The Awesome Day

Ashley's Mom came this afternoon and we made hands and when we went out for recess Ashley's mom put them up on the bulletin board for the Christmas concert. One is a tree and one is a wreath. In gym Mr. Chan has the stage up already. We only had stations in Gym. -Taylor
We had inquiry and we were learning about goods and services. We had to glue on a paper and write what we wanted to be when we grow up. It was fun. -Tristan
We had gym and I was happy. My favourite was bowling. -Sam
Today we had Gym and my favourite stations was stacking cups. Me and Jadyn and Lindsay and Sydeny H and Cameron stacked up and we used all the cups and we made a big castle. -Rhianna
Me, Tristan, Cole, Jonathon and Peyton and Alexander all stayed in at last recess to do our comic. It will be $4 or $5. Me, Tristan and William and Jaden made up a club called Secret Ninja. -Ty
Outside I was playing with Kaspir and we were playing tag. We were having lots of fun outside. -Nick
Today my Mom came and we learned a new game called Scrabble Alphabet Scoop. I like to play it because its fun. If you get a fly you have to put all of your letters back. There are cards to tell you which words you can do. -Ashley
Today at recess me and Kendall were playing and we made a snowpile and I rolled over it. -Sydney R
Today at recess Nicholas and me Rhianna were playing. Nick and me had a little fight but we appologized to each other. We said sorry. -Kaspir
Me and Sydney were playing dead and I don't know why we were playing that. We were just being silly. -Kendall
Today for Daily 5 for word work you could only do Scrabble Alphabet Scoop because we were learning it so that for other word work time you can play it. There can only be 4 people. I was in the third round with Lindsay, Olivia and Peyton. -Madeline

Monkey Machine!

This week during our Math time we've been exploring skip counting (counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, etc). At the beginning of our exploration we watched a Youtube video rap of skip counting. It was very catchy! Throughout the week I've caught a few different children singing it quietly as they work. :)

In order to help us remember the counting sequences, the kids in our class have decided to create their own rap videos... from scratch. We started on Tuesday by choosing our skip counting sequence, writing a rhyming introduction (which is much harder than we thought), and practising. Today we used a site called Monkey Machine to create our beat tracks. It was really easy and a lot of fun. Here's a sample:



Stay tuned to see our finished videos next week!

Little Drummer Boy & Winter Wonderland

I love Christmas music! A couple of days ago I hit the local musical jackpot when I came across 2 tweets about local artists' performing Christmas songs. I thought that I would share them with you :)

The first one is a link to the song Winter Wonderland by Winnipeg duo, Keith & Renee. If they look familiar to you, it might be because both Keith MacPherson and Renee Lamoureux were on Canadian Idol a few years ago, and they both work at Moksha Yoga Kildonan occassionally... talk about talent! Here's a link to the free download of their version of the song.

01 Winter Wonderland by keithandrenee

The second tweet was a link to a Youtube video created by Sean Quigley, a 16 year old Oak Park student. In the video he perfoms the song Little Drummer Boy. It's amazing! Here's the video:

Happy Holidays!

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