A few random holiday things...

Hello there,
I thought I would share a few holiday things that I worked on with my students through the month of December. 

One day in early December we had a terrible snowstorm, however school was not cancelled, just the busses were not running. After getting stuck twice on my way to the school, and having two nice gentlemen dig out my car, I finally arrived at school. Almost every teacher was late or could not make it in that day due to the snowstorm. Many families kept their children at home, but the children who were within walking distance of the school still came. I had a very small class that day (about 9 children), as did almost every teacher in the whole school. So, naturally I didn't want to teach anything new that day, so we had some indoor snowy fun! One activity that was a big hit was, we had an indoor snowball fight! The children LOVED it! 

We also made some decorations for our classroom Christmas tree. 

                The last two days of school before the Christmas break were very busy! 
We had a cookie decorating party with our grade two neighbours, then later on we had a Pudding Fondue party! So fun and delicious! 
Then in the afternoon, our entire school created graham cracker Gingerbread cookie houses! It was lots of yummy fun! What a sugar-y,
 delicious day! 

Pudding Fondue!

Cookie decorating with our gr. 2 neighbours

Candy houses! 

Yummy icing! 

The second last day of school also brought an important first milestone for one of my little boys! He had practised and practised and wanted to be the first person to read a story to the class group! He was so proud and excited to do it! I was so excited for him! He did a great job! 

The last day of school we had a popcorn pajama party and a movie with the entire school! We also had to say good bye to our classroom Elf on the Shelf, Jinglebella! She had to go back to the North Pole and give Santa her report on our behaviour. She left us a goodbye note in the Christmas tree. 

Happy Christmas to all! See you in 2014!

Thriteen in 13!

Hi there! 

This is the first time I have ever linked up with other Bloggers! Hopefully someone will read my posts! I am pretty new to this Blogging world, and I still have A LOT to learn, but so far it is fun! 

So here goes…

13. Favorite clothing….

I love yoga pants! Yoga pants are just so comfy. I have never actually done any yoga, but if I ever do, I am set because most of my pant wardrobe is made up of yoga pants! 

Namaste.

12. My favourite movie…

I love Despicable Me 2! Those Minions are just too cute! Usually I am not a big cartoon person, but this one is so filled with adult humour, I just like it! LOL! 

11. Favorite T.V. series…

I really like Grey's Anatomy. It is usually the only series I love to watch. I tend to be more of a channel surfer, watching here and watching there. I don't really go crazy for any particular series. Oh, I also like the Big Bang Theory. It's kinda cute. 

10. Favorite restaurant…

I am a big fan of eating out. Basically, I do not like to cook. I prefer to be served. I think I used to be extremely wealthily (in a former life) and I really liked it and haven't forgotten what it was like. Anyway, back to the restaurant thing…

I like Vietnamese food. I really like Pho. It is a beef rice noodle soup with bean sprouts and lime and some sort of brown sauce, (hoesin sauce??) anyway, it is yummy! 

I also like Tim Hortons for Honey Cruller doughnuts and a tea lattes! Yum! 

But, hey, you say eat out and I am there! 

9. Favorite New thing you have tried...

I read Conscious Discipline by Dr. Becky Bailey this past summer and decided to implement it in my classroom. I love it and it has made such a difference in how my children treat each other and the classroom. I have loved it so much, I signed up to go and take one of her summer institutes! So excited to go! 

8. Favorite gift…

My i-pad mini! I love, love, love it!!! It is so easy and fun to use! My hubby gave it to me. I always tell him it is the best gift he has ever given me, besides my diamond! 

7. Favorite thing you pinned…

I just can't pick! I love Pinterest and often think I need a pintervention! It's kinda like a magazine, you can go through pages and pages of stuff, just scrolling and scrolling. It's so fun! I love looking at all the amazing ideas! 

6. Fave Blog Post…

Hmmm…since I just started, I am not sure I have a favourite yet. 

5. Best Accomplishment…

Well, I can't really think of an accomplishment in 2013. If I could think of an accomplishment in my entire teaching career, I was thrilled to be nominated for an Excellence in Teaching award. It was even better when I won! Honestly was the icing on the cupcake! I never thought I would ever make it through all the elimination rounds, but I did! 

4. Favorite Picture… 

My basset hound is my baby! I swear I have taken more pictures of her than I have ever taken of anything! (including my son!) 

3. Fave Memory of 2013…

Renovating our basement and creating a beautiful new family room, bathroom and a HUGE crafty room for me!! I love my craft room! It is fabulous! I have a whole room to paint, craft, sew and try out lots of different art projects! Yay! I am still in the process of decorating it and making it my own. I decided to call it, Whispering Angel Art Studio. I even found a beautiful statue of an angel to place in the room. She's lovely. 

2. Goal for 2014…

I have been working on this for a while, but this coming year is THE year! I am going to lose the last 45 pounds! I have already lost 40 pounds. I feel better and I certainly love that I can wear smaller size clothes! 

1. One little word...

Love. 

I sign all the messages that I write to my little kids with love from, Mrs. D. 

My students always say, "I'm going to circle your favourite word, Mrs. D…love!" 

I feel very lucky to LOVE my job, LOVE my hubby, LOVE my son and LOVE my dog! 

I am pretty lucky. 

On to 2014!!

Catching Snowflakes!

We recently painted some very funny, but cute paintings using tempera paint and water-colour paper. I really emphasized painting carefully, "like a real artist". The kids really put in a very good effort! I think they turned out pretty cute and funny too! 

Toys in the Attic!

We went on our first field trip to a Cultural Center and Archives. Sounds a bit boring right? Well, it was NOT! It was GREAT! We participated in a program that was all about Toys from the past! The children really loved it and were so well behaved! I was proud of them. The lady running the program told me, my kids were super! 
We participated in a treasure hunt, saw a show about old toys, played with some old fashioned toys and even got to make our own old fashioned toy to take home with us! It was one great trip! Here are some photos of my kids participating in some of the activities. The coolest part was the activities were all held in the attic of a historic home! So cool!

Puppy Pallooza!

I am so excited about this unit! I am really focusing in on sight words and really developing my little readers this month.  I wanted to make it interesting, engaging and fun for my kids. So, I bought each child a puppy puppet.  I then decorated the classroom with puppy pictures and I wrote a message to my students on the white board that said we would each be adopting a new friend. Once we read the message, the kids were full of questions. I think they thought we were going to get a class pet. I even had one child ask if I had bought them a fish! 
I had them close their eyes and my educational assistant and I placed the puppies all over the carpet. The children opened their eyes and I could tell they were excited! 
I went on to explain that these puppies were VERY special and they could only be fed a special way because these puppies are a very special breed. They are WORD puppies and you can only feed them by reading sight words to them and by reading books. The kids were intrigued and believed (or played along).  
I gave each child a strip of manila paper (their collar) to decorate and print their puppies name on it. I said I would laminate the collars and then we would put them on their puppies the next day. After the collars, all the children brought their puppies to the carpet and I read them the story, Rocket Learns to Read by Tad Hills. This story fits in GREAT! 
I also filled our bookshelf with various dog themed stories.

Our list of Learning Targets 

The story that fits in perfectly! 

Reading to our puppies, which "feeds" them! 

Puppy tucked into a chair pocket

My principal came in and watched the whole lesson. She really enjoyed it and said it was wonderful to see how engaged the children were and it was so nice to see that even after almost 20 years of teaching,  I was just as excited about it all as the kids were and she could tell. 
I also told the children that they had to earn the right to adopt and keep their puppy for forever. When the kids heard that, they instantly wanted to know how to earn the right to take their puppy home. So that's when I brought out the LEARNING TARGETS for this whole "project." I read the targets to the children and asked them if they think they would be able to meet those targets? All of the children agreed and want to work hard to earn the right to take their puppy home. Right now all the puppies have to stay at school in each child's chair pocket. The children hug and kiss their puppies at the end of the day and tuck them into their chair pockets. It is so adorable!
Coming up we will have Puppy centres! I will add photos of this next time! This is so fun!

Discovery!

My kids have suddenly become interested in the Word Wall! Hooray! It's like a new discovery has been made! The only problem is they think every word they need will be there! LOL! It's kind of adorable when they look at you in stunned silence when you tell them the word they are looking for isn't on there! The look is kind of a "oh great what do I do now?" kind of look! 
SO, we talked about the word wall and what kinds of words are on the wall and what to do when the word they need is not on the wall. So far, I am very pleased with their progress and gives me hope that their writing will begin to improve! At least they are suddenly interested in writing. 

I love how they help each other find words! 

Adult writing translation:  My favourite animal is a dog. Do you know why because I am not allergic.

I used to be allergic to strawberries but now I am not allergic. 

My Favourite part of the spooky bus was everything!

I like bears. They are cute. They are black. They have cubs. They are brown too.

I like deer. I like that they have fights. 

I like muskrats because they live in holes. 

I am proud of my little writers! Right now I am focusing on the content of their writing and getting a complete thought down on paper. I am also helping my children to learn the difference between beginning work, acceptable work, proficient work and mastery work. I have exemplars on the wall and they can compare their work to the ones on the wall to see where they think their work falls and then they can see what they need to do to improve their writing.  I also have a little writing conference with each child to discuss their writing and how to improve. 

We also have an author's chair where the children can share their writing with the class group and everyone listens and can offer suggestions and comments. It is so sweet when they give each other positive comments. 

Random projects!

Lots to share tonight! Pretty random sharing, with no real theme, just lots of fun pictures!
                                            We have been studying big beautiful bats! 
The kids looked at lots of books and then drew a picture of a bat and then painted it. 
                                    Each bat painting was totally unique and amazing!
I also had the children measure their bats wings with unifix cubes! Gotta get in a little academics with their art! LOL! 

We also read the story "Where's my Mummy?" by Carolyn Crimi and then we retold the story and made our own little mummies! They turned out so adorable! 

Captain Capital! 

Today the children met their new superhero! Captain Capital! He is a pencil with an eraser head and a cape! He loves to help the children with their printing and he always looks for capital letters! The children loved him and they each took one home. 

Little Fuzzy Bats!

On Friday, my little "bats" created their own little bats! They were created with sparkle pompoms and fun foam wings and wiggle eyes! They are adorable! As an added bonus, while the children were gluing the pieces they had to count to 30 for each wing, so the glue would hold. It was great practice in counting out loud orally. It was also an exercise in patience and building up stamina! This project showed who was able to persevere and who gave up very quickly and who needed more encouragement to keep going. All in all a very good project! 

Cornstarch GOOP!

Science Thursday was a lot of messy fun today! We made cornstarch GOOP! It is always fascinating to watch my kids little faces, when they make a new discovery! Unfortunately, I can't show you their faces! Which is too bad because the faces of discovery are awesome! They LOVED playing with this stuff! It can be both a solid and a liquid! It can even make a snapping sound when you try to bend it! Super fun! Super amazing! I was surprised that the experiment time lasted an entire hour! That just shows how engaged they were! 

A, E, I, O, U, Vowel Bat!

I love Vowel Bat! It is hands down the best song to learn the vowel sounds! Shari Sloane from Kids Count 123 has a great Youtube video with the song. This year I had my kids make their own vowel bat! I provided a cardboard cut out and the children wrote the vowels on the bat inside circles. Then we outlined the bats with our favourite colour of smelly marker. Then we added details, like a smile and fangs and of course wiggle eyes! The children LOVED it! Once we completed making our Vowel Bats, we just HAD to sing the song and fly our bats around!

We are learning about Bats!

We are learning about Bats in our classroom. The children are so excited about it and super motivated! Last Thursday we made little stuffed bats to hang from the ceiling in our classroom. They are adorable! We made them from black children's socks that I purchased from the Dollar Tree. The children stuffed the little black socks and then glued on felt wings and ears and wiggly eyes. Some children made cute little paper fangs! Our classroom now has a whole colony of little black bats hanging from the ceiling. 

We will continue our Bat study until Halloween! Then the children will get to take their little bats home to roost! I love to do bats in the month of October! It is a great study and an awesome replacement for Halloween activities. I tend to save Halloween activities for the actual day of Halloween. 

Pattern Party!

To celebrate the end of our first Math unit, the teacher next door to me and I,  planned a Pattern Party for our kids. We had some wonderful parents who came to help out or sent in food. Fun was had by everyone! Below are some of the photos of the fun we had and the various centres we had at the party! 
The children could visit: 1. Pattern snakes, which was made with Crayola Model Magic air dry clay, wiggle eyes and chenille stems cut into small pieces. They turned out so cute! 

2. Make a Slap bracelet with stickers!

                                     3. Make a crown with stickers and bulletin trimmers

                                          4. Edible fruit patterns!

                                          5. Necklace patterns

                                          6. Draw a paper pattern flag

                                          7. Fruit Loop Necklaces

We also did pattern picture frames or door hangers with fun foam and markers. We also painted pattern fish and Pompom caterpillars! There was 10 centres in all to choose from. 

The children really enjoyed themselves!