Gingerbread Mania!

Over the last few weeks we have been reading many different versions of "The Gingerbread Man." We have comparing what is the same in each of the stories and also what is different.

On Friday we opened our bakery and voted on the name "Pretty Bakery." The bakery has room for baking, a patio and even a drive through for coffee and doughnuts.  The students in our class have been vary busy playing and learning in the bakery.

Today we baked REAL gingerbread men, but when we went to get them out of the oven we realized they had run away! Luckily they left clues behind and we were able to follow the clues to find them hiding in our classroom!

Looking for clues in Mrs. Couch's office.

Once we found the cookies, we decorated them with icing and candies. They were a very yummy snack!

Have you ever tried Gingerbread cookies?

What part do you eat first?

What Can You See?

Way back in October I saw a blog post by an amazing teacher in Ontario, Angie Harrison. She proposed a project called "What Can You See?" where students observed and then wrote about all of the things they could see from their classroom windows. You can check out her original post here and you can find a collection of posts here.

We looked at a number of submissions by different classrooms and the students begged to make their own book.  Because we do not have a window in our classroom we decided to go for a walk around our school and take pictures of all of the things we could see. Over the next few weeks we wrote the text for our book.

Finally, Mr. Miller, our Vice Principal came and helped us to record an original song to go with our story.

This project has helped to inspire some amazing discussions and even collaborations with other classrooms. We hope you like our book and we can't wait to see more books added to the project.

Our We Can See project.

We would love to see what some of you can see. Please feel free to send us your own "What Can You See?" book. 

Play date

Today we had a play date with our grade 4/5 buddies. We usually read together but today they came to our classroom to play with us. (The lights were off in our classroom because we are still really excited about exploring light and shadows).

It was fun playing with the kids from room 3. -Kyran

It was fun doing art with my buddy - Oliver

I played tic-tac-toe on the smart board - Jessica and Delilah

I missed my reading buddy. He was playing hockey today. - Ashton

I had fun playing with Austin. - Annabelle

I liked my reading buddies picture on the computer. Kyran

I liked when we were playing camping with my reading buddy. - Julia

Just before recess we got an email from room 3. We were so excited to get mail! Here's what they said:

Thank you for inviting us to play. Here are some of our thoughts:

I like the wooden bench you had, and playing in the dark was fun - Tessa D.

I thought the Kindergartens cooperated really well - Sarah

I enjoyed playing with them by the Cafe - Kirstin

I liked using the puppets to make a show - Carter

I felt it was very spacious and I really loved how almost everyone found someone to play with. I enjoyed it. Brayden

There were many fun things to do -Chair

I liked that my buddy was showing me different things to do - Nick

I liked the light bright - CJ

Playing Tic-Tac-Toe on the Smartboard was fun. I was impressed that the Kindergartens beat me. - Mariah

The Kindergartens listen really well when I read to them. -Tessa T.

Watching the Grade 4s and 5s play and have fun was great to see. Thank you for the invitation. - Mrs. MacKay

We LOVED the wooden table and tree stumps. - Everyone

Jingle Bell Jukebox

Today I snuck down to the music room to snap some photos of the K's in action.  They are working hard to prepare for the Winter Concert on December 19th. There will be two shows starting at 1:30 and 7:00.

They can't wait to show you what they've been working on!

Exploring light and shadows

Wow, today was an exciting day in our classroom! We continued to explore light and shadows with books, puppets, cellophane paper, flashlights, lamps, and overhead projects.

Watching his bird's shadow fly.

Using a flashlight to make dancing lights on the ceiling.

Shadow puppets.

Exploring colours with cellophane paper.

Using the flashlights for telling stories around the "campfire."

We read some books about shadows. - Mercedez

We played campfire with flashlights. - Jessica

We made violet with the papers we can see through. I think we used green and purple together. - Kiara

We had fun learning about light. - Aaliyah

I made a dog with my hand. My hand blocks the light to make a shadow. - Kyran

I wonder how to make a puppet show with shadows? - Annabelle

I held the light and made a butterfly. - Abigail

We learned about the projector. I learned that we can make puppets with them. - Delilah

I like what we did today, making puppets. - Oliver

Readers: Where do you see shadows?

Do you know how to make a shadow puppet with your hand? We would love to hear from you!

Exploring Light and Snowflakes

Yesterday the most wonderful thing happened, we got a message on our blog from Mrs. Babalis' class in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

You can find their blog here.

They were inspired by our blog to make their own symmetrical snowflakes.  They built snowflakes on the light table, the overhead projector and the math carpet. Here are some of the snowflakes they made:

We had never seen an overhead projector or a light table so Mrs. Lowe brought one to our class.

We built beautiful snowflakes with the math pattern blocks and they were shooting up onto the wall!
We noticed that when we put the pattern blocks on top of each other they changed colours.

During play time kids tried putting lots of different things on the overhead to see if the light would shine through.  Maybe tomorrow we could do some more exploring to see which kinds of things let the light shine through and which do not.

Thank you Mrs. Babalis' class for inspiring our learning!

We are in love!

Our class has fallen in love with Elephant and Piggie! 

They are featured in a series of books by Mo Willems. When we read them everyone laughs so hard because they are hilarious! Many students borrowed them from the library this week.

These are some of the books we've read recently:

If you haven't read these books, you should definitely check them out!

Symmetrical Snowflakes

This week we were inspired by two of our favourite blogs!  On Tuesday we read this blog. We loved the designs they made and we left a comment on their blog. On Wednesday,  Mrs. Lowe gave us our own pattern blocks to build with during music listening time. We made all sorts of designs including sunflowers, robots, people and even a bunny!

On Thursday we checked out this blog. Mrs. Lowe read us a story about a snowflake and showed us how to make snowflakes with six symmetrical sides. We each got a white paper and built our own snowflakes.

We are so glad to follow such great blogs to follow and amazing classrooms to inspire us!

My heart is melting!

Today I received the most precious gift from my students. 

A special thanks to Mrs. Jenkinson for helping my students create this beautiful work of art. It's comforting to know that my students are being well taken care of while I am away.

I feel so lucky to get to spend my days with such awesome little people. They make my heart melt every day.

Source: Pinterest

THANK YOU!

I love you guys!

Transforming Pedagogical Practices

Hello Readers,

It's Mrs. Lowe writing today. Last weekend I was fortunate to attend a conference in Burlington Ontario.  The conference was titled, Transforming Pedagogical Practices: Making Connections Across Ontario.  The conference was hosted by The Canadian Association for Young Children and the Ontario Reggio Association.

The day started with a key note address by Jim Grieve. He was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister of the Early Learning Division for the Ontario Ministry of Education in 2009. He was responsible for the implementation of full day learning for 4 and 5 year old children in all Ontario Schools.

His address was titled "How Toddlers Will Save the World." He talked about the value of our investment as a society when we invest in children.

He told us that...

Education needs to be modernized ...which is about "putting away your October box of pumpkins" and instead focus on...

 

INTERACTION
talking and listening to the children's interest and questions
getting down, eye to eye
provoking children to challenge thinking

He told us about some researchers in China who were working with Panda cubs who had been born into captivity. In order to prepare them for the world, the researchers dressed up as Pandas whenever they were working with the cubs. Jim encouraged us to "suit up" when we are working with our students. As teachers, we should get down on the floor with students, get our hands dirty and become participants in their play. 

Following the keynote address I attended 3 amazing workshops. 

The first one was hosted by Joanne Babalis. I was really excited to meet her after following her blog since early this summer. It was her classroom transformation that inspired the changes in my own classroom.  You can check out her blog here:

http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.ca/

She showed us some beautiful examples of inquiry-based learning and how to 

document the learning that is taking place.  

In the afternoon I went to a session titled "Magic Happens." We got to hear the experiences of a team of teachers who are beginning to move from traditional teaching to a more inquiry-based approach. During their presentation they showed slides with direct quotes from the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum. 

"The Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program reflects the belief that 4 and 5 year olds are capable and active learners, full of potential and ready to take ownership of their learning..."

"The FDELKP consists of a balance of exploration or investigation, guided instruction and explicit instruction...learning experiences will be thoughtfully planned and guided by team members..."

These quotes really capture what it's all about.

I had a great weekend and can't wait to start sharing my learning with my students and their families!

Vincent van Gogh

A few days ago Mrs. Lowe opened a new painting centre. We have been painting lots and lots of pictures. Mrs. Lowe suggested we should add titles to our paintings like Vincent van Gogh did. She showed us some of his paintings.

Sunflowers

Starry Starry Night

We also read a book about van Gogh. We learned that when he was alive nobody really liked his paintings and he felt really sad. One time he even cut off his own ear. People thought he was a weirdo.

He died when he was only 37 but he painted over 1500 paintings before then.

After he died he got very popular and people started to love his paintings and now they are in museums.

Today we painted our own sunflowers. We are going to add them to a background. We can't wait to show you the finished product during conferences!

Here is our finished product!

I like his painting of sunflowers - Mercedez
I love his pictures - Abigail
I like his picture of Starry Starry Night - Krystal
If I saw Vincent I would ask him "Why did you cut off your ear?" - Kyran
I thought it was a little funny and sad that he cut off his ear - Oliver
I thought his picture of Starry Starry Night was pretty - Piper