Dear Classroom Visitors,

Welcome to our classroom. (Maikah) I hope you have a fun visit. (Shyla) Can you please play "Horse Race" with us? (Vy) I'd love to play it with you. (Harmony) Please come and read "Press Here" with me. (Austin) I can't wait to show you all the work we do. (Kevin) I will show our calendar and how many days we've been at school. (Tyrell) I want to show you all the books we've made. (Micheal) Have you met our classroom pet? Mustaffa would love to meet you. (Sophia) Don't forget to check out our Blog and and add to how many people have visited us. (Jordan) Come and play a game on our SMART board. (L.J.) Can't wait to see you in the classroom soon. (Noah)


We wrote this together this afternoon to welcome the visitors to our classroom. We are excited to share our learning with those that are the most special to us.

See you soon,

Room 12

Art and Haiku

Here it is! Finally! We finished our art. It is looks beautiful. The students are so proud. I took them out into the hall and we sat and looked at our art work we just yelled out words that it made us think of or feel. We came up with many. We took the word into the room and made a Haiku together. We learnt that a Haiku is a poem that follows a specific pattern. It is a three line poem. The first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7 syllables, and the third has 5 syllables. The students caught on right away. We tried words and sentences and if they didn't work we tried again.

 Our first attempt was:

 Creepy Haunted Forest 

 I like spider trees 

 The sun goes down. Dark! Spooky! 

 Ghosts come out at night! 

 Our Second attempt was: 

 Sundown 

I like spider trees 

Stars come out when ghosts come out 

I like spooky trees 

We broke off into small groups. Each group lead by an adult created their own Haiku.

Group One: Anun, Harmony, Shyla, L.J., Micheal, Jaiden created: 

Spooky trees at dusk 

Ghosts are scary in the night 

I like vampires 

Group Two: Jordan, Maikah, Enzo, Tyrell, Sophia created: 

Slender man no face 

He lives in a dark forest 

He scares all the kids 

Group Three: Vy, Kevin, Noah, Nevaeh created: 

I love ghost branches 

Spider-webs in the sunset 

A monster's here. Boo! 

After all this practise we made our own. They turned out great! Come and check them out on our bulletin board.

Busy Busy Busy!

It has been a very busy month in room 12. Just after we finished celebrating Thanksgiving I went to a week long conference in Dallas. I came back with so many great Math ideas that we have already been trying out over the past few weeks.

As soon as I got back we started working with our TIA artist Jeanine to create a Metis beaded vest. We learned about all the different types of beading that the First Nation people did a long time ago and still do today. It was a wonderful experience. The students loved listening to the music, the stories, and seeing all the beautiful artifacts. Their vests were fantastic. They had to draw and decorate the vest telling their life story using the flowery Metis style of design.

Halloween was right around the corner. We had a blast dressing up in our costumes and parading in the gym. Thank you to all the parents who brought in yummy treats to share. We had so much fun! We even managed to start a really creepy art project.

Details on this project and our poetry to go with it are coming soon!

Gobble Gobble Individual Thanksgiving Writing

Our individual writing pieces turned out great! We talked and sang some more about what we are thankful for. The students then went and wrote. We edited their work together until it was written correctly and then we published our feathers and posted them on the bulletin board outside the classroom. While shopping this week I also picked up a turkey craft. It is not something I've ever really done in my teaching. I am not fond of pre-made art but I felt it could be a neat way to come together on the carpet and practice following directions as well as work on our fine motor in a different way. Plus, we got to leave with a pretty cute completed turkey project. It was lots of fun! I did have to even it out the next day by adding a creative art project to the bulletin board. We made autumn trees with leaves of different colours and tore construction paper to make the scene. Funny though we were a day too late. It was a snow storm outside and looked a lot more like winter than fall. Oh well, it was a good teachable moment. Our seasons don't always match what is going on outside. Have a very happy Thanksgiving everyone! See you all soon.

Thanksgiving

We have been working so hard in our room. We are busy discussing Thanksgiving. The students and I have decided that no matter how rotten your day is or how sad you are feeling there are always things to be thankful for. Our list includes; family and friends but also includes items such as; time to play and lollipops. It is important to remember that happiness can be found anywhere. I was really proud of them for coming up with these inspirational ideas. Earlier this week most of them didn't even really remember what Thanksgiving was or if their families had any plans. After picture book after picture book and a little homework (discussing their plans with their families and reporting back) our shared writing looked like this:

We are working on an individual writing piece with some art to go with it. Visit again soon for an update. Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble Gobble

Our class listened to our morning message using Voki. We loved it! Happy October!

Friendship Fruit Salad

One of our favourite activities so far this year was our friendship fruit salad. I asked the children to each bring in a fruit from home. The students shared what they brought and described their fruit in three different ways. We talked about what we could make with all of the fruits...(hint-fruit salad). We talked about how because we all brought in something our fruit salad would be so much better than if we just eat our own fruit. I wanted to show the students that we truly are better together. We are all different and special and all bring different qualities with us that makes the group so much better than us alone. We tallied the fruit and graphed the fruit and then cut it all up and topped it with whipped cream. Yummy!

The children also wanted me to share a video we have been watching about eating healthy so that they can watch it at home too.

http://youtu.be/AEuRM5YSyGo

Enjoy!

Happy Fall!

Happy First Day of Fall!
This week we spoke a lot about the changes of the seasons. I asked the students to collect leaves whenever they saw some, at home, recess, or out for a walk with their families. When leaves were brought in we celebrated the uniqueness and similarities of each leaf. Our carpet conversations led to talking about the life cycle of a leaf, how trees and leaves get food, different colours we see at different times of the year and so on. Friday the students were excited to try an art activity with their favourite leaf.

I opened the art centre as part of our daily play/choice time. We used acrylic paint and dipped our favourite leaves in a whole bunch of colours.  We then used the leaf as a stamp. We had fun trying to the perfect amount of paint on the leaf to make the best stamped leaf. We posted our finished product on our "Masterpiece" wall. This wall is where students put up their best work in squares that look like little frames. Throughout the year they choose what work they would like to showcase.

Welcome

Welcome everyone! We are so excited that you came to visit and are going to share this journey with us. This blog is an online journal that we will use to share our day to day learning with you.

See you again soon!
Mrs. Luke