Celebrating Terry Fox …

This is an article from the newspaper on the occasion of the 25th anniversary run – 12 years ago.  Below is a photo of a map of Canada with the route that Terry ran highlighted in Sharpie marker.

As a class we discussed who Terry was, what happened in his life, and what he did to seal his place in our hearts forever.  We used these books as a starting off place.

We were fortunate to have Kirsten Fox (Terry’s niece via his older brother, Fred) come to our school the previous week to discuss Terry, how the family remembers him, and how he affected their lives.  In class we talked about the people in our school and families that we know who have dealt with, or are still dealing with, cancer.  Students each decorated a paper shoe which stated who they were running for; these are on the wall in the gym.

Students also decorated a paper t-shirt and wrote about Terry.  These two papers were attached, back to back, onto a green construction paper.  These are hanging in our classroom.

As a school we were very pleased to raise a good amount of money.  I don’t know the exact total but I believe that it is more than $700!!  That is amazing for our small school!  Thank you to all who contributed to this fund.

Who says, “Giraffes Can’t Dance”.

We read the story, “Giraffes Can’t Dance”, by Giles Andreae.  It is a story about Gerald, a giraffe who longs to dance like everyone else but he just can’t seem to get it right because his legs are too long and skinny.

Afterwards we discussed how the cricket gave Gerald the confidence to try his best and to not give up.  Gerald may not dance like everyone else does, but he does dance.

Students then thought of something that they can do if they try their best.  They created talking bubbles with their ideas and put them next to a Gerald head.

We then had a directed drawing lesson on drawing Gerald dancing –  firstly on a practise white paper and then onto yellow construction paper.  Student added the details in black Sharpie, cut them out, and glued them onto blue construction paper.  They are all very unique and individualistic with the facial expressions and the dance moves.  They are on the bulletin board outside of our classroom.

 

 

Welcome to the New School Year!

We have had a very busy first few weeks!  Students, both the returning grade 2’s and the new grade 1’s, are settling nicely into our routines.

I enjoyed meeting with parents last week.  The conversations helped to give me some insight into the individual students.  I hope it gave parents a sense of our classroom environment, expectations, and plans for the upcoming year.

I will be posting regular information on this blog.  Check back regularly …

Sports Day Preparations

We had our first House meeting on Monday where the three colour groups chose their team names and decided who would be on the Banner and Cheer committees (these are for Intermediate students only).  Our second House meeting is on Tuesday, May 9th.  At this meeting the Cheer leaders will be teaching the rest of us (in each House) the cheer that they have created.  Our third – and last House meeting before Sports Day – will be on Thursday, May 18.  The goal of this meeting is to practise the cheer again, and then to do a first run-through of the House relay.  This annual part of Sports Day is the final event towards the point collection to see which House wins – and is a lot of fun for all.

Please ask your child to tell you which House they are in so that you can know what colour t-shirt they should be wearing for Sports Day.

If your child wishes they can be a part of the Bike Parade.  They can decorate their bikes with streamers, etc. and bring them to school that morning.  These are usually stored in either the Music Room or the Gym.  We will let you know closer to the date. Please ensure that they are wearing a helmet.

Also, please note: pizza is delivered to the students in their classrooms shortly before noon and students are dismissed at 12:15 on that day.

I hope you can come and join us on Sports Day.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed for some good weather!

Animal Habitat Dioramas

Firstly, a huge thank you to all the parents who helped their child get ready for this week of building!!

Students spent the week creating their habitat for their chosen animal.  The shoe boxes went from a plain old box to a wonderful home for their plasticene animals.

I hope you agree … here they are …

These are on display on two tables in the hallway outside of our classroom and in the display case on the second floor.  I hope you get a chance to see them when you are in the school.  These pictures don’t really do the work justice, especially the glare from the display case glass 🙂

I hope you enjoy them as much as the kids did making them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter

I hope you all have a fantastic long weekend. Schools will reopen on Tuesday, April 18th.

This week we spent some time talking about Easter – its origin (Christianity) and the ancient Anglo Saxon tradition of Eastre (a spring celebration) which brought us the Easter Bunny.  We read, The Velveteen Rabbit, (my Reading group) and Rechenka’s Eggs, by Patricia Polacco, (the whole class) which looked at the tradition of Russian / Ukranian eggs.

The students decorated their own eggs.  Some challenged themselves by doing the design as well as the colouring.

The School Mural Project

We had two different sessions with the artists-in-residence who are coordinating our school-wide mural project.  This mural will be painted on the six panels on the wall in the undercover area by the school’s front door.  Intermediate students will be working on the backgrounds and the primary students will be doing the added details.  These details will be in the form of mandelas – circular pieces of art.

In preparation for this mural the artists came into our class and taught the students about ‘mandelas’.  Mona discussed the theme of nature and introduced the concept of symmetry.  Students were encouraged to make designs which were important to them and representative of themselves.  They began by tracing circles onto their paper. Smaller circles were placed in the centre of these.  Lines were drawn on which dissected these circles.  Designs were created within and without these areas. Students used coloured Sharpie felt pens and special pastels which are a sort of combination of chalk and oil.


 

The artists came back the week later for our second session.  At this time students worked on styrofoam sheets which had circles drawn on them.  Students drew their designs using ballpoint pens which basically carved their designs into the base. Students then chose a coloured paper and an ink.  Using rollers the students covered their designs with the ink and then placed their paper on it.  They needed to rub the two together in order to ensure that a good contact was achieved.  The plates were then peeled off to reveal their print.

When they were dried there were placed on the bulletin board interspersed with their original mandelas.  These will still be on the bulletin board when you come in next week for our Student Led conferences. 

Here are a few of them: