New Blog!

As parents and students know, I will be away for a little while and Ms. Long is teaching the students of room 8.

If you haven't checked out her blog yet, you're missing out!  It looks great and the kids are blogging and tweeting a lot!

http://www.mslongsclassblog.blogspot.ca

It is so great to know that the students are in such capable hands!

I miss you guys!

Mrs. Lowe

Skyping

Last week we were able to Skype with Ms. Dowd's class.  They are a Kindergarten class at Linwood school, right in our own community. 

You can visit their blog here. 

A screen shot from their blog.

Before we talked to them, we prepared some questions. We have been learning that questions are things you want to know. They usually start with who, what, where, when, or why. Questions are different than telling a story or giving a compliment.

We really enjoyed asking them our questions and listening for their answers.

Our list of questions and students who would ask them.

They also asked us some questions including:

What is your favourite animal in the mitten?

Did you do a play of the mitten?

Have you read the book called "The Mitten"?

Facelift

You may have already noticed that our blog has a new look!

Our old design with the owls was super cute but the lady who hosted the site where it originated has decided to no longer offer her designs for free.  This is totally understandable as her work is beautiful.

That being said, I decided to look elsewhere for a new, free, template.

Shabbyblogs offers hundreds of AMAZING and beautiful designs for free.  Their site is really easy to navigate and the instructions for installation are very clear.

I hope you like our new look!

Mittens, mittens, everywhere!

Mittens have been popping up all over our classroom. During our discovery time, we designed mittens using pattern blocks.

We made mitten pairs by matching upper and lowercase letters. Then we used the tiny muscles in our hands to squeeze clothes pins to hang them.

We have also been improving our hand strength by using hole punchers to design and create our own sewing cards.

Mrs. Lowe showed us a bunch of different wool mittens and we looked closely and noticed that lots of the mittens had patterns in them.

After looking at lots of examples, we used permanent markers to draw our own mittens. Then we painted them with water colour paints.

What kind of mittens do you wear?

The Lost Mitten and a Dance-a-thon!

This week we read a story called "The Mitten." We read it three times. We even watched a video.



Today we had fun making a play of "The Mitten". Some kids got to be the actors and some kids were the audience. Then we switched.

Leah and Ethan were the photographers.

This was the part where the bear sneezed and the animals went flying in all directions!

Here's what the kids had to say about the play:

I was the bunny - Gabriel
I was the owl - Caleb
I was the mole and I got to be Nicki. My favourite part was when I was throwing the mitten in the air.  - Ellie
My favourite part was when the bear said "Aaachoo!" and I was the hedgehog. -Leah
I was the bear. - Ken
My favourite part was when everyone was jumping. - Journey
I like the part when we all fly in the sky when the bear sneezed and I was the fox - Essence.
I loved how the mitten went flying in the air. - Autumn
I want to do a play like the book. - Jericho
I like when everyone got scared of my talons. - Chase
I liked being the hedgehog. - Ethan
I liked when I was the mouse and I made the bear sneeze. -Bryce

In the afternoon we has some special guests. A dance group from Lincoln Middle School came and performed two dances for us. They were visiting to help promote a fundraiser that our school will be doing to support the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

In the month of January, each class will be learning and performing a dance. The students are encouraged to get pledges to raise money. All of the information is included in the package that went home today.

Brianne is organizing this event for our school. She is wearing the t-shirt that we'll all be receiving for participating. 

They danced really nice - Autumn
They did pretty dances and I wish I could do it - Cassie
They put their legs up - Journey
They were awesome at the dancing and I really liked it - Leah
When they were dancing I heard the song and it was nice - Jericho
I liked it - Ken
I liked the Jingle Bells one - Chase
I liked their shirts - Ellie