The headquarters for a group of 24 Super Geniuses, working to find growth for our Alter Egos, and being responsible to each other through our Ministerial positions.
Dot Day is a day to celebrate making your own mark, being brave in the face of a frustrating and negative thought, and taking note of the genius that resides in your neighbours.
Today we read "The Dot" and "Ish" by Paul Reynolds. In our discussion, we focused on taking note of our own thoughts while listening to the stories, and then sharing those thoughts so that we could build bigger meaning together. Here are some ideas that we helped to build together when we looked at the turning points in both books:
We are looking at the turning points in both books and building new meaning together. Here are our thoughts:Millie and Addie noticed that both characters felt better about themselves at the turning points. They found hope. They also noticed light in the drawings with yellow.Marin and Grace thought their art was special to someone because they were hung up with care.Oliver and Casey noticed both characters are kids and not adult artists.Coralie and Taylor noticed that they were admired by someone and Tiiu noticed that they both needed someone to help turn things around for them.
We also made Dot trading cards. We want to feel safe to be ourselves and use our own special marks to leave a mark on others.
Here are some of our cards in progress:
Please remember that our class meeting is at 7:00 tomorrow. You may want to consider bringing your child's bike and leaving it locked up on the bike racks for our trip on Wednesday.
Hello. As you can see, many of us were feeling happy, good, excited, and awesome today. Unfortunately, a lot of us are still feeling pretty tired.
Today we got to meet our Reading Buddies for the first time. We are doing Reading Buddies every Friday with Roy's class.
We continued to work on our Chuck Close art by adding a grid over top of our drawings. This proved to be a bit of a tricky task.
In gym, we went with our friends in 209. We got to play with a gigantic beach ball which was super fun. It was also great practice with self-control!
Our friends Charlie and Lola are super cute and seem to be getting used to getting handled more. At our class meeting we will discuss a weekend schedule.
Have a great weekend! Remember that next week is the Class Meeting on Tuesday at 7:00, the field trip on Wednesday, and the school bbq on Thursday from 5-7. If you haven't handed in your permission forms, please do so. We are hoping to get more volunteers.
For the past few days, students have been working on a math diagnostic to help me get a picture of where we all are. It has taken some bravery and perseverance and they are to be commended for not giving up.
We wrote a journal entry and began an art project today inspired by the works of Chuck Close. It is a project that requires quite a few steps but we will learn a lot about lines, shapes, and colours in the process.
Field trip forms went home today. It would be really helpful to have them back as soon as possible so that I can see if we will have enough volunteers to make the trip a go. Over the weekend, please make sure that bikes are tuned up and ready to go, as well as helmets and locks. The trip will only be cancelled in the event of heavy rain, so a rain jacket might also come in handy.
Here is how we were feeling today:
How about you? How are you feeling? Feel free to leave the Awesome Geniuses a comment so we know who is checking in.
There is so much that is NEW to this start for us. I am new to grade 4. We have ten new students to our school. Two new guinea pigs came to live with us. Tree Families is a new initiative we're trying at Churchill. It's all shiny, bright, clean, and brand new. A fresh start. Love it.
Since I'm playing catch up, you're going to get a Coles Notes version of our first week and a half.
First of all, we are The Awesome Geniuses. We are brave and we are going to persevere because we matter. We are going to fail, a lot. After all, to fail is to make a First Attempt In Learning. Pobody's nerfect! Our personal hero is Kid President. Everything he says makes sense to us, especially when he talks about corn dogs.
We've been taking some time to get to know each other. It is important that our team is strong as a whole, not just in small parts. We need to know each other's names and help make everyone feel comfortable here.
This year, we will start most Wednesdays with our Tree Families. Our Tree Family is made up of students from kindergarten to grade 6 and includes at least one teacher but maybe also an EA, Office Administrator, French teacher, Principal, Vice Principal, or Custodian. We're going to read stories together, discuss issues, take workshops, and enjoy school sharings together. It's going to be a great chance to really make connections with all sorts of different friends. So exciting! Ask us what Tree Family we're in.
Here are some pictures of us doing the Marshmallow Challenge. From this, we learned that we should be brave to try things, it is important to make each other feel heard rather than jockey to be boss, and that when Tiiu says not to eat the marshmallow, she means business.
Here we are playing a game to learn each other's names.
Our first Mystery Skype! This is a game where we Skype another classroom and ask each other yes and no questions while trying to guess where we're each from. This class was from Raleigh, North Carolina. They were able to guess that we lived in Ottawa first. It's tough living in the nation's capital.
For this activity, we were labelling things around the room that we need. This is Tiiu and Trish, our VP. Please also take note of a fabulous photo bomb via Jackson.
Our school is lucky to have Kate as a resident photographer. She also happens to be the mom of our very own Jamie. She came in to show us her new cameras and some of their funky options. We were also learning about symmetry.
While these may look like a bunch of shoes, they were in fact a powerful symbol for books and how to choose ones that are a right fit for us.
Here we are reading oh so silently. It really was golden.
These are our Book Boxes full of right fit books and sticky notes to mark passages. Our Book Boxes should always be full of a variety of books to choose from that have been thoughtfully chosen.
Charlie and Lola. They are cute. They are pretty cuddly. They are hoping to come and live with you on a weekend of your choice!
Here is some of our flare. We love inferring and then learning about each other. The flare we leave in the room also helps us to feel more at home.
On most mornings, we are going to use a Google form to reflect on how we're feeling. This is how we were feeling on Monday morning. Take note, the larger the word, the more times that word was written by students. I guess we're still adjusting to the early start schedule!
Questions to ask:
Can Charlie and Lola come and stay with us one weekend?
Who is Chuck Close and why did he have to persevere?
What Tree Family do you belong to?
Who are Mean Jean and Katie Sue?
What books are in your Book Box?
Do you have an assigned seat? Who have you sat beside during meal times?
What are you doing at recess?
Important Upcoming Dates:
Class Meeting: Tuesday, September 16th, 7:00. Please take note of the new time. This is not an event for students. We will likely bore them to tears, plus, since you will all attend, seating will be limited.
