Thursday

Today we did  Daily 5.Aliegha and my first choice was work on writing because we wanted to do the blog.
We had Gym it was  awesome! Last day Mrs.Castor said that the Gym classes outside we have gym  inside because Mr. Chan was not here.
At lunch the lunch helpers sade if we be quiet then we get candy. if the whole class is quitet we all get candy but only one table  will.
today  my and  table finished our ornaments.
-Madeline & Ali

all about today

Today we worked on our comic Cole Tristan Tyson Alexander Peyton and Jonathon are makeing A comic. We are makeing all of the carachacters first we are allmost done the cover.  We finished our me on the map. Tristan said we would get 20 pages of paper and we allmost did of our comic.
-Cole, Jonathon, Peyton

Making a Math Video

We maked a math video today. it is a video about cownting by  2s  and  5s  and   we    allso   did    10s     my    gruop     did    2s. my gruop did 10s. my   group  had fun doing 2s and are excited because we did our very own song. It went like this: 2s 2s 2s lets count by 2s, 2,4,6,8,10 lets all count by 2s again.
-Olivia and Rhianna

Word Work!

This week the children in our classroom are trying out some new materials for Daily 5-Word Work. Each week they practice their individualized word lists using a variety of materials. I'm always looking for new things to keep it interesting for the children as they learn and play with words. Here's a picture of some of the things I picked up last weekend in Grand Forks:

Some of the other materials the children use include:

-mini whiteboards and dry erase markers

-mini chalk boards and colorful chalk

-letter beads

-letter puzzle pieces

-wiki stix (Bendaroos)

-ABC magnets

-ABC stamps

-ABC silly bands

-play doh

-felt letters and the felt board

-using Pictochat on our DSs

They've also been learning some word games that challenge and give them a little break from practising their word lists. Most of the games require the children to make their own words from a given set of letters. We have mini Boggle, Scrabble Slam, the Jumbline App (on the ipad), and Scrabble Flash in our classroom. I am a huge fan of Scrabble and love to play with anyone who has the patience for it. :) Scrabble Flash is fun for kids and adults (trust me, I've played a few games with the kids in our classroom). Here is a video of a group of kids playing Scrabble Flash today during Word Work:

My favourite thing about this game is that it often fosters meaningful conversation about words and word patterns between the players. I've heard children discussing whether or not a word is in fact a 'real' word, giving other possible spellings for words, using what they know about word patterns and vowel sounds to help others make more words, and occasionally sticking letters together randomly only to find out that a word like "mira" is actually a real word. (Usually I'm then asked for a definition...or we take a trip to an online dictionary to find out!) I think the children enjoy the break from their word lists and are having a lot of fun learning!

If you want to check out Scrabble Flash or Scrabble Slam, here's  link to the Scrabble site. Enjoy!

-Erin

The Skip Counting Day

Today we swtiched jobs and my job is library and my partner is Jolene. Me and Jolene are at a different table but are really close to each other. Today we had a Christmas concert rehersal and the actors came over so we watched them do their play. -Taylor
We had gymnastics and we were doing backward rolls and we were doing cartwheels and we were doing balancing. -Nicholas
Today I got a new job and my new job is greeting. We had gymnastics at lunch recess and I like gynmastics because you can do cartwheels and I like to do cartwheels. -Rhianna
Today we went to music and the actors were there. We also switched seats and jobs. My job is cleanup with Aleigha. -Ashely
We switched seats today and we switched jobs too. I played a math game with Aleigha. - Cameron
Today I went to the dentist but I was here this morning. I came back at lunch but everyone was still outside. -Jadyn
We had music today and the grade 4, 5 and 6s came and watched the rehersal. - Kaspir
We switched our jobs and our seats today. I sit beside Taylor and Olivia. My new job is survey. We played a math game and my partner was Sam. -Madeline
I switched jobs and my partner is Taylor for my job. My old job was survey and I was with Ashley. - Jolene
We switched seats and I sit beside Sydney H. and Cole. - Jonathon
We switched seats and I was beside Sydney and Jonathon.- Lindsay

Today we practiced skip counting by 2, 5 and 10. Here is one of the videos we watched. (Be careful, it is catchy!)

A note about conferences...

Conference time can be a very crazy time of year in an early years classroom. Helping 25 children prepare 25 portfolios is always a challenge... but worth every second and every effort! Over the past two weeks, the children and I spent lots of time talking about our year so far, reflecting on the things they've learned, setting some goals for next term, choosing just the right pieces for portfolios, and practising sharing learning with others. The night and afternoon of conferences can be quite hectic, but also very rewarding. I love eavesdropping on the children in my classroom as they talk their way through their portfolios with their families. Hearing the children explain their work, talk about their favourite books, teach their families a new math game, and laugh about something they remember about a project is my favourite part of the night. Seeing them explain, reflect, and discuss all of their learning makes me feel very proud. Watching parents look at their child's work, ask them questions about their learning, and congratulate them on their accomplishments is also very rewarding. It was another AWESOME week.

On Friday afternoon I came across some interesting tweets while I was checking my professional Twitter account. A number of the educators I follow were at a conference where author Peter Reynolds was the keynote speaker. (Peter Reynolds has many great children's books including "Ish" and "The Dot") The tweets were sent by Tony Baldasaro and many were quotes from Reynolds' keynote speach. Here are 4 of the tweets Tony sent. I thought they came at a perfect time. I love it when that happens :)

Here they are:

The last one was my favourite. Simple. To the point. True in everyway. Every child is amazing. 

-Erin



Lots of Parent Teacher Conferences

We have a short day today because we don't have school at lunch time because we have Parent Teacher. -Madeline
Today we have really, really, really early dismissal because there is Parent Teacher in the afternoon. Some kids have to take different buses and some take the same bus. I have to take bus 34. Everybody is singing a song today. It's a Katy Perry song.-Taylor
Today is Parent Teacher. I'm coming today with my family. Today Jolene's Grandpa came to read us a story. It was called "How Santa Lost His Job" and in the end he got his job back. -Ashley
At recess we were singing a song about Katy Perry and Cameron was singing the wrong way. It was funny. Me and Kendall were singing it to the boys. -Sydney R & Kendall
Today I had a short recess and we are having Parent Teacher today. -Cameron
The people that are on bus 11 are still on bus 11. That's the bus I always take. -Rhianna
Today at recess I was playing with Nicholas and Ashley and Jolene. We were playing tag. -Rylee
Today I'm taking the bus. I'm going on bus 33 with Alexander, Tristan and Jolene. -Cole
Me, Tristan, and Cole we stayed in for recess to do our comic. It's about a talking banana. My character is an apple and Tristan's is a watermelon and Cole's is a banana. -Tyson
My bus for today is 33. My Grandpa came to read a story to us. -Jolene

Fix Up Portfolios

Sydney R put stuff in my portfolio because I was painting. We put some stuff that we did for inquiry in it. -Kendall
I put stuff in Jolene's portfolio. My favourite thing is the map book. -Jonathon
My favourite books were "The Haunted Castle" and "101 Cool Jokes". Only one of them were Geronimo Stilton. -Cole
Today we made a huge Christmas ornament. We painted it yellow. -Brandon
Today my Mom came and she helped us do our Christmas ornaments for the Christmas concert. Ours was blue. -Ashley
We put stuff in our portfolios and we did Me on the Map. -Aliegha
When my table was painting the Christmas ornaments, our colour was red. When I was painting it, it reminded me of the Christmas concert. -Jolene
Today we painted 1.5 metre by 1.5 metre ornaments. My table painted blue. We had fun. -Jadyn
Today at school we painted ornaments for the Christmas concert. Our ornament was coloured gold. -Lindsay
We had gym today. We played world cup soccer. -Sam
Today we had 2 volunteers. In the morning Madeline's Mom was here to finish our tree project. For the afternoon Ashley's Mom came to help us finish our big Christmas ornaments. -Taylor
My Mom came today. I was the first one to finish our summer tree and we did our portfolio. My favourite one was Me on the Map and my other favourite was My Favourite Books. We did Me on the Map.-Madeline
At Daily 5 we did word work at the end together. Someone came to watch us do word work. He was Mr. Walls. -Olivia
Ms. Anderlic's boss came and watched us do word work. Today I had a special lunch with Jolene. We ate and drank with a plate and cup. -Ashley

Another Busy Day

We had our Christmas Concert rehearsal and the actors came in. It was a fun day! -Tristan
We had choir and we did our Christmas Concert and the actors were really good. -Tyson
Today we had Library and we got our library teacher back because she was sick. We got chocolate bars. She saved them for us. -Taylor
We had Daily 5. We had to make words. -Sam
We almost finished our Just Like Me book. It was fun to make it. -Sydney H
Today we got a paper for making a book that Ms. Anderlic read to us. It was about a map and we made one about the classroom and it got bigger and bigger and then it went smaller.-Sydney R
Today we had a fun day because we did our surveys and our surveys made me feel really surprised because when the teacher said that I felt so surprised like I was going to explode. -Rylee
Today at recess we were in the front with grade ones and twos. They went down a big line of ice and it was like a slide. Some grade ones and twos went down it and it was fun. I had fun too. -Rhianna
In library we got chocolate bars. -Olivia
We played a game it was scramble. You had to make different words and you had to make 2 letter, 3 letter, 4 letter, 5 letter, 6 letter, and 7 letter words. It was really fun. -Madeline

Report Card Day!

Today we are going to get report cards. It took me hard work to get there. -Lindsay
Today we got report cards. When Mrs. Malkoske said we were getting report cards today I got surprised. Ashely was surprised too. -Taylor
I was excited when we got our report cards. I wonder how big they are. -Rylee
If I get all positive comments then I get money. -Tristan
When I heard Mrs. Malkoske say that we were getting report cards today I was scared because I didn't want it to say bad things about me. -Ashley
Today we get report cards. I hope I have a 5 or a 4. -Jadyn
Today we got report cards. I was wondering how many pages it has. -Sydney R
Today we're going to get our report cards and I hope I get a 4 or a 5. -Madeline
I was surprised that we were going to get report cards today because I didn't know that we were going to get them. -Sydney H

The Blue Bombers lost the game. I wanted the lions to win. -Sam
Yesterday I had a Blue Bombers party and me and my Dad and my auntie and uncle watched the game and had lots of snacks. I wanted the Blue Bombers to win but they lost. -Rhianna
Last night I had a party. My friends came over. We played downstairs and the Dad's were upstairs watching the football game. My Dad, my brother and me were cheering for the BC Lions. -Taylor