More fun with magnets

Today in Science, we did something with a compass where we looked at which way the white arrow was pointing when we put it by a magnet. - Jenna

We are almost done the third Aiden and Meg book, called 'Now You See Them, Now You Don't'. - Marie

We did Number of the Day in Math today. It was number 43. - Cameron W.

At Daily 5, we could read with a partner, write, read to self, or work on our spelling. Mr. Hoeppner was working with kids on their writing. - Logan

We used compasses and whatever way the white part of the needle pointed, we had to draw an arrow on our papers. - Lexi

We continued our investigation of magnets and magnetism in Science today. The students studied what happened when the different poles of magnets were put together, and what happened when a compass was placed at different locations around a bar magnet. We didn't have time to discuss the compass findings, but there were a lot of interesting theories as to why they saw what they saw...

Grade 1 Reading Buddies

Every Day 3, our class get to read with Ms. Derkson's Grade 1 class, right before lunch. It's always a highlight of the day, for both grades. Here are a couple of pictures from today's session...

"Science Rules!"

Today we had Science after lunch, and we worked with magnets. We did predictions if buttons, pennies, marbles, nails, screws, paper clips, pop can tabs, and staples would stick to a magnet. - Sydney

In the SLC we had this morning, we watched a little bit of Toy Story 3, where the kids were playing really crazy, messing up the toys, breaking them, putting them up their noses. We watched that because we were talking about how to care, share, and play fair outside on the playground. - Joey

Today, after recess, we had Phys. Ed. There was one station with football, two stations with soccer, one station where Ms. Beach timed us while we dropped three chickens in a hula hoop, and one station where we threw a ball against a rebounder and had to catch it. Grade 5 students were running the stations. - Cam H.

At all three recesses, most of the Radisson students played in the snow and made snowmen. - Jenna

As much as I love teaching Math, I love teaching Science. I love seeing students explore, investigate, and manipulate materials. Today, we began studying forces that attract and repel (magnetism, gravity, and static electricity), by watching a Bill Nye: The Science Guy video on magnetism, followed by a hands-on investigation of different everyday items, and whether or not they are attracted by magnets. The students had lots of fun 'playing' with the magnets and the objects, and then sharing their findings with the class. Bill Nye says it best on each of his videos: "Science rules!"

Goodbye, Taylor!

Today was kind of a sad day, as we had to say goodbye to one of the members of Room 18. Taylor is moving with her family to Thompson, MB, and will be living there as of next week. We've been privileged to have Taylor with us at Radisson, and we are going to miss her dearly! We hope she continues to read our blog, so that she can keep up to date with everything that's going on in her old classroom. Thanks for being such an awesome part of Room 18 and Radisson School, Taylor - we are going to miss you a lot!

Mr. Pudsey rocks!

I was out of the classroom for a divisional Workplace Safety and Health meeting this afternoon (I'm the teacher representative for Radisson School), so that meant I needed to book a substitute teacher. I'm very lucky to have Mr. Pudsey be able to come into the classroom for me. Mr. Pudsey is a friend of mine, whom I met when we were both working towards our B.Ed. degrees at the University of Manitoba. When I'm out of the classroom, and he's in there for me, I know my students are in very capable hands. Mr. Pudsey does a great job with whatever I leave for him and the class, and if things have to change at the last minute, I know he can 'roll with it' without flinching. Not only is he very capable, but the students absolutely love him! In fact, when I told the class this morning that Mr. Pudsey was going to be in for me in the afternoon, they cheered, and told me that they liked me "100%", and that they liked Mr. Pudsey "100%". I'm glad he has such a high approval rating with them... because he's in our classroom again tomorrow!

Words Their Way

Today we did word work after morning recess. Some people went into room 17 with Mrs. Sigurdson, and some people stayed in room 18 with Mr. Hoeppner. - Sydney
We had Phys. Ed. first thing. In Phys. Ed. we did our fitness test, where we had to run for 8 minutes. - Logan
After afternoon recess, we did all the five things in Daily 5. It was our first time doing all of them. - Jenna
Today we had Library, and it was my last Library class. - Taylor
It was our first time having Library right before lunch. We usually have it in the morning right before recess. - Joey
After Phys. Ed., we had Music. We were practicing for the Christmas concert. We're using Boomwhackers for one of the songs. When they hit the ground, they make a sound. - Lexi

Today, we finally started working on the last of the Daily 5 literacy tasks - word work (or 'spelling', as it was called when I was in school). 'Words Their Way' is a system to learn spelling by completing different word sorts, based on the students' individual needs. A quiz of 25 words is given to the students, and based on what they get right and wrong, their individual strengths can be identified, as well as the areas that need to be targeted for improvement. In our class, we are starting off with three groups: one that is working primarily on short vowels, one group that is working on long vowels, and one group that is working on other vowels. As they come to the end of each spelling stage, an assessment is given. If they successfully complete it, they move on to the next stage. The students progress through the stages as they are ready to do so.

We all started working on our word sorts together today, but as part of being independent during the Daily 5, this will be one of the tasks (reading to self, reading with someone, listening to reading, writing, word work) the students can choose from (and they seemed pretty pumped when I told them that!). I am new to 'Words Their Way', so I am really excited to see how it helps the students improve as spellers!


(one of the students in the 'long vowel' group, starting her word sort)

Learning our Addition strategies

In Math, the students have been learning their Power of Ten addition strategies since the beginning of the school year. The Power of Ten is a way of thinking about Math that encourages students to make as many 10's as they can when adding (because it's so much easier to work with them). So far, we've worked with strategies to make 10's when adding 9, 8, and 5, as well as making sure they know their 'Friendly Number' facts (any two numbers added together that make 10: 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, etc.). The students were surprised to learn that they've already learned strategies that allow them to successfully solve more than half of their basic facts (addition facts from 0+1 to 9+9)! Today, we started working on the next strategies - doubles, doubles +1, and doubles -1. Here's a sample of their work from today:

I love teaching Math!