Happy Holidays

Hello!

I am sorry I have neglected you blog. I miss our time together, here in this classroom, when all of those noisy students have gone home. It's such a peaceful time for me to reflect on all of the learning that went on in here. A time after all of the hustle and bustle of the 310 kids and before all of the whining and crying at home. I've missed you.
Despite what you may think (or have been hearing), we have been doing a lot of learning in here this week.
In Literacy, we've been talking about voice as it pertains to writing. We looked at some examples of writing that had no distinct voice and compared it with writing that had it. The kids decided that the difference lay in the use of juicy words and "feeler phrases". Voice makes the reader feel a connection with the writer. It has personality.
We worked on adding voice to our persuasive writing, to some re-written holiday songs, and in our communication books.
In math, we worked on algebra and data management through problem solving. Last Friday I attended a workshop about problem solving in math and I have been very excited to try some things out. I apologize for the debacle with the homework yesterday. I am happy to say that everyone handed in their homework and I will be making this into more of a regular routine in the new year.
Today the problem that we solved was this: In the song "The 12 Days of Christmas", you get one gift on the first day, and 3 gifts total on the second day. If this pattern continues, how many gifts total do you get? The students shared some innovative strategies for solving the problem. We all learned something new.

Tomorrow is pyjama day. I will be teaching the kids how to play a strategic board game called Settlers of Catan. They will have a double block of recorders with Andrea and we will be playing our gift exchange game.

In case I do not get a chance to say so tomorrow, have a very happy holidays. I look forward to 2011 and all of the exciting things we will accomplish together. So far, I have truly enjoyed the challenge and am surprised to find myself saying that I will miss those little buggers while we are off.

Thank you.

Homework

I made a mistake for the homework question!!! The question should be,

If the mean is 8, the median is 8, and there are 6 scores, what might the scores be?

So sorry!

Remember, please don't spend more than 15 minutes on this. Be prepared to show me that you have tried your best for 15 minutes. This will be your ticket into the door tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Science Days!

What a success. For the first block and the entire middle block, Ray and I focused on one science unit. Ray took the 6s and did electricity and I stayed with all of the 5s and did Conservation of Energy. We both had them taking notes and then doing hands on centres. Ray is doing some research tomorrow along with more hands on centre work. My 5s will be designing, building, and testing rubber band cars. They were asked to bring in materials from home to help if they wanted. They can also google rubber band cars if they want to look ahead for some ideas. We have had a lot of fun working with new people and getting our hands dirty.
Please remember to send in donations for the food bank and collect materials for our sock stuffy day next Tuesday. Any and all volunteers are welcome.

I also told the students that we can play the gift exchange next Friday. I will send an email regarding this.

Have a good night!

Exemplar Writing

Here are some exemplar writing responses that I put together using the words of some of our students. Each student wrote a writing response based on Fox. The question was about a scream heard near the end of the story. The students were asked if it was a scream of triumph or despair. Some of the kids had questions as to who made the scream so they also had to identify that in their response.

I think that fox’s scream was both triumphant and sad. I think that fox’s scream was both because he would have done what he wanted to do but he would have still been lonely (William). I think it was fox’s scream because if dog screamed it would have been too far away for Magpie to hear (Josephine). The reason why Fox took Magpie was because Fox had no friends and no one to be there for him. He thought that if he was alone, then they had to be alone as well (Marian). I think fox realized that with this act of brutality, he had not gotten further to his goal of having a friend. He would have gotten even further away from his goal by blowing the chance of having not one, but two companions to ease the pain of all the loneliness and rejection he had suffered in his life (Calvin). Fox deceived Magpie and Dog who trusted him. This trust was betrayed and he was still at square one-lonely and alone (Sage).

I think the horrendous scream that Magpie heard was of despair, not triumph. I think it was Dog who made the cry (Fraser). I think so because dog would be lonely and really sad. He would also feel betrayed and helpless (Eric). Dog and Magpie were the dearest of friends and when Magpie left, Dog would feel despair (Scott). Dog helped Magpie when her wing was burnt (Fraser), and now Dog would only have one eye leaving him helpless. What they went through together would mean nothing anymore (Brayden). If I were Dog, I would miss that feeling of Magpie not being on my back (Annika).

The kids and I just read through both of these answers and highlighted what we though made them so good. Here is what we came up with:

Juicy Words

Organization: introduction, conclusion, body is organized in a way that makes sense

Feeler Phrasing: words that may not be juicy but are put together in a way to make your heart feel something

Proof from the text

Variety: in sentence types, in sentence lengths, words

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Have you ever dined at the Seuss Diner? We've got efficient servers who can take your orders and mentally calculate your bills. G+H+S=Green eggs+Ham+Small Drink. This is our introduction to algebra and the kids were having so much, they forgot they were even doing math. I introduced this lesson with a song based on Green Eggs and Ham by an old band called Moxy Fruvous. I heard a lot of them humming it throughout the day.

In Literacy, we continued our look at a Picture Book called Riding the Tiger. We discussed the power struggle between the tiger and Danny. We also looked at the woodcut artwork and saw how the artist made the tiger grow through the book as he gained power over Danny. The kids added on to each other's thinking and we made some deep observations about how the tiger persuaded Danny to take a ride on him. It will be a good segue into our look at persuasive writing.

In my email I mentioned that we had some kids come in and talk to us about CISV. Here is a link to their website if you are interested.

Monday, November 29, 2010

I'm back! It feels good to be back in charge and running a tight ship. Our time with John and Nancy was a great success. They both came with a wealth of knowledge to share and they genuinely cared for the kids and their success. While they taught, I was able to sit back and watch. I learned a lot by being able to watch the kids and see them from a different perspective. I was also able to plan a lot of exciting things and I'm raring to go.

First up, I would like the grade 6s to finish their projects for homework. All of them have completed the planning phase which either John or I have approved. Their posters need to demonstrate that their animal belongs on the branch they think it belongs on by using pictures and words. They can compare it to another animal if this helps (ex. I know my animal is a mammal because...). They also need to describe how their animal interrelates with other animals within its own species (a fox travelling in a pack of other foxes), with animals of another species (the plover and the crocodile), and with its environment. They should use what we learned from our social studies projects to publish a poster that is organized to communicate the information effectively, and that is interesting to look at by using pictures, colour, creativity, and neatness. The kids and I have discussed this at length and I feel confident that they know what they are doing. Please contact me if you have any questions.

In math today, we discussed the steps we should follow in order to solve word problems. Then I taught them a fun game. We discussed bowling and how it is scored. Then I drew a picture of ten bowling pins and numbered them 1-10. Then I rolled three number cubes. The numbers that came up were 2, 2, and 5. Using these numbers, we created math sentences. For instance: 2+2+5. Since this equals 9, we were able to knock the 9 pin down. We continued to create math sentences using all three numbers in any order that we liked. The kids used all four operations, brackets, and order of operations. Some even used exponents and integers to create math sentences. We were able to earn a strike since we knocked all of the pins down in one roll. We'll try again tomorrow.

In Literacy, we read a new book. We started with an exercise involving power called "magic hands". Ask the kids about it. Next, we discussed three focus words which were respect, conformity, and empowered. Then we read "Riding the Tiger" which is a book about a boy who takes a ride on a tiger. The catch is, the tiger isn't really a tiger, it is a symbol for something else. You can read more about it here. We will delve into this book more throughout the week.

We finished the day with our last yoga session. The kids were extra focused today and practiced some challenging partner poses. Ruth was a fabulous teacher and I was moved by the kids' efforts.

I'm glad to be back!

Symbiosis

What is symbiosis? If you are in grade 6, please read here!