Christmas holidays are finally here!

Happy Holidays! - Cam
Happy Hanukkah! - Gal
Happy Holidays! - Hailey M.
Happy New Year! - Logan
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! - Robyn
Have a happy Christmas! - Dasia
We wish you a Merry Christmas and be nice to family! - Dylan
Merry Christmas to all of you! - Cameron W.
Happy New Year, and to all a good night! - Joey
Happy Hanukkah! - Jett
Eat lots of fruitcake! - Tyler
Merry Christmas! - Sydney
Ho, ho, ho! - Jacell
God bless us all! - Kaynen
Eat lots of turkey! - Markus
Enjoy your holidays! - Lexi
I hope you get all the presents you want! - Braylin
Merry Christmas, Taylor - we miss you! - Taylor
Merry Christmas to you all! - Ava
Have a good Christmas! - Jenna
Best wishes! - Mrs. Garn
Have a great holiday - see you in January! - Mr. H.

We had a great day today, and everyone was excited for the holidays to begin. The students managed to finish their Andy Warhol-inspired pop art Christmas/Winter pieces, so I was able to take pictures of their work, and upload them to Artsonia. You can see them (and our Green Woods exhibit) on our Artsonia page at: http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=129580. Enjoy!

New post... finally!

It's been a few days, but we're back. 'Tis the season where one often needs to whisk away right after work to take care of seasonal tasks that need to be done before the 25th. As a result, I have been a little negligent with my blogging over the past few days - if it's any consolation, I feel guilty about it!

As it was the second-last day before the break, things are starting to 'wind down' as the kids begin to 'wind up' - this usually happens, as the students begin to get excited about the break, and the prospect of the whirlwind of family gatherings, presents, and other special activities that often happen during this time. I must say, though... the group of students that I have this year have been doing a superb job, and have been working hard at every task/assignment I have given them - I'm so proud of them!

Today, during Math, I didn't have the students work on their Number of the Day books. Instead, we played 'One False Move', a great online Math game that is helping to introduce the students to the idea of negative numbers, and how to order numbers from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest, that involve both positive and negative numbers. If you would like to play with your child at home, the link is: http://www.funbrain.com/ofm/index.html. After that, the children were working on finishing up their Andy Warhol-inspired Christmas/Winter pieces that they began the other day (I'm hoping for them to be finished tomorrow, so I can get them up on Artsonia for all of you to see and share over the holidays). Once students were finished this, they began to make cards for their parents or siblings - it really tugged at my heartstrings to read some of the messages of love and affection that students were putting into the card. I really do have a wonderful group of children in my class!

Speaking of tugging at heartstrings, while the children were working on their art and their cards, we were watching 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'. I watch this every Christmas season - it is my favourite made-for-TV Christmas special ever, and I have fond memories of watching this with my family, every year, growing up. I love being able to share it with my students every year, and every year, they marvel at how that spindly, little tree, with a little love from the Peanuts gang, transforms into a beautiful Christmas tree. I also love how much they laugh at Snoopy's antics ;)

More fun with the Scientific Method

We continued our work today with the Scientific Method, as the students learned about why it's important (when designing and performing an experiment) to repeat the experiment more than once, and why it's important to one change one thing (or variable) when performing an experiment. We repeated an experiment we had done before - one where students held up one, then two, and finally three books as long as they could, using one arm held straight out from their side. We have now done the experiment with 4 people, and while the amounts of time each of them could hold the books up varied, it was pretty much a given that no matter which student (or adult!) it was that was holding the books, the person performing the experiment could hold up one book longer than they could hold up two books, and that they could hold up two books for longer than they could hold up three books. Next, we looked at why it was important to only change one variable, as Mikayla from our class couldn't hold up one book nearly as long as I could hold up two books - not exactly a fair comparison, was it?! After that, the students got together in their groups, and discussed why these things mattered when conducting an experiment, and answered on chart paper - here is one group's answer:

Warhol

For Art today, I had the students try something I haven't attempted with my class before - I had the students begin creating "Andy Warhol-esque" pieces, with a winter or Christmas theme. The students divided their paper into quarters and traced a winter/Christmas sketch, that they had created, onto each quarter. We talked about colours, and how each quarter was to be a different colour scheme. In the top left quarter, the students would use only primary colours (red, yellow and blue). In the top left quarter, they would use only secondary colours (orange, green and purple). In the lower right quarter, they would use only warm colours (red, yellow and orange), and in the lower left quarter, they would only use cool colours (blue, green and purple). Once that is finished, I'll have them cut the quarters and mount them on black construction paper, in order to 'frame' them. They still have some work to do, but they're starting to look pretty neat. I had planned to upload a few 'teaser' shots, but after fighting with my PC at work (I'm a Mac guy!) to get the photos up, I give up (I'll try from home later, if I have time) - I'll post the finished products on our Artsonia page, sometime next week.

A good day in Room 18

After Daily 5, we had Gym and then Health. In Gym we played Elves vs. Reindeers, and we played Steal Santa's Presents. In Elves vs. Reindeers, the Elves and Reindeers throw dodgeballs at each other. In Steal Santa's Presents, three people go on the bench and we have to run and hide behind a mat. When the music stops, they have to catch us and then we have to go back to the starting line. - Joey
Today in Math, we shared number sentences and needed to use addition, subtraction, and multiplication. - Jenna
Hey Taylor, it's us! Today we had lots of fun! We really miss you and we hope you have some fun at your new school and your new home. We'll probably talk to you next time when we do the blog. We hope we see you again! - Dylan
Our blog has now been viewed over 1000 times - cool! - Mr. H.

SLC Monday

Today we went to Gym, and we got to dance with the Grade 2-ers, and we got to do a dance party! - Mikayla

We had an SLC this morning. It was about playground rules. We had to make up a skit about playground rules. Our was about some kids playing soccer. Brayden kicked the ball at Jason, and then Ricky said "Are you OK?". Then Jade went to tell Mrs. Steinhoff that Jason was hurt, and Mrs. Steinhoff came and asked Jason "Do you need to go to the office for some ice?". Jason said "Yes", and then Mrs. Steinhoff gave him a hallway pass to go to the office and get some ice. - Jett

They blinded me... with SCIENCE!!!

Today we did Science in the Library. We had to sort out seven different things for the scientific method. We also did number of the day and we shared number sentences. We talked about using addition to subtract. We also did Daily 5, and we had to mark what we did. - Jacell and Cam W.

In Science, we started working on the Scientific Method (with Ms. Bell, our Library Teacher). For those of you who don't know, the Scientific Method is a way in which we can ask scientific questions, and get answers by conducting an experiment and making observations. The end product of this will (hopefully!) be that each group (the students have been placed into groups of 4 or 5) will come up with something they want to investigate, which relates to the unit in Science we've been working on, and a way in which to do so. The Science unit we've been working on is forces that attract and repel - magnetism, static electricity, and gravity. However, before the students can design and conduct their own experiments, they need to learn about the scientific method, so that they can be sure the results they get are accurate and valid. The first step today was to learn about these different steps, and see if they could put them into the right order...

Working with Ms. Bell, our Library teacher

Starting to put them into order...

Not quite there...

A great job by this group - they got them in the right order on the first try!

(BTW... bonus points if you know the inspiration for the title of today's post!)

Christmas concert day is here!

It's finally arrived - the day of the Radisson School Christmas concert! It's a little earlier than usual this year, so it's kind of snuck up on us. However, the students have been hard at work since the end of October preparing for today. In the last week, there's been extra practices, in order to make sure that the students are 'firing on all cylinders' today. We had our morning concert at 9:30 am today, and the students sounded amazing! I'm so proud of the job they did - all of their hard work (and that of Mrs. Kroeker, our fantastic Music teacher!) paid off! If you didn't get a chance to come to the morning concert, you should definitely check out the evening show. It starts at 6:30 pm tonight, with the doors opening at 6:00 pm (don't forget to bring a non-perishable food item for our food drive, and some spare change for the silver collection for the school's Music program). We look forward to seeing you there!

Santa Claus is on his way!

Today we had Choir two times. The front stage was set up for the Christmas concert. Our Christmas concert is in two days, and tomorrow the whole school is watching us singing songs, using the Boomwhackers, and reading a story. We are playing the Boomwhackers for 'Santa Claus Is On His Way'. - Cam W. and Jacell

Student-led conferences... Part 2

I almost forgot to mention yesterday... a big thanks to Jett's mom and Ms. Beach for helping to get the bulletin board outside of our classroom ready to go with the students' snow globe artwork... just in the nick of time! You ladies rock!

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and to my students... see you back in class on Monday! Go Jets Go!

Student-led conferences

Our school is having student-led conferences tonight and tomorrow. When I was a kid (and even when I started off teaching), they were called Parent/Teacher conferences, because it was primarily the teachers and the parents who did the talking. They are now called student-led conferences because it's the students who get to do most of the talking. It's a great chance for students to show off some of their work to their parents, and explain to them (in their own words) the learning they are doing, and the goals they have set for themselves to improve their work in the different subject areas. I absolutely love to stand back and watch the interaction between students and their parents, as they explore the results of a child's hard work over the term. Seeing a parent's face light up as they see the progression in their son's or daughter's math or writing skills over the course of a term is an amazing experience. It's experiences like these (and there were many such moments tonight) that make staying late into the evening feel like it's time well spent!

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to head home for the night - I've got a comfy couch, a big bowl of popcorn, and the Jets game calling my name! ;)