It's looking more and more like summer! We've been enjoying the beautiful warm weather this week in Room 18. We have been working hard to wrap up our year's work and to prepare for next year.
We have finished our Happy unit, although we continue to discuss the concepts that we learned, and to apply them to new areas. Our new "Big Picture Idea" in Social/Emotional is the Four Agreements. Agreements differ from rules because the individual can choose whether or not to participate. The Four Agreements are a distillation of ancient wisdom for a happy life. In short, the Four Agreements are a way to take back the power for our own happiness, rather than depending on others to validate us. We have begun by exploring the First Agreement: Be Impeccable With Your Word. “Our first agreement was be impeccable with your words all the time, and don’t say mean words. That will make someone hurt and they will feel sad.” –DT To illustrate the power of words (to hurt and to heal), we introduced a new friend, Greenie (a person-shaped cutout). We each took turns saying a hurtful word to Greenie, then ripped a piece off. After that, we said a kind word and taped our friend back together: “We made a green paper and named him Greenie, and we said mean words and ripped a part of him off, then we said sorry and taped him back. But some people are still ripped and sorry doesn’t work all the time.” -CL “Next time, say nice things to people instead of bad things.” –MB In Science, we have seen the growth and changes in our plants and our caterpillars: “Our caterpillars are in cocoons now, and we left some dandelions in there, and they’re going to turn into butterflies. Once they turn into one, they will take some nectar from the dandelions and then one day we will let them go.” –CL “Our plants grew a lot, and they’re going to turn into sunflowers and bean plants. Our beans are going to grow really big, but the sunflowers grew faster.” –DT In Art, we painted what we think the butterflies will look like when they emerge: “We painted butterflies. We paint them however you think it will be when it gets out of its cocoon.“—DM “You can’t just paint it however you like it; you have to paint it what you think it will actually look like when it goes out of its cocoon. We’ll see how they will look like compared to our painting.” –CL Our bodies and minds have been getting stronger through our community walks over the past few weeks: “We have to use our senses—the sense of touch, the sense of sight, the sense of smell, the sense of hearing, and no sense of taste. No crossing the road all by yourself” –MB “We all stay together and don’t run ahead of the teachers.” –AS “The more you walk, the stronger your leg muscles get.” –BM “On our community walk, we use our senses to look at stuff and see what it looks like and we walk with the group. The more you walk, the more you can walk for longer periods.” –CL Next week, we have an exciting field trip to the Fire Hall on Tuesday morning. In addition, we will solidify our understandings of Agreement 1, and start working on Agreement 2. Our caterpillars will soon emerge as butterflies, so we will have more opportunities to observe and answer our questions. Stay tuned! Dates to Remember: Tuesday, May 23 – Room 18 Field Trip - Fire Hall Tour (leaving at 9.45a **Parent volunteers needed!**) Thursday, May 25 – Volunteer Tea 10:00 am Thursday, May 25 – Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) & Spirit Day Thursday, May 25 - Community walk (leaving at 10.15 **Parent volunteers welcome!**) Tuesday, June 13 – School Council Meeting 7:00 pm
0 Comments
Spring is definitely here, and Room 18 is springing to life, with many opportunities to take our learning into the real world!
We have built a classroom mailbox and send notes to one another! The rules for the mailbox are clear: I will be reading what they send to one another, and only kind messages allowed: “The mailbox is in our classroom and it’s all of ours. We put kind notes in.” -WBR “Don’t put bad notes because the person might think that they don’t want to be your friend. We have to put good notes in the box.” -DT In Math, we have been working on fractions: "Fractions is when you have a pie with nine slices, and usually you eat three pieces, and the other person eats one. Another person took one more, and there was four more slices left. And the person usually eats three again. But there’s one more slice left and no one wanted it, so they saved it for the next party.” –MB For Science class, we have continued to make observations about our plants and our caterpillars as they have been growing: “We’ve been talking about our plants and our caterpillars. Our plants are growing.” –AS “Also we checked on our caterpillars and they grow and grow every day and they poop a lot. And they eat a lot too.” –DT For our Social/Emotional work, our focus has been on how to be a good friend, and how to productively engage in social encounters. Several times each week, Room 18 students are encouraged to initiate a game or activity with another classmate. Room 18 students have been growing a lot in this area--I am so proud of their willingness to work through different preferences, and come up with a workable option. We went on one community walk this week, and once again, I am so proud of how the Room 18 students kept their bodies in the group and focused on walking mindfully. We will plan on going on one community walk this coming week, on Tuesday around 10.15a. Important Dates Tuesday, May 16: Room 18 Community Walk at 10.15a Thursday, May 18: School-Wide SOGO fieldtrip--Room 18 leaves at approx 1.15p **Volunteers needed!** Thursday, May 18: Garden Club Friday, May 19: PD Day; NO CLASSES Tuesday, May 23: Room 18 field trip to Fire Hall **Volunteers needed!** Thursday, May 25: Fun Lunch & Spirit Day The month of May started with many opportunities to enjoy the beautiful weather, and many spring-related inquiry sessions. We planted some beans and sunflower seeds, and the students have been caring for their plants diligently. “Plants need soil and water and lots of sun.” –BM “They will grow really big until they are done, and they need water but not too much.” –CL We have also welcomed some Painted Lady caterpillars into our class. Each student is responsible for one, and they care for and observe them every day. “We gave them food and they will grow into a butterfly and when they’re a butterfly, we’ll let them go.” –CL Both of these experiments help Room 18 students understand the scientific method, and the importance of observation over time. Each student asked a question related to our experiments, and made a prediction (hypothesis). After our experiments are complete, they will be able to answer their questions to see whether their predictions were correct (conclusion). This week, we went on two class walks. The purposes of these walks were threefold. First, walking is excellent exercise, and is wonderful in developing physical literacy and lifelong health. Second, community walks help students to feel more "at home" in the school and in the community, and help us better make connections between what we do in the classroom and what we do in the larger world. Lastly, we have been taking the opportunities while walking to use our senses to observe the world around us. We find a green space nearby on each walk, and sit and reflect what we've noticed, then we allow time for reflection afterward. Using our senses to perceive what is going on around us in the moment is called mindfulness, and helps to both increase resiliency and decrease anxiety. Here's what Room 18 students had to say about class walks: “I like class walks because I get to smell fresh air and you get to have the sun on your face.” –BM “We’ve learned that when we go on class walks we look at cool stuff that we like, and explore.” -CL “We stay together in a group.” –AS Next week, we will plan on doing community walks on Tuesday and Thursday at 10.15. Parent volunteers are welcome, and please remember to dress your children for the weather. Lastly, we have been exploring different ways we can tell stories, by using Book Creator on iPads, and Comic Life on laptops. “Comic Life is fun because you get to make your own comics. You get to take a picture and you can do any word bubble you want.” –BM “[In Book Creator], we can take pictures and put them on the book, or you can go to photos that you already got. You can write stuff and draw.” –CL Important Dates: Thursday, May 11: Shave Your Lid for a Kid Thursday, May 11: Garden Club begins! Thursday, May 18: School-Wide SOGO Field Trip **Parent volunteers welcome!** Thursday, May 25: Spirit Day & Fun Lunch This week, we have started our unit on community walks, as well as our Science unit on how plants grow. In Science, each student has planted two sunflower seeds and two bean seeds. We will observe our plants each day and write down our observations. This will help Room 18 students understand the Scientific Method, and how it can be applied. Our Community Walks unit started with discussing what is expected and what is unexpected on a class walk. If you like, you can review these expectations with your children at home. Expected behaviours include staying with the group, keeping pace with the rest of the class, keeping our volume down, and to follow directions given by the teacher. The students were reminded that, although it is sometimes nice to say "Hi" to a furry, four-legged friend we meet (after asking their owner permission, of course!), we will not be approaching dogs on class walks. Sometimes, we will focus on our senses during "Mindfulness Walks," and in those occasions it might be nice to pick up a small pinecone or other item, in general, we will not be picking up any items from the ground. This week, we went for walks on the school grounds, so that we could practise walking as a group. Next week, we are planning to go for two walks in the community! We will be going for "Mindfulness Walks," in which the students will be asked to observe their environment with four senses (taste is excluded for obvious reasons!). Walking is one of the best overall exercises for improving health and mood, and those benefits can be increased by adding a mindfulness component to the walk: an intentional focus on the present moment. Mindfulness exercises have been shown to improve mood and decrease feelings of anxiety and depression. We will plan on departing from the school around 10.15a on Tuesday, May 2nd, and on Thursday, May 4th, for a community walk of around 20 minutes long. If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please contact me via phone or email. The grade 3's have been doing some work on fractions, and we will continue this work next week. We are continuing to use our Compromise poster in order to help us sort out those tricky social situations. In ELA, Room 18 is working on multi-modal writing. We have been experimenting with Book Creator, as well as Comic Life-- applications that can be used to tell stories in interesting new ways! Important Dates to Remember: Tuesday, May 2: Due date for flower orders (fundraiser for school grounds clean-up). Place your order here. Wednesday, May 3: School choir performance at 10.30a Thursday, May 11: Garden Club starts Thursday, May 11: Shave a Lid Thursday, May 18: SOGO field trip Thursday, May 25: Volunteer Tea Thursday, May 25: Fun Lunch & Spirit Day Thursday, May 25: Flowers Arrive Despite being a short week, it has been full of teamwork and cooperation in Room 18. We started the week with a discussion about how challenging it can be to navigate social situations, and some strategies we can use to help. Compromise is an important part of the social landscape, and is essential to being a good friend. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules about how to compromise, so we tried to create a clear pathway toward increased social flexibility. We found that the most important part of compromise is that all people involved remain invested in the process: “Compromising is making a deal with a friend. If your friend says ‘no,’ he makes an offer, but if he says ‘yes,’ you shake on it.” –WBR This week in ELA, we worked together as a class to plan and write a story! “We made the story together, like a team. And we each got a turn saying something. The story is about a puppy and Queen Elizabeth, and he was scared of big things like the Queen’s crown.” –MB The Room 18 students were all proud of our collective story, and were excited to start planning their own animal stories. Ask your child about what they're planning for their stories! We will begin writing the stories next week. In Phys. Ed., we got to do more gymnastics. We ended the week with a Mission Impossible course. “I enjoyed gymnastics because I like the tunnel. Also it was pretty cool when it was like a jungle.” –DT “I like Mission Impossible because it’s obstacle courses. My favourite part was climbing the rope and going under the tent.” –BM Important Dates to Remember: April 24-28: Gym closed for painting Thursday, April 27: Fun Lunch & Spirit Day Tuesday, May 9: School Council Meeting, 7:00pm Thursday, May 11: Shave a Lid Thursday, May 18: SOGO Field Trip (school-wide) We celebrated Easter in style in Room 18--by dyeing eggs using plants! Our new Science unit is All About Plants, and our first experiment was to hypothesize which plants would make the best egg dyes. Students chose to try strawberries, raspberries, grapefruit, blueberries, grapes, and flower petals as dyes. Here's what the students said about our exploration:
“We dyed eggs using fruit. They changed different colours.” –DM “We were using hard-boiled eggs to get dyed, and the fruit was boiled as well. And we put the eggs in there and let them dye, then we saw what they look like.” –CL This week, we finished watching the Happy movie, and the students have almost completed their Happy Books. In the students' words: “Andy Wimmer helps sick people in India. We learned that he quit his job that he made lots of money from to make lots of no money to help people.” –BM We have been focusing on reading and analyzing dog stories in ELA this week. Next week, we will begin to write a dog story as a class. “Dogs are important because they help you find stuff so that you don’t lose anything. Dogs are like a tool and they like smelling things so they really like their job even though they smell disgusting things.” –CL To help combat anxiety around expectations at school, we explored what are students' jobs at school, and what are teachers' jobs. Students' job is to do their best and to ask for help. “Students’ job is listening to the teacher, you do what they teacher tells you to do, you do your work.” –MB Room 18 students have been excited about our Gymnastics unit in PE this week and next week: “In gymnastics, we need to listen to the teacher and you must be careful to not get hurt. –AS Look out for more gymnastics news next week, as well as for story-writing and plants news from Room 18! Important dates: April 18: Board games club; Skipping club April 19-20: Missing Impossible April 21: Sibbald U Round 3 begins April 24-28: Gym not available April 27: Fun Lunch & Spirit Day May 11: Shave Your Lid for a Kid With Cancer Room 18 students came back from Spring Break ready to get to work! This week, we have been focusing on life skills and attitudes needed for a happy life. Since learning that Room 18 students will be taking a bus rather than a cab, we have been discussing expected behavior on the bus. Here’s what some Room 18 students had to say about what we learned about bus-riding: “Whatever you do, don’t forget your stuff on the bus.” –AS “We don’t eat, sit still, and be quiet.” –WBR We have continued to work our way through the Happy movie, and are almost all the way through! This week, we learned about Okinawa, Japan—a place with the most 100-year-olds per capita. We also learned about Michael Pritchard, a comedian and educator who talks to kids about preventing bullying: “In the Happy movie, we learned that we should be kind to one another, even if they’re short.” –CL “In the Happy movie, I learned that it doesn’t matter if you’re small or big because you can have friends no matter what.” –BM We will be starting our story-writing unit next week with a class story about a dog. Our plan is to finish up the Happy movie and reflect on our journey next week. We will be starting our Healthy Body unit once the Happy unit is finished. In addition, we will be starting our Community Walks unit in the next few weeks. Dates to Remember: April 10: Gymnastics Unit starts. No jewelry, loose clothing, or shoes. April 10: Sibbald U forms go home April 14: Good Friday. NO SCHOOL April 17: PD Day. NO SCHOOL April 21: Sibbald U begins April 27: Fun Lunch & Spirit Day This has been a week of endings, and of preparing for things to come. It was the last week before March Break, so we were hard at work finishing up our projects. The Room 18 students finished their research PowerPoint presentations, and will be showing them to their parents during Student-Led Conferences on March 23. Room 18 students also finished up their second drafts of their writing samples. Earlier, they were given a writing prompt picture, and they wrote about it. This week, we looked at our first drafts, and decided how they could be improved in our second drafts. Students will be showing both their first- and second- drafts to their parents during Conference. Another milestone for Room 18 students was the end of Jeff Stockton's residency, culminating in our Storytelling Celebration on Tuesday, March 21st. Students were nervous and excited to share their stories that they had been working so hard on with their families and loved ones. I am so proud of the effort that the students put into their stories, and their willingness to work with other teachers and students! In Social/Emotional learning, we are about halfway through our study of the Happy movie--a documentary all about what happiness is, and how we can become happier. Room 18 students were introduced to the concept of FLOW: the feeling of being completely in the moment, without worrying about other things. We also discussed whether or not money buys happiness, and what it means to have intrinsic (inside) or extrinsic (outside) goals. Students record their notes in their Happy Books (another artifact being presented to parents during Conference). After break, parents can expect to hear about our work on telling a story by creating a comic, more work on our Happy movie (and ways that we can implement happiness strategies in our class and in our lives), and gymnastics in PE! I hope everyone has a fantastic break, and I am looking forward to seeing you all in April! Dates to Remember: Friday, March 24: PD Day; NO SCHOOL March 26-30: March Break; NO SCHOOL Monday, April 3: Classes resume We have been working hard in Room 18 as we prepare for both our Storytelling Celebration as well as our Student-Led Conferences next week! In addition to the exciting events to come, Sibbald U wrapped up this week. Here's what the Room 18 students had to say about their end-of-Sibbald U-celebrations: "In Sibbald U, we made cupcakes and one looked like an owl. The other one had an ant stealing a watermelon." -MB "We got glitter and we worked on our terrarium, and we had a fairy party." -AS Here's what the Room 18 students had to say about our classroom work this week: "We worked on adding two-digit numbers. We used a big piece of paper." -MB "This week, I learned how to be a good host and how to tell stories without whooshes." -CL (A whoosh is what Jeff Stockton calls the rush of energy that we get when we go to speak in front of a group. In Room 18, we have learned that this whoosh comes from our amygdalas, our "emotional brains" that protect us from danger.) "This week I learned that you can take pictures and funny videos on the computer." -AS (The Room 18 students recorded their stories on video to share with their parents on the Storytelling Celebration evening.) This week,we discussed integration, and why it is important that we show our best behaviour when we join the typical classes. Almost all the Room 18 students have spent time in typical classes this week! We work on building strategies to use when we start to feel overwhelmed--I am very proud of all the Room 18 students for their courage and their hard work. In PE, we did more work on what is expected behaviour in the gym, and the Room 18 students are knocking our socks off with their hard work and sportsmanship. Here are some important dates to remember: Tuesday, March 21: Storytelling Celebration at 6p at the school Thursday, March 23: Student-Led Conferences from 8-1p & 4-7p; NO SCHOOL for students (To sign up for a timeslot, log in to My CBE. NOTE: make sure to bring your child to this conference!) Friday, March 24: PD Day; NO SCHOOL for students Monday, March 27-Friday, March 31: March Break; NO SCHOOL Monday, April 3: Students return to school Room 18 students have been focusing on how to be a friend and how we can be kind to ourselves and to each other. In Phys Ed class, we have been de-emphasizing competitive activities, in order to emphasize cooperative play and skill-building. We first do a warm-up, then we do an individual skill-building activity or a cooperative game, then we do a big group game. Room 18 students are really developing their sportsmanship vocabularies--we hear lots of, "Good try!"s and "Well done!"s! For our social/emotional work, we are studying a documentary called HAPPY, about what makes people happy. Each of the students has their own "Happy Book," where they respond to what they have seen in the film. (We watch 10 minute clips at a time, so it will probably take us a while to get through the movie.) This week, we had a visit from Miss Jessica, the Occupational Therapist, and we worked on creating our calm, quiet place in our minds. The room 18 students drew their calm, quiet place. We have finished our graphing booklets in Math, and are now working on deepening our understandings of numbers and functions. Upcoming dates: March 13: Jeff Stockton visits March 15: Sibbald U--LAST ONE March 16: Assembly 10:30a March 20: Jeff Stockton visits March 21: Storytelling Celebration: 6p at school. See you there! March 22: Last day of school before break March 23: Student-Led Conferences March 24-31: BREAK April 3: First day back |
AuthorMs. Spray loves teaching and learning with her students. Archives
October 2018
Categories |