Day: 19 September 2013

McGill Library Visits

Our class will be making monthly trips to McGill Library.  These trips will be on Tuesdays (between Recess and Lunch) when Mr. Phelps is teaching the class.  Ms. Nazaruk and the Kindergarden class will be going with our class.  Today you received a letter from them requesting that you get a Burnaby Public Library card for your child so that they will be able to borrow books from the library.

I will update our ‘Upcoming Events’ page once I have the confirmed dates of our visits.  At this point it is hoped that the first visit will be next Tuesday (September 24th).  This will be confirmed on Monday.  Please ensure that the ‘start-up’ forms – including the one for the Walking Field Trips – are returned by Monday morning.

Thank you.

Terry Fox / Corn Roast

We began our afternoon in the classroom with a discussion of Terry Fox.  I shared information about Terry’s early life, his struggle with cancer, his journey across Eastern Canada, and his vision for raising money in order to help scientists find cures for cancer.

We then joined the rest of the school for an assembly in the gym where we saw a video of Terry’s ‘Marathon of Hope’ journey.

The official run followed the assembly.  Students had been preparing for this over the past two weeks by running each morning at the start of the school day.  I was very impressed by how well our class kept on going!  The weather was spectacular, as well.

Each student in the class had shucked one ear of corn earlier in the morning.  These cobs were then cooked by parent volunteers and given to students with the option to add butter and/or salt.  Most students enjoyed eating the corn after the run – many students went back for seconds!!

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It was a great day!!  With the Pro D day tomorrow I hope you all have a great long weekend!!

 

Seuss is Happening in our Class!!

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We have been reading and enjoying a lot of the books by Dr. Seuss this past two weeks!!  We began with “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” which was the first book that he wrote.  With an aim at being better at observing (and using imagination) we took a short walk down Pandora Street to see what we could see.  Back in the classroom students drew something ‘real’ that they had seen and then had to turn it into something ‘unreal’ or imaginary – similar to the way the character in the story exaggerated his observations.

With ‘The Cat in the Hat’ we had a directed drawing lesson on how to draw a human face.  Students learned about the correct placement of facial features and the proportions of these features in relation to each other.  As the first in our series of drawing lessons I think that the students did a great job!!  We added the great hats to finish off the art pieces.  Our drawing lessons will continue each week throughout the school year.  By June the students will have a fine collection in their portfolios.

We will continue with our Seuss theme throughout next week.  Many of the stories have been simply read by me during our daily Storytime after lunch – with others we have done activities.  We are currently finishing up our versions of ‘Yertle, the Turtle’.

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Intake Interviews

I really enjoyed getting to meet the parents of my students this past week during our Intake Interviews.  Thank you all for making time in your busy schedules to come into the school!

I hope you take advantage of checking out this blog regularly to keep up on what is happening in our class.  I do get busy sometimes but I try to post something each week.  You could check out the regular pages for such things as the Weekly Schedule (for example) or Upcoming Events – along with the information posts on the Home page.

Thank you to all who have returned the forms packet that I gave you at our interview.  There are only a few outstanding and I hope to receive them on Monday.

Don’t hesitate to email me, drop a note in the front plastic pocket of your child’s Planner, or speak to me after school if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you

Carnival – 90th Anniversary

It was great to see so many of the students – present and former – along with their families at our celebration last Friday afternoon / evening!  The children seemed to really enjoy the wide variety of games, the food (popcorn, cotton candy, cake, and hot dogs), the face painting, and the prizes.  We were very lucky that the weather held off for us.  I hope you all had a chance to check out the displays of the decades (in the gym) that classes had made.

Our class made the posters for the 1960’s and the 1970’s.  In the two weeks before the carnival we discussed important events from these two decades.  Students made Canadian flag-socks as they learned that our current flag became official on February 15, 1965.  We also enjoyed music from these decades during our activities those first two weeks.  Many of these songs the students actually knew as they have been re-used in more current movies.

A huge thank you to all those who helped us out by volunteering at a station for the carnival!  I think it was a great success and will be a great memory for the students as they progress through their school years.