Special Events: Crazy Hair Day!!

We had some seriously cool hairstyles today! I love the demonstration of school spirit!! If I didn't have to go out after school, my hair would have been crazy too ;) Love it!!

Goodbye Gurshan!!

Today was Gurshan's last day in our class. We are very sad to see him go. We will miss him and his cheery demeanour. Best of luck at your new school, kiddo!!

Literacy: Balloon Words

Just a small video I made about balloon words!

Special Events: Balloon Day!!

Today was balloon day!! We've never done balloon day before, so we were so excited! Balloon words are 25 additional words students should know upon sight. We started off by learning the song, which goes to the tune of "London Bridge". In the afternoon, we had a lot of fun activities to learn all about our balloon words! My favourite was the "mystery word". Super cool! Check out the photos and videos below :)

At the end of the day, everyone got to take a balloon home with a balloon word on it :) Keep practicing them at home!! Our SKs should be close to mastering all of these, and our JKs should know some of the easy ones, like "at" and "up" :)

Literacy: Mr. H and His 4 Friends

We learned this a long time ago, but it never hurts to review!! :)

Literacy: Writing, Writing, Everywhere!

We are so happy to see more students taking initiative to write during learning centres. This is what we've been waiting for :) We're excited to see that students are taking an interest in writing and using their interests as a foundation. Learning how to communicate through writing is a very exciting milestone for children. We hope to see this continue!!

Special Events: This Month's Tribes Winners!

Congratulations to Lara, Giulia, and Malik for winning this month's award for initiative!! Giulia and Lara always take initiative to do writing during learning centres and research fun things, and Malik takes the initiative to ask his teachers and friends to read with him. Way to go!! Next month we are focusing on respect!!

Our Current Inquiry: Exploring Google Earth!

Today we got a chance to look at Google Earth and different places throughout Canada and the world :) We started off by finding our school, and then even found a couple of our friend's houses! Then, we found Walmart and Fortino's and estimated and measured which one was closer to our school. Giulia's prediction was correct!! Walmart is closer :)

Miss Pliura: "How do you know Walmart is closer to us than Fortino's?"

Alyssa: "Because Walmart was 28 cubes and Fortino's was 31". 

We got a chance to look at Toronto and talk about the differences between there and our community. 

"I think more people live in Toronto because there's lots of buildings". - Lillian

Miss Smith: "When do you think these pictures we're taken?"

Vienna: "In the summer, because there's no snow"

Owen: "I know that that picture of my house was taken awhile ago because we don't have that sign up anymore".

Listen to all of these amazing connections and inferences. I love it!

Then we got a chance to look up Turkey, which is where Lara's family is from! We saw how different it looked and how it looked like there were castles in the streets. Very neat! We continued to use Google Earth during learning centres which gave students a chance to look at their houses, too :) We're excited to continue to use this kind of technology to further explore our learning on the world :)

Jr. Dance Team: Pizza Party!!

On Tuesday, we finally had our pizza party to celebrate our amazing dancers and their hard work at this year's Dancefest. We had lots of yummy food and even a very special (delicious) cake! Way to go, Gatestone!! :) Keep on dancing!

Literacy: OW and OU

Another important sound to know :)

Jr. Dance Team: March's Schedule

This post is only for students who are on my junior dance team :) Here is March's schedule! It's a busy one! Make sure you get those after-school permission forms in ASAP!!

Special Events: Tresa's Back!!

Today we welcomed back Tresa!! The students absolutely love when she comes in! Even though it was only her second time with us, the kids were so excited :) Today she brought her special mandolin with her and sang her hello song to us again! I was so impressed that students remembered that it isn't polite to correct someone if they say their name (or a friend's name) incorrectly. We had a chat beforehand that we can talk to her afterwards if it's bothering us that she's not using the short form of our name, for example.

Today we used our bodies to pretend to be animals. Here is a video of students pretending to be snails!

This lead us into our next story: The Tortoise and the Hare! Teresa acted it out for us and then we all got a chance to use some musical instruments :) We had so much fun!!

Important Documents: March Calendar

Hi everyone,

Here is March's calendar. Everyone will receive a paper copy on Monday :)

*Scholastic forms will be sent home as soon as I receive them! :)

Literacy: What is Guided Reading?

Guided reading is when the educator works with a group of students at similar ability levels to improve their overall literacy skills (decoding, fluency, comprehension, etc.) I work with a minimum of 2 students and a maximum of 4 at my desk for approximately 20 minutes every day (during this time, Miss Smith works with students on their writing). Due to the fact they are receiving teacher support, we will read a book that is higher than the level they can read at independently (home reading). Each guided reading session has the same format:

Word Work/Phonics

We will start by reviewing sounds that have been taught in a whole-class literacy lesson. Then, we will try sounding out words with these sounds in them (ex: review the /sh/ sound and sound out words like ship, shape, etc.)

Sight Word Review

We review our very important sight words: popcorn and balloon words.

Shared Reading

We will then move onto a poem. I will read it to them once, modelling how to read print properly, read fluently, enunciate rhyme, etc. Then, we will read the poem together, and students draw a picture to match the poem.

Independent Reading

I will introduce a book to students and we will have a brief discussion about the book prior to reading it (ex: doing a picture walk, looking and guessing what might happen). Students will read the book by themselves as I listen and provide support where needed. Students will reread the book and, if the book has a storyline to it, we will have a discussion afterwards.

Please make sure you continue reading at home. You see them way more than I do!

Learning Through Play :)

We had a great afternoon today :) I couldn't believe how quiet our classroom was during learning centres! It may not seem that quiet in the video, but trust me, it was! Take a look at the video to see all the different kinds of learning happening throughout our classroom :)

Special Events: Stone Soup!

Today we made "Stone Soup" (minus the stone!). We read the book and then everyone took turns adding something in the pot to make our soup! Yum, yum! Our classroom smelled amazing all day :)

At the end of the day when our soup was ready, we all sat down as a class to enjoy it. Thanks to everyone for bringing something in!!

Literacy: Dressed Up Y

When does y become a vowel? This is great to know when sounding out words!! :)

Literacy: Q and U

An older video of how q and u work together :)

Literacy: Picture Walk

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm creating a series of YouTube videos on my channel that are "how to" videos to help you support your child in their reading. This strategy is called a "picture walk", and we use it to help us with our comprehension :) Enjoy!

Our Current Inquiry: Learning about Asia!

Our students are still very interested in learning about the world and different kinds of flags. Today, Miss Smith taught us about a new continent: Asia! We learned that Asia was the biggest continent in the world, and had the most people in it! Here are some paraphrased quotes from our lesson :)

"Asia is bigger than North America!" - Owen

"It's bigger than Canada!" - Vienna

Miss Smith showed us different flags of countries in Asia/bordering between Europe and Asia. We knew some of these would look familiar :)

"That's Turkey's flag! Me and my family are from there!" - Lara

"My dad was in Vietnam visiting family" - Kevin

"I've been to India before!" - Gurshan

Miss Smith: "Why do you think these flags look similar?" 

Vienna: "Because they're all from the same country (continent)" - Excellent inference, Vienna! :)

Then she showed us some different types of buildings that could be found in Asia.

Miss Smith: "What do you notice about these buildings?"

Lilly: "In the top, left picture, there are a lot of trees". (Awesome directional language!!)

Miss Smith: "What types of shapes do you see in these buildings?"

Nathan: "I can see triangles on the roof!"

After our lesson, we invited some students to come over to our inquiry corner to add to our world map! I found these awesome stickers at the Dollar Store that I thought would be fun to add to our world map. We had to consult our Atlas to help find where some of the countries were!

Lilly added a sticker of the Mexican flag to Mexico :)

Lara adding a sticker of the Canadian flag onto Canada.

Vienna placed a sticker of a panda bear on China since that's where they live!

So much learning happening around our current inquiry topic :)

Literacy: Self-Correcting

Recently, I've been retesting my SKs to see what DRA level they are at. Please watch this video to help your child at home use the important reading strategy of self-correcting.

Literacy: Words with Pushy E

Today during our literacy lesson, we learned a very important strategy we can use when sounding out words. If you read through my literacy support package, you'll be familiar with this strategy. The strategy we learned today is Pushy E!

"Pushy E plays a game, makes the vowel say its name". 

I'm going to start a new mini series on my YouTube channel to help parents learn some reading/sounding out strategies we use in class that they can also use at home. Here's a video describing Pushy E and how it's used!

What words can you find in your books that have Pushy E?

Character Education: Learning to Share

Today we had another lesson on sharing and what it looks like in our classroom. More specifically, we learned how to ask someone to share something and what to do if someone asks us. We learned that someone doesn't have to share something with us if they got it first. As a class, we came up with these ideas together if this did happen:

When you want someone to share something with you: 

"Can I play with you?"
"Can I have that after you're done?"
"Can I play with that when you are finished?"

When someone asks you to share with them:

"Yes, of course!"
"I just started playing with it, but I'll bring it to you after I'm done".

We got a chance to role play some scenarios. Here's an example:

We will practise this in the classroom during play and reinforce what to say when a problem arises :)

Blog Reformatting Update

Hi everyone,

As mentioned in a previous post, I've changed the way I'll be doing blog posts from now on. Instead of having a huge entry with tons of updates in it, I'll be doing them separately so I can file them under separate pages. Hopefully it will be easier for you to find things :)

Every time I write a new post, I'll file it under one of the following (bullets are examples of where they will go):

Special Events:

• Tribes Assemblies
• School Performances
• Class Parties
• Guest Speakers
• Field Trips
• Arts Program

Our Current Inquiry:

• Photos, Videos and Updates on our Current Inquiry

Character Education:

• Lessons and Activities
• Behind the Scenes (videos)

Language:

• Literacy Lessons
• How-to Videos

Important Documents:

• Monthly Calendars
• Popcorn/Balloon Word Copies
• Class List

Anything that can't be put under one of these labels will just stay on the home page. I've also added a search function incase you're looking for something specific. It's on the right side of the homepage underneath the 'follow by e-mail' option.

Our Current Inquiry: Learning about North America

As most of you know, we are currently doing some whole class learning on the world! On Thursday, Miss Smith taught us about North America. She showed us a map on the SMARTboard where we could see all the different continents. Then she showed us some different artifacts that represented North America. It was really interesting to see what students had to say!

(Quotes have been paraphrased so you know what it's referring to)

(When listening to a book about Canada) "I can see that people wear different clothing" - Lilly H.

"This is a picture of a big city" - Courtney

"I can see water, trees, and mountains" - Izze

"That's a flag of the United States" - Aaron

"North America is bigger than Australia" - Alex

"North America is about the same size as Asia" - Giulia

(In a picture of a snowy forest) "Snowy owls might live there" - Lily

We have so many more fun activities planned around the world/different countries, including using Google Earth and skyping with my sister's Kindergarten class in Germany! :) More to come soon :)

Special Events

Update: Thursday, February 12th, 2015

Hi everyone!

Happy "Valentine's Day"! We had lots of fun today in our class :) Exchanging valentines was quite a lengthy (2 hours, lol) process, heh but we got through it! I apologize if there are any Valentine's in there that belong to someone else- we did the best we could! Please don't worry about sending them back. Thanks to everyone for the nice Valentine's cards and treats! :) Also, my plan was to do crafts with the students Monday and Tuesday for you to keep but due to circumstances there wasn't any time- sorry!

Our day consisted of card exchange, lots of food, learning centres, and a special guest! Here are some pictures from today :)

 

 We forgot to get a couple of our friends during the madness - sorry!

Special Guest - Owen's Dad!

Owen's father joined us today. He is a priest! We got to see so many neat photos and pieces of clothing that he gets to wear on special occasions. We learned that he has many different parts to his job and works in different places besides the church. Thank you for sharing with us!

Blog Changes

Navigating through my blog, I've decided I'm going to make some changes to it to help make it more organized. Instead of doing long posts with multiple things inside of it, I'm going to do a separate blog entry for each one. This way I can file them easier in some new tabs I'm going to create. I'm not going to go back and fix previous posts, but that's what I plan on doing from here on out :) This may eliminate the need for a Friday update... I haven't decided yet. I'll keep you posted :)

Report Cards

By now I'm sure you've all read your child's report card. There is a spot on the 3rd page that you can check if you would like to sit down with Miss Smith and I for an interview. If you have no concerns then an interview is not necessary, but can obviously still take place if you wish. We may request interviews with parents even if you select 'no' based on our professional judgment and our desire to talk to you. Please make sure you return the last page signed along with the envelope (signed). The last page is also a great opportunity to sit down with your child, let them know what the report says, and give them a chance to reflect and set goals :)

That's all I can think of for now. Have a great, safe long weekend, and we will see you Tuesday! Happy Family Day! :)