Back at School!

Back to School! I am officially back at school! I have been with my "groovy kids" for  seven days according to our 100 chart! We are counting the days to reach the 100th day! 
I am "in love" with my new class! 
They are a wonderful and fascinating little bunch of coconuts. 
They are so ready for lots of challenges! I am excited for what is to come this year! 

Today we did a fun science experiment! Mini- Explosions! 
We used baking soda and vinegar and food colouring. We talked about our science equipment and how important it is and how we take care of our equipment. 

All the scientists were very careful and helpful! They were excited to watch the bubbling and see all the colours they could create! 


Brain Smart Start! 
Everyday we begin our day the Brain Smart way! That means we begin with a movement song to connect us and all our energies together. The brain smart way has been scientifically proven to create biochemistry that balances and integrates brain function, mind and body. 
Our Brain Smart start is part of my practise of Conscious Discipline. In fact our whole school is now practicing this! Everyone does a version of this. It has changed the feeling in our school! 
I will begin posting photos as soon as I have all my students permission forms back! 
I am excited to share all the things we have been up to! 

Summer! Need I say more?

Summer started for me back on July 6th. My students were finished June 29th, but I stayed on a few more days to clean up my room, put things away and re-do my bulletin boards. I wanted to have the basic bulletin board fabric up so it would be much easier to get the bulletin boards going in August. 
I also bought a bunch of bins! I love bins! Sometimes I think I need a bintervention! Whenever my collegues need a container of some type, I always say, "Come see me first, because I may have one you can have!" I have given away so many bins! 
Anyway, on to telling about my summer! I went to Yoga teacher training! So now I am certified to teach yoga to kids! It was something totally outside my comfort zone, but I like doing yoga, so I thought, why not! I went with another teacher friend. It was very long days, but it was so much fun! I learned alot about myself, especially that size really doesn't matter! I am a plus sized girl, but it does not matter one bit. I can still do yoga, very successfully. It is great excersise too! Combined with my dog walking twice a day, I am feeling so much better! Hopefully I will keep it up once school begins again. I will just need to make it a part of my school/home life! 

This summer I did a trial run of my first Art Camp for girls. I called it I heart Art! It ran everyday for a week. We did acrylic painting, alcohol ink tiles, giant foot paintings and much more! It was alot of busy, messy fun! 

We made our first initial mixed media canvas'

We made painted and beaded feathers for our hair

These are our t-shirts!

Mod Podged word plaques

Alcohol ink tiles

More Alcohol ink tiles

Fairies!

Zentangles!

Fairy Houses

Zentangle

Self portraits

I also have enjoyed going to the movies this summer! My favorite movie so far this summer is The Secret Life of Pets! I saw finding Dory too. It was okay. I am also looking forward to seeing GhostBusters, Star Trek Beyond and Suicide Squad. I love movies! It is one of my favorite things to do on a weekend!

I have been making things and creating things for my classroom too, because I can never really let that go! I have a pile of things sitting by my front door waiting to go to school. I can't take it over to my school because we are not allowed in until August 22nd. So my house looks a little messy, with all the things waiting to go to my classroom! And for some reason, the pile just keeps getting bigger everytime I go to the Dollar Tree! 

Today was actually the first day I felt like I was really on vacation! I felt relaxed and enjoyed my day doing some of my favorite things, movies and shopping! 

I went to Michael's craft store and bought some fun things and went to the movies with a teacher friend. 

I am beginning to think about planning my September. I have a serious problem with letting school stuff go! I will be distracted when my son comes to visit! Yay! That will be fun! Eventhough, I asked him to bring me some teaching stuff from his city, that we don't have here! 

Anyway...on to a little more relaxing, yoga and maybe some reading... for fun! 

Naked Mole Rats!

We started a final project to wrap up our science unit on Seasons. I read my class a story called Naked Mole Rat gets dressed by Mo Willems. The kids liked the story ALOT! Mostly because the author, Mo Willems also writes Elephant and Piggie stories which they can not get enough of!
I then read a non fiction book about real naked mole rats. The kids were interested in these weird little creatures! Then I said that we would be "pretending" that a naked mole rat was coming to visit where we live for one year and he needed a complete "wardrobe" for each season.

Each child made their own pink, naked mole rat. Then they began designing the clothes their naked mole rat would need to live in our area. We have 4 complete seasons. We talked about the seasons and what the weather is like in each season and some possible clothing items our rats would need. I placed out lots of different scrapbook papers and other items for the children to use in their creations.
I think if I do this again, I may need to show them what paper dolls are. Many of them did not know what they were. So I did a mini-lesson on making tabs on the clothes so they can hang on the little rat. It took a but of experiementing, but they caught on and it started to be FUN! They are now excited to create all kinds of outfits for their naked mole rats! I am planning on having a Naked Mole Rat fashion show, where each child will showcase their "best" rat outfit on the "red carpet!"

"Wilbur" the Naked Mole rat

Night gown for a rat

Jeans and a shirt and shoes!

A Onesie p.j's !

Shirt and pants!

A sweater!

It is a fun project! Perfect wrap up for the end of the school year! 

We can be creative!

STEM challenge!

I challenged my kids to build a paper chair that would hold one of our classroom stuffie pals; Elephant, Piggie or Penguin. They were only allowed to use paper, toilet rolls and tape! Nothing else! It was fun to see how they think and work out the problem. We decided that the chair had to have a back on it and be free standing on it's own. I was amazed at how different each chair was and how each child approached what to do with the limited materials. I was mean, I didn't even let them use scissors! The kids who never gave up and kept right on building and trying different things will be GREAT problem solvers in the future! 

This one even has a cushion on the back made from the student's own backpack dangle thing!

(it looks and smells like a cookie!)

She was very proud of her "barstool"! I was amazed it could stand! 

This little guy made a couch! 

It was a fun science challenge! 

Flying pigs and castles!

I admit it...I kinda love little pink piggies! My kids created one of my favorite projects...FLYING PIGS! They are just soooooo cute!! This year I bought corks in a big bag to make the pigs legs. They worked out way better than rolled paper. I think they turned out really well! They are flying around the ceiling in the Groovy Grade One classroom. 

Painting and "glittering" the wings!

Adding a cute curly tail!

We have also been building castles with recyled materials as part of our fairytale unit. The kids were so excited to build them! At the beginning I had my doubts that they truly understood what a castle was. So we looked at lots of pictures of REAL castles and fairytale castles. We decided what was the most important features, to make sure that our castles had. They decided on turrets, a moat, a drawbridge, walls and people to live in the castle. Here are some pictures of some of their builds. I love how each one is different! Each child has their own understanding and interpretation of a "castle". 

This little person was channelling his inner Harry Potter. 

Love the Dragon! 

The red turrets and roof are really eye catching! 

Reminds me of a red version of the Disney castle! 

This one has a real working drawbridge with ropes! 

This one has details inside and out! 

This one has a square turret in the middle of the castle! 

This builder is deciding what details to add next...

We are busy preparing for our end of the school year assembly. This year my kids are doing a little play called, "The Enormous Potato!" and they will be each reading some of their own writing to the whole school. They are reading about being a superhero and what their super powers are. I am trying to get them to think outside the box a little...We will see how that goes! LOL! 

We will be heading into testing season coming up. I need to test all my kids on their reading levels and sight words. The final reporting season is coming up. 

I am so ready for summer to come! 

We have 29 and a half student contact days left! Plus two P.D. days and one long weekend. 

Summer is on the way! 

I am excited that my Art Camp for the month of July is FULL! YAY! 

So mid-July, I will have 6 little girls here at my art studio to play with art and learn some fun things to do with paint, ink and other things! Looking forward to it! 

I am also planning a Garage Sale at my house. I have to get rid of a bunch of my teaching stuff (I am a bit of a teacher horder!) I think I will thin out my house wares and furniture too! 

Oh my lots to catch up!

I admit I have been neglecting my blog! I've been super busy! My hubby and I redid the bedroom. We painted, rearranged, added a rug and even bought some new furniture. I love the new look. It's different and not really a color I would have picked, but my hubby wanted our room to be "less girly". I get it. So, now it is! 
I've also been walking my "new" dog, Sally, twice a day. Which has been sooooo good for me! I am sleeping better and my clothes are fitting better! That is a great bonus! 

I've also been planning an Art Camp for girls for the summer. I am only doing it as a trial. I am hoping for 6 girls total. So far I have 2. I am planning all kinds of "art-y" experiences for the girls. I picked girls, not because I have anything against boys, it's just that most of the projects I have in mind are rather "girly". Plus I do not have a daughter or a grand daughter at this point and sometimes I think it would be nice. 

Anyway, on to what's happening in my classroom! 
We have been working on a unit in Science, called Building Things. So, we have been building little cars made out of "beautiful junk." The kids brought in all kinds of things, like showboxes, t.p. rolls, cardboard and lots of round things! 
The kids LOVED it! Everyday they would ask me, "When can we work on our cars?" 
We looked at wheels and axels and how they are attatched to the car. We even went on a trip to our local fire hall and looked at the wheels and axels of the firetrucks! It was super fun! I was so impressed with the cool designs they came up with! We all agreed that the cars must roll and must have a place to sit our stuffed Elephant and Piggie. 

Our class at the fire hall

Two boys discovering the Axels on the firetruck

Axels on the firetruck

Here's Piggie going for a ride! 

This one rolled so well! 

This car rolled really well, but could not hold our stuffie friends

This little engineer created a Firetruck! 

 Before we went on our Spring Break, we had drawing lessons! We drew these cute little bunnies! Each one was different! I love how they turned out! So cute!

Cute bunny!

LITERACY CENTERS!!

These are my literacy centers! I have been working on these for well over a year! I finally have them pretty much finished! Everything is organized and in it's place. The kids are assigned a box in a workstation pocket chart. The literacy boxes are leveled from A to E. 

Level A is the simple beginning of the year kind of stuff, like alphabet and pre-primer sight words.

Level B gets a little tougher and each level on up to E, gets a bit more challenging. 

The activities range from short vowels, long vowels, sight words, rhyming words and more! 

Each tub is FUN! 

When I was creating some of the games I tried to make them hands on and interesting! 

I have since updated the last two bins on the bottom that are clear with blue handles. I found two more of the aqua green ones! YAY! Now they are all matchy- matchy! 

I know that is weird, but it bugged me! I needed them all to be the same and now they ARE! 

Maybe I can do a post about what is inside some of the bins. 

Teacher's Convention

Hello! 
I just finished doing two presentations at the teacher's convention. I am always my own worst critic! I wonder if anyone will find what I have to say is valuable or not. I know it is my own mind! It is nice to meet and chat with other teachers. I also think I need to learn more about technology so I can upload my presentations so people can access and print if they need. I have a steep learning curve! 
Plus I am angling to get a new laptop! I really wouldlike a bigger one with a bigger screen (and faster!) We will see!
Anyway I will try to put up pictures of things I did in my workshop.
I love making things for my classroom and doing projects (especially art and science and math! Who am I kidding? I really love it all!) Except for maybe report cards!! 

Captain Capital! 

Star Wars Light Sabres made with mini pool noodles from the dollar store! 

Graphing with Sponges! 

Sight word hockey! The pucks are made from a checkers game from the dollar store 

Sight word Star Wars game! 

My Alphabet Apron!

My Math/Number Apron

Our good bye ritual! We say this every night! 

Our friends and family board!

Our Mystery Box! I place things inside and then kids ask questions to figure out what's inside!

Story Flower! Spin the flower and answer questions about a story...Helps with Comprehension! 

Our daily commitments

How I store my Literacy Centers

Our schedule board. It's magnetic and I change it daily.

Rockin Sight words! Everything was at the dollar store!

Minion MASH sight word game! 

Read the room with Flash lights!

Pony "O''s for pattern building

Place Value game! Kids made themselves and then took home to play.