Thursday and Friday; Track and field, Desk Cleaning, Buddies, Project Work and the Spring Fair.

Thursday was the day most of our students in grade 3, 4 and 5 went to the University of Victoria to compete in our zone track meet.  I was left at the school with about 12 students from both grade 4 classes.  We spent the day catching up on work, doing gym and cleaning our desks.

On Friday after our spelling test, and up to lunch, the students worked in groups to create an animal project.  Well not the whole project.  The students had to create just the borders and illustrations for their chosen animal topic.  The main areas for any elementary animal report, include a title page, description, habitat, young, food and a facts page.  The students had just finished a great animal study, with Mrs. Schneider, so were familiar with the topic areas needing research.  I like group work as it helps develop social as well as cooperative skills along with sharing responsibility. 

After lunch the students read then went to buddies where they worked to make trees inspired by the great Russian artist Kandinsky.   Kandinsky is recognized  as the pioneer of abstract art. His non-representational paintings paved the way for the development of the Abstract Expressionist movement that dominated American painting after World War II.

The little buddies traced out their hands then made the tree shapes using bright colored circles.  The students in grade 1 are studying trees as part of their science.  Mrs. Dagg,  like Mrs. Schneider and myself, think that art helps enhance our understanding, appreciation, perception and comprehension of any subject.

We finished up the day in the computer lab where the students looked up information and then printed the information onto the pages they created in the morning.  They had to find information and visualize how it fit on the page before printing it into the blank areas.  This process is opposite of the approach usually used in the creation of projects.  Usually students print their information then draw the illustrations and borders after.   I like this method as  the students tend to do a better job on the illustrations and focus on the creative process rather than just gathering the information.

In the evening the students took part in the many activities in our annual spring fair.  It was a lot of fun with some of our students in the dunk tank and helping out at various tables.  B and L had their little craft table set out to raise money for the SPCA.  Great job girls.  It took them lots of time and effort to create the crafts, and a great community spirit to sell them for the benefit of others.   Have a great weekend everyone.  See you next week.