Friday's News

Happy gobble gobble to our friends and followers in the US. As you recover from your Turkey hangover, or as you prepare to stand inline for when Target opens, I entrust that you had a great, short week in the classroom.

Back here we've had a fun and exciting week. There was a full moon and well I don't think you need me to get too in depth as to how that worked out in the classroom. One of the great ways to get out those bursts of energy is through Go Noodle. Jeff's class was learning to Pop See Kow!

Jeff's class also concluded their Habitats and Communities unit and wrote their quiz. He added a bonus questions and apparently his kids think he might be part Yeti. 

His class is also working on a passion project which you can follow here.

We are currently working on completing a health unit for grade 4 based on the new Ontario health curriculum. Jeff was testing it out with his students. Here is a sample photo of the kids using it. 

So how when you stopped eating turkey and finally got that new laptop you waited in line for tell us how your weekend went. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Five for Friday

This Friday we are linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their Five for Friday linky party. 

So I am teaching three different fourth grade classes their science for the year. This is the first full unit I've designed from start to end on Habitats. It has been going great so far. The students have been really engaged and they have loved the fact that a lot of the work has been their choice as to what animals and habitats they can investigate. They become the experts and then bring the knowledge back and share it with everyone else. Next week we are going on a field trip exploring the forest area behind the school to investigate as many different habitats or evidence of habitats that we can find and take pictures of them to create a field journal. Should be fun.

Another part of my role this school year is the role of Special Education. However, my role isn't your typical special education type role. Rather, it's focused on the use of technology for students with needs but also for students to expand upon their learning. One programs our school board has adopted this year is the use of Google Drive it's been a big learning curve not just for me but for the other teachers within the school. This picture here is actually taken by one of our Kindergarten teachers. I had her take the picture and then learn how to share it with other staff members through Google Drive. It seems like a small thing but for this particular teacher it became a HUGE confidence builder with the program and also proved to her how easy this can be. Now we can't get her off the thing. 

This year I really wanted to focus on creating centre based activities that my students could be engaged with while I get a chance to conference with others students about their writing. This week we started the centres. The included everything from poetry, parts of speech, creating a recount of a local news story, and creating a story out of pictures and no words. They are already asking when they can go back to their centre. Might have stumbled onto something with this group :) 

Believe it or not but this was actually the highlight of her day. Searching up as many words as possible and then finding the synonym for those words. I loved that she did it old school with an actual dictionary and not an iPad. Great skill to learn.  

Are week is going to end off with our Terry Fox Run. It's also Superhero day. I saw this comic and thought it sort of put things into perspective of who the real heroes are sometimes. They don't always change colours and wear fancy costumes.

Five for Friday

This week we are linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their Five for Friday linky party.

This week we decided to look at Fairy Tales.  I read the class this book...

After reading Once Upon a Time we created a mind map of all the important tools Fairy Tales use.

Then we brainstormed ideas for each "tool".  For example, students who brainstormed Setting came up with various places a Fairy Tale could take place (e.g., home, cottage, etc.)

This week we focused on pronouns.  We talked about how a pronoun can take the place of a noun.

Our weekly words... 

 

Next, we had a mini lesson on how we can use pronouns in the place of nouns. 

Students came up one at a time to tell me what pronoun we could use in place of a noun. 

Over the next few weeks many schools will be focusing on Terry Fox and raising money for cancer.  Students will be bringing in Toonies for Terry over the next few weeks.  Our goal is to raise $600.  Our principal will be taking a pie to the face if we can meet our goal of $600.  What a good sport. 

This week Jeff and I have been hard at work getting some packages ready for our students.  Since I work with kindergartens in the afternoon I was inspired to create a letter and letter sound practice worksheets.

Students will be able to practice their letter writing as well as look for pictures that start with the letter of focus.  

Here's what Jeff has been working on...

A full science unit on Habitats and Communities. 

Ok.  Now off for some PD day training.  Hope everyone has a great weekend.