The latest Video classic: "Sharing the Gingerbread House!"

 The Movie:

"I thought you said it was a ginger bread house"  said Mr. W

"Well a coffin is a house of sorts" said 'B' when asked about her ginger bread creation, "The last one you will ever get."

She said her family had more than enough gingerbread so she brought it in for the class to enjoy.  We then decided to make the movie of it's being shared with the class.

 

The Ginger Bread House "coffin"

A large crowd of admirers soon gathered

The Movie Set in final stages...

Everyone in the class got to eat the Move Set...

What is Black and Orange and Red all over?

We began the day with Calvin and Hobbes then quickly moved onto a Math time assignment.  The students were give a piece of paper with 18 blank clocks on it.  They had to then record 18 events in their day today. 
What time they: woke up, ate, left for school, arrived at school, started school, the start of recess, the end of recess, when lunch started, when lunch finished, what time the assembly starts, school ends, dinner time, trick-or-treat start, trick-or-treat ends, brush teeth / bath time, bed time and time they will fall asleep.  The assignment was to be done in pairs or in small groups to help each other.  I figured that they would be so involved with telling each other the information that they would forget it was a Math assignment.

After that they were to write a Halloween poem using the five senses.  The instructions were:
Write the word Halloween then strong images of things they might see, something they hear, something they smell, something they feel, something they taste, something they then see then repeat the word Halloween.  They were told not to write 'I see a...' rather they had to just write strong images.

We spent the rest of the morning trying to wrap up our ongoing paper-mache project.

Some students got caught up reading the newspaper instead of covering their desk with it.

A 99% finished boat

 Then we began the big task of mass paper-mache to finish off their ships.  We glued, ripped paper, attached masts and got the ships to a almost finished product.  After this they can take them home and add extra things like ladders and paper masts. 

The inevitable spills

 

After lunch the students went to choir until 1:20 to practice songs for the upcoming Remembrance day Assembly.  After that we went to the computer lab and wrote the Halloween poem out in Microsoft Word, adding pictures and a border to go along with their words.   A group of students worked on our next move and a group of students returned the pumpkins the students had created from the display in the library back to the classrooms to be taken home.  

This was followed by our celebration and awards ceremony. Four students in our class were awarded for their positive acceptance of other students, hard work and outstanding quality of work.   Well done KS,  ET,  JM and AP

Computers and Pumpkins

Notice:

Tomorrow is Orange and Black day.  

The school does not do costumes as many of the little ones wreck their costumes throughout the day.  We will. however, spend time writing and creating on this the Best Day of the Year for Kids.

Assembly tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 pm:  Four of our students are receiving their awards. Those students have a notice that went home in their bags.  Their initials are KS,  ET,  JM and AP

This Tuesday afternoon we started the afternoon in the computer lab.  The students used a graphic program to create a representation of the pumpkin that  your children worked on with your support.  They are amazing.  I think that the designs by our class are exceptional.  This could be because your children are brilliant or, the fact that both Mrs. Schneider and I have been emphasizing writing and art as two connected divergent ways of thinking, or Mrs. Awalt is training both sides of the brain in our Music program, or all three.


"Art education (graphic and performing) aids the brain in actually rewiring itself to make stronger neural connections and more neural connections. Art allows the recipient a path for him/herself to experience the world. There is substantial data on achievement scores and the art education correlation, data shows that most art centered education promotes higher achievement scores in academic areas than non-art centered schools."

Sources:
Kearney, P.(August 3, 1996). "Brain Research Shows Importance of Arts in Education." The Star Tribune, p.19A.
Diamond, M., and J. Hopson. (1998) Magic Trees of the Mind. New York: Dutton Books, Penguin-Putnam Group.

After computers the students went to Music and continued with the rhythm and pattern training they are learning as well as singing Halloween songs.  After Music we returned to the computer lab to finish off our pictures.  See you all tomorrow.  Mr. W.

Picasso-Inspired Art

Mrs Schneider and the Class pose in front of the amazing Picasso Inspired art she created with them.  I came across Mrs. Burly and a few teachers admiring them, so I joined them and added my praise to the mix.  If you would like to see these amazing pictures up close they are posted on the bulletin board by the office.  Great Job everyone!!

Mrs. Schneider and myself have talked about an artist of the month theme based on their birthdays.

 November has some amazing artists all of which I would gladly choose.   If you have any comments please send them in with your child.  They are

NOVEMBER:

Rodin 12th 1840, 

Monet 14th 1840,

O'Keeffe 15th 1887,

Toulouse-Lautrec 24th 1864,

Blake 28th 1757

Wonderful Word, Graphing Quiz, and Extreme Weather

This morning students practiced Handwriting and in their Wonderful Words booklet found as many little words as they could in Interpretation. This activity is a favourite among students. Afterwards, students wrote their graphing quiz to finish our graphing unit.

After recess students finished their BC Weather Map and Extreme Weather Scripts, Picasso art, and unfinished Language Arts work. A few students were finished everything and, as a reward, played math games (puzzles, brain twisters, dice addition games, addition games with cards, board games, chess, or checkers). Before lunch I read aloud from Survivor, the 2^nd book in Gordon Korman’s Island series.

Happy Birthday!

We also sang Happy Birthday to K and enjoyed cupcakes that her mom made for the class. Thank you for bringing them in! The pumpkin faces on the cupcakes were a hit J

Mrs. S

Extreme Weather Reports and Picasso

Students worked very diligently today. Well done!

S working on her weather pic for the TC. 

After completing their Spelling Pre-Test, students continued working on their Extreme Weather Forecast Project. I’ve broken this large project into sections and have given step-by-step instructions for each part to help students complete the project successfully. I’ve also given them an outline of what each part of the project needs to include and how each part will be marked.

Picasso Art!

This morning we watched short clips of different kinds of extreme weather and discussed their effects on people and other things. There is a section on the weather forecast where students address this topic. Students have already made their BC weather map for the project (which was due today) and today students wrote their weather forecast script using a template with blanks in it to make their project unique to their own topic (blizzard, ice storm, tornado, hurricane, thunder and lightning, drought, and rainstorm and flooding.) Students are very engrossed and interested in this project, and most finished their scripts in class today. Unfinished work is for homework, due tomorrow.

After lunch was the weekly Library book exchange, followed by a continuation of their Picasso art (which look fantastic and very Picasso-like!). We ended with Gym, where we tried a new game that students taught me – Mat Maze – for half of the gym period and then finished with Poison Ball.

Reminders:

Please return your child’s Comfort Kit in a ziplock bag, in case of an earthquake or emergency.

Wednesday is Black and Orange Day (no costumes).

Math quiz on graphing tomorrow on material already covered in class.

If you haven't brought back your decorated mini-pumpkin, you can bring it back tomorrow. The ones that came back are really creative :-)

Div. 3 – congrats on your excellent focus, quiet work times, and completion of so much work today. You all worked very well J Let’s keep up the good work!!

Mrs. S

Tests, Rabbits, Tortoises, and Totem pole Raisings

the students are bringing home a pumpkin with the following instructions:

Click to make larger and easier to read

Pumpkins decorated from two years ago.

We began the day with our weekly Test.  The test contained Science, Socials, Math and Language arts questions and of course Spelling.   The students then worked on a H A L L O W E E N acrostic poem in handwriting. 
 a sample Acrostic poem is:

H allow caves are dark and damp.

A ghost follows me over the hills.

L isten, hear the wind flow across the lake.

L ook, see the green goblin.

O hh! You scared me!

W e kids love candy!

E at on ware wolfs!

E nter the haunted house

N o trying to be brave in the haunted house!

After Recess we reviewed our weekly Aesop Fable.  The Fable this week is the Tortoise and the Hair.  Many students were already familiar with this Fable so it allowed me to emphasize that these stories are all part of our shared heritage and shared culture.  When people rush and don't plan they often run into trouble.  As my father used to say, "If you don't have time to do it right the first time; When are you going to find time to do it again?" The students had to write the Fable in their own words, draw a picture and do a border and then list the moral or message.

At 1125 we broke for an early lunch as we had to get ready to go over to the Native Friendship Center to witness the raising of the totem pole.  We walked over  to the Friendship Center just before lunch around 11:50.  It was raining hard, off and on.  Mrs. Burley gave us 5 big umbrellas which helped a lot.  So even though the students were a little wet and a little cold, in the future, as they pass by the totem pole they will remember and talk about being there for the raising. We got back to the school around 1:10 and had a bit of time to warm up and then read, finish our morning test or work on finishing off the Aesop's Fable.   After we warmed up we went up to buddies where we helped make Halloween lanterns.

After Buddies we finished our banking, and ended the day with A P.E. period.

Spelling words for Oct 29-Nov 2

Spelling words for Oct 29-Nov 2 are posted :-)
Mrs. S

Pocahontas, Fears, Music and P.E.

Notice: 

Field trip to the Friendship Center tomorrow dress warm

We began the day with a math sheet on time.  The sheet had 15 blank time clocks.  The students had to write and draw 15 different times, analog and digital.  (a same time activity will be on the Friday Test)  The hard concept for students in learning to tell time is not the counting by 5's but that the hour hand moves as the minute hand moves. 

After Math we looked at a Calvin and Hobbes strip where he was being put to bed.  The mom says "Sleep tight. "Don't let the bedbugs bite."  To which calvin says "What's that supposed to mean? Do we have vermin in this house?? and it goes on from there with Calvin imagining a huge bug is under the matress.... Today's topic is 'Dealing with your Fears.'  We talked about where we get  our fears from, in the comic Calvin got it from his parents.  Very funny. If you click on the small cartoon you can see it bigger. Talk to your child about the cartoon or have them tell you about it.

We then read the book "There is a Nightmare in my closet" by Mercer Mayer which is described by School Library Journal

"Childhood fear of the dark and the resulting exercise in imaginative exaggeration are given that special Mercer Mayer treatment in this dryly humorous fantasy."

Students sharing a skit and a story

After our discussion and all the students wanting to share their stories and their parents stories we ran out of time.  So the students did not have time to write about one of their fears so it will be be an essay on tomorrow's test.  Having the students Telling stories orally is one of our big goals in Language arts, so an excited telling of anecdotes is a great way of passing time, sharing and learning at school.




 After recess we watched the movie Pocahontas and created a Venn diagram to compare the differences between the First Nations and the Europeans at first contact.  This Helps us in our discussion of the BC learning outcomes in grade 4 Social Studies [B3 to  identify effects of early contact  between Aboriginal societies and European explorers and settlers]

 The movie went on  for 15 minutes after Lunch.

After Lunch We went to computers and until At 1:15 when the students went to Music with Mrs. Awalt.  The students in our class are doing an amazing job in Music.  They are able to to figure out complex melodies and musical patterns.  Mrs. Awalt is very proud of them.

The students are working with a variety of musical toys and instruments with a variety of performance based activities that develop their musical and rhythm skills. It is fun it is complex and it is educational.

We ended the day with a game of P.E. with Mrs. Carlton's class.

 Things for Friday Test:

-Spelling

-Describe the two types of books found in the library:  describe and give an example
(fiction and non-fiction)

-Short Essay question from Science: Would you like to visit the hottest place on Earth? Why or why not?

-Science: List or draw 5 survival items you would need if you visited the hottest desert on Earth.

-Math:  Draw the analog time given a digital time (2:43) or a written time (half past 3)

-Essay question fromLanguage arts:  Fear.

Paragraph 1

1)   What are you afraid of

2)   How did you get your fear

3)   How do you deal with your fear (for example if you’re afraid of spiders what do you do when you see a spider?)
…Paragraph 2           

4)   How do others say or make you deal with your fear (What do your parents say? What do your friends say)

5)   How do you think you can overcome your fear.

See you all tomorrow sharp and focused ready for our regular test.