then one student figured out that if you clicked the back button on the browser, and then the forward button, that you were often able to get on to the website. When only about half of the computers were able to get on to the website, another student suggested that they partner up, and unplug the headphones so they could both hear the stories being read. When the speaker on one computer wasn't working, the students working on it suggested they simply read the words together on the screen. It was great to see all the problem solving going on! It was a good lesson for the students that even when things don't go exactly as planned, they can still work out... just differently!

Patterns!

In Art today, we wrote about and talked about a new picture. - Jenna
The gym looks spooky because it's almost Halloween. - Alexandra
Today we did Writers' Workshop. We were reading our lunch small moments stories. - Taylor
In Math, we were making patterns. - Sydney

In Math today, we were learning about repeating patterns. The students got to do some activities on the SmartBoard, and then used manipulatives at their table groups to make their own repeating patterns. Check out these pictures, and see if you can figure out what the core (the section that repeats itself over and over) of each pattern is!

Small Moments writing

We had Music and Library today. - Dasia
Mr. H. read a story to us called 'Owl Moon'. - Jenna
Today, we had Grade 1 Reading Buddies. - Taylor
We made small moments stories about lunch. - Cam H.

Today, we started talking about small moments writing. If you don't know what small moments are about, it is taking a small moment in your life, and using a lot of detail and description to show just how interesting these moments often are. We began by reading Jane Yolen's wonderful book Owl Moon (check it out on our Shelfari!), a story of a young girl who goes 'owling' at night with her father. It's a wonderful example about how describing a moment in great detail (what's going on around you, what you're feeling, etc.) can make these moments into extraordinary stories. After we read the book, we talked about all the amazing detail and description that made the book so interesting. Then, I took something that most students wouldn't think twice of writing about: a fire drill. I started off by writing the following:

"We were working in the classroom when the fire bell rang. We had to hurry quickly outside. When we heard the bell ring three times, we went back inside."

I challenged the class to come up with more details about the fire drill, to make it a lot more interesting. After some discussion at their tables, this is what they came up with:

"We were working in the classroom on the Daily 5 when the fire bell rang – some students were reading, and some were writing. Some of the students jumped out of their chairs and knocked them over because the bell was really loud, and startled them. The students dropped what they were doing, and had to hurry quickly outside through the nearest exit to our classroom. They didn’t even wait for Mr. H. to tell them – they knew their job was to get out quickly. The first person through the door held it open, so that everyone else can walk out. The students usually line up in a number line, but when the fire bell goes, you just go. It was a warm day, and it was partly cloudy. We rushed outside, and lined up in our classes. It’s our job to line up single-file, and to not talk. Sometimes, just standing there can be pretty boring. Mr. Hoeppner writes a note that says whether all the students are in the line. When we heard the bell ring three times, we went back inside. When we came back inside, we got a chance to use the washroom."

The students were amazed at how they had taken something they thought would make a boring story, and turned it into a really interesting piece of writing. After this, I challenged the students to write about their lunch hours today. They weren't all finished yet, but while I was walking around the classrooms, I saw some really good examples of using detail and description to make a story much more interesting - I can hardly wait to see them all!

Math - equality

Mr. H. came around during Daily 5 and was asking students questions about reading. - Gal and Jacell
Daily 5 was fun, and we had it twice! Once after Phys. Ed. and once after afternoon recess. - Cam H.
Today we had gym. - Taylor
We have 4 marbles for our next Mystery Motivator. - Hailey M. and Braylin
We did Math on the SmartBoard doing questions about if number sentences were balanced or not. - Jenna and Joey

The last couple of days, we've been working on equality in Math; that is, that the amount on one side of the equal sign needs to be the same as the amount on the other side. We used a balance scale to show how when you have more weight on one side than on the other, the two sides will not evenly balance out; an equation is exactly like that. It was interesting that the students all knew that an equation like 4+2=6 is true, but were thrown for a loop when asked if 5+3=4+4 was true. However, after seeing it demonstrated with a scale, and some really cool activities that the students got to participate in on the SmartBoard, the students really 'got it' (I love seeing students when the 'light goes on' - one of the best parts of teaching!). Here's a screenshot of one of the activities the students took part in:

Tuesday

We made a list for who's allowed to go on the camping chairs in our class for the week. - Taylor
We had a bus evacuation today. They tell you the safety rules, where the exits are, and then you get to jump out of the back end of the bus. - Robyn
At recess, we had a guy named Jason from Grade 5 help to make teams, and he was the ref. - Cam H.
Every Tuesday we have intramurals for soccer at lunch recess. - Joey
We had Health for the third time today. - Gal

Happy Thanksgiving

While my students were happily enjoying a day off today, the teachers were hard at work, spending the day involved in professional development. It was a really good day, and we learned a lot! However, it's nice to have a long weekend now. I'm looking forward to turkey dinner, pumpkin pie... and the Winnipeg Jets home opener on Sunday — Go, Jets, Go! I hope you all enjoy your weekend - Happy Thanksgiving.

Math in the computer lab!

Today we had our Mystery Motivator. Mr. H. gave us chips and a movie. - Jenna
The movie we watched was 'Gnomeo and Juliet'. - Braylin
We had extra recess today because we got close to our Terry Fox goal. - Tyler
We had Phys. Ed. after O Canada. - Alexandra
After morning recess, we had our Math in the Tech Lab. We did Number of the Day in the Tech Lab and it was really fun. - Cam H.
Today was Phys. Ed. and then Choir right in a row. - Taylor

Last year, I attended a PD on using technology to enhance student learning. We were challenged at the PD session to create a tool that would would foster the independence of students. At the same time, I was finding that sometimes, when the students were working on their Number of the Day books and they were unsure of what an answer should be, they would be put in an answer without checking it; that it was better to have any answer (right or wrong) than no answer at all. So, after bouncing ideas off of a few of my colleagues, I got the idea of creating a tool in Excel that would let the students know whether their answer was right or wrong, but force them to reason out for themselves how to correct their answer if there was a mistake. If the the students get the right answer in activities such as patterning and making the number with money, they are given a 'thumbs-up'. If not, they are given a 'thumbs-down', and have to go back and figure out for themselves where they need to make changes. With their number sentences, Excel gives them a 'true' if the number sentences are correct, and a 'false' if they are not. As this was the students' first time this year trying out the tool, there were a lot of questions, and we didn't quite finish. However, the students really enjoyed doing their Number of the Day in a different way, and were asking me when we could do this again!

Hard at work on the Number of the Day:




Working on skip counting - lots of thumbs up!



Making the Number of the Day using money:

Long day

Students love early dismissal, as they get to 'cut out of work early'. This is definitely not the case for the teachers. While the kids are going home early, the staff attends a staff meeting. The meetings are usually fairly long, as there is always professional development (or PD, as we call it) that we take part in, in addition to many things that need to be discussed, debated, and decided, with regards to making the school a better place to work, learn, and play. After finishing the meeting, running a couple of errands, eating dinner, catching up on some reading, and watching a little news (RIP Steve Jobs), I realized "AAAAAHHHHH! We didn't post on our blog today!". Unfortunately, as a result, I was unable to get the students' input for our blog today. However, the highlight of the day was that the students started creating their own beautiful oil pastel masterpieces, based on the painting we've been talking/writing about in out last few Art classes - B.J.O. Nordfeldt's Green Woods (which was mentioned in a previous post a few weeks ago). The plan is to get the finished works up on Artsonia, but more about that at a later date... :)

Grade 1 Reading Buddies

Today we did Reading Buddies for the second time with the Grade 1's. - Jenna

We had a good time reading with the Grade 1's! - Kaynen
In Social Studies, we were working with different characters. - Gal
We were saying who the characters are - if they're nice, if they share, care. Things like that. - Hailey M.
After lunch, we had Social Studies, and we worked in groups. My group worked on Phineas and Ferb. - Cam H.

Today we had Music and Library right in a row! - Taylor
Today we picked new books from the Library. - Dasia

Election 2011!

Before morning recess, we had Family Bins. - Braylin
Logan is the only Grade 3 student in the Frisky Foxes family group. - Robyn
We had 2 free times in the Gym. -Tyler
We earned 5 marbles today. - Joey
We wrote for 11 minutes in our journals for the Daily 5. - Marie
Today in Social Studies, we voted for the election. - Jenna

During our election, when Mr. Hoeppner was counting the ballots, the NDP beat the PC's by 11-5. - Dylan
The Green Party had 3 votes and the Liberals had 3 votes. - Lexi
This afternoon, we had our own mini-election. The NDP had 11 votes, and whenever the NDP got another vote, people went "WOO!" - Sydney
Today in our mini-election, it was really fun. The NDP won the whole thing. - Cam H.

With the Manitoba provincial election taking place tomorrow, I thought it was the perfect time for our class to learn about what all the hubbub was about. We've been talking about rights and responsibilities in Social Studies, and voting in elections just happens to be a major responsibility of being a citizen of Canada. We talked about how the province was divided up into different ridings (and found out the Joey's aunt is running for the Liberal party in Transcona - cool!), and how voting actually works. Then we talked about the different political parties, and what each of them stood for. Next, we watched some of the TV ads that the different parties have been running over the last few weeks, and noted how some of them were really negative towards other parties, while other ads were really positive about their own party. Finally, we had our own election, where the students voted for the party of their choice. As you saw from some of the students comments at the beginning of the post, the NDP won in the riding of Radisson Room 18 - we'll have to wait until tomorrow night to see who wins the 2011 provincial election!

This is what our ballots looked like:

There was a long line-up at the poll in Room 18 today:

A student carefully considers who he will cast his ballot for (don't worry.... he waited until the photographer left the polling booth before casting his vote!):