Today was our Halloween celebration in class since Monday is a PA Day. Students love Halloween: it’s all about candy and costumes, and fun. I wanted everyone to have fun at school today too, but I wanted them to learn as well. I really thought that we could do both. Last year, I planned some special literacy and math centres for Halloween, and I thought that I would plan some new ones for this year too.
With our tweeting and blogging centre, students were writing using different forms, practicing their various spelling strategies in a meaningful context, and reading with meaning as they replied to comments from other students and teachers too. With our Toontastic centre, students were developing their oral language skills as they created their own oral stories. They were also working on drama, as they gave their characters voices and personalities, while creating their own exciting plot lines too. With our Halloween Reading Centre, students were practicing their decoding and reading comprehension skills, as they worked together to read different Halloween stories. They were using various strategies to read difficult words, and they were doing a fantastic job retelling the stories and making connections to them too. With our Halloween Candy Problem, students were developing their one-to-one correspondence skills, developing beginning addition skills, and explaining strategies they used during problem-solving activities. With our Oreo Stacking Problem, the students were practicing their graphing skills, and interpreting graphs too. Throughout all of the centres, students were continuing to practice their learning skills, as they worked cooperatively with others, and developed their own independent work habits too.
For the past two days, I’ve been at ECOO: a conference in Richmond Hill, Ontario. This was a fantastic professional development opportunity for me, where I not only got a chance to share what I’m doing in the classroom, but I also got to hear what others are doing in their classrooms too.
I was at an inservice all morning today, and just before heading back to class, I happened to check my mailbox. I was excited to see that the Flat Stanley from Mrs. Kolis’ class in Ohio had arrived. But there was a problem: Mrs. Kolis really wanted the Flat Stanley mailed back out to her class within a week, and I’m away presenting at ECOO next Thursday and Friday. How was I going to get photographs taken, blog posts written, and the Flat Stanley returned quickly? To add to my concerns, our class also has a Flat Stanley from a Grade 1 class in Atlanta Georgia, and we haven’t taken any photographs with him yet. It was time to get things started!
Sometimes it’s difficult to capture the week in words, so this week, I decided to highlight our week in the classroom through pictures. Below is an Animoto slideshow all about our exciting week.
We had a lot of fun today taking part in the Terry Fox Run! See and hear what some people had to say about this run. We hope you enjoy our videos!
http://edu.glogster.com/flash/flash_loader.swf?ver=1315338339
At the end of last year, I wrote a post on my professional blog about “giving the students control,” and how amazed I was by what one student did when he wrote about our whole trip during the field trip itself. Through some replies by others, I commented about how great it would be if the students had iPod Touches or cameras to record their learning on the trip. I thought that I would give this a try on our first field trip of the year to the Ancaster Fair. I’m so glad that I did!
Meet the Teacher Night is tomorrow evening, and I wanted to put together a slideshow to play tomorrow night showing what the students have already done in Grades 1 and 2. For those that can’t make it tomorrow night, below is our Animoto Slideshow of our exciting first week at school. Watch this slideshow with your child. What did your child enjoy doing the most? What has your child already learned at school? Please leave us a comment and let us know!
Please read this book with your child and leave a comment with more possible verses that we could add here. We’d love to hear all of your ideas!
Aviva
On my professional blog, I posted today about our school principal retiring at the end of the month. Bev Laporte is a fantastic principal that has really made a positive impact on all of the students at the school. When I told my class that Ms. Laporte was retiring, they wanted to do something for her to say, “goodbye.” Below are the common craft videos that the students created in partners today. The children drew the pictures, wrote the script, practiced the lines, and recorded the videos too. This was a reading, writing, and media literacy activity, but also a thank you to somebody special.