Halloween Celebrations

The day couldn't have been any better.  We started with our annual Primary Integrated Day.  We broke into family groups and traveled from class to class reading Halloween stories, making crafts and playing games.  In the afternoon we had a disco dance Halloween style in the multipurpose room and ended our day with our annual Halloween parade, magic show and thriller dance in the gym.  Here are some pictures of us in our costumes!

Where's the Logic?

In Math today our class played a game called Pumpkin Logic with Mrs. Metz's class.  The object of the game is not to end up with the bat.  Each pair started with a bag of pumpkins and one bat.  You take turns taking either one or two pumpkins.  The students quickly discovered a strategy for winning the game.  Next we decided to change the number of pumpkins there are to see if that would make a difference in our strategy.  Then we decided to see if adding another player to our group would change the strategy.  We won't tell you what we discovered.  Play it and see if you can figure out a  strategy that works for you!

Deciding who goes first!  I wonder if that makes a difference?

 

 

How many should I take?

Hmmm. . . . does it make a difference with 3 players?

More Halloween Fun

Last week in Art we learned about a technique called silhouettes.  We looked at some images on line and learned that silhouettes are black images on white paper.  After looking at a variety of images we decided to try this technique using Halloween symbols and pictures.  It was a bit tricky deciding what should be white and what should be black.  It took some thinking and planning!

Here are a few of our pictures.  We had fun designing our pictures.  We hope you enjoy looking at them

Pumpkin Fun!

What an exciting day we had yesterday!  A group of  Grade 10 students from our high school (Elgin Park Secondary) brought pumpkins for us to carve!  It was so much fun! They came with big pumpkins and lots of friendly smiles!  Some of them were students who used to go here.

We are hard at work!  First we had to scoop. . . . digging out those seeds was messy work!  Many of us brought bags to save our seeds,  Mmmm.... we love roasted pumpkin seeds.  Have you ever tried roasting pumpkin seeds?  

Next came the planning stage.  Some of us brought plans with us, and others brainstormed on the spot.  Our Grade 10 Buddies did the carving with a little help from us.

Our Grade 10 Buddies were awesome.  They were so helpful, patient and encouraging.  

Thank you Grade 10s for bringing us the pumpkins to carve and letting us take home such wonderful jack-o-lanterns to share with our families!

Halloween Fun in Music

 These posters are a reflection of the quality of music our children get from our music teacher!  They have so many fun experiences with music in so many wonderful ways.  Watch our videos and see what we are doing for Halloween!

Game Day!

Today in Math we played games that helped us practice our number skills!  It was so much fun!

Snakes and Ladders

Leap Frog - a game where you practice addition and subtraction facts using a dice 

and a game board

Perfect sums - you roll a dice and make a choice of which number you want to cover - much like B|INGO - you are trying to get a straight line covered

                                                                                  

Too High Too Low - similar to 20 questions.  You are trying to guess your partner's number using the least amount of questions. 

How do you practice your math skills?

Getting Connected!

Today we had another Skype date with Mrs. Schnare's class for our Global Read Aloud.  This time we decided to read the chapters before we met and then have discussion questions for small groups to chat about.  We really got up close and personal with each other!  Each group had one or two questions based on one chapter.  Here are the questions we talked about. . . . .

Chapter 5

Why do you think Marty’s mother makes her accept the role of princess in the play?  Do you agree with her decision?

 

Chapter 6

Why do you think Marty seems more open to the idea of being the princess after she talks with her teacher?  If you were in the play, what role would you want?

 

Chapter 7

James Jackson tells Marty “Theatre is magic.”  What do you think he means?

 

Chapter 8

James Jackson uses a theatre activity to teach Marty’s class what it means to improvise.  How would you explain that word to someone who doesn’t know what it means?

 

Chapter 9

Marty says she has the “best idea ever” at the end of Chapter 9.  What do you think that might be?  Make a prediction for what might happen next.

The students did an amazing job chatting with the students in Mrs. Schnare's class.

I wonder what we'll think of next week?  Do you ever chat about a book you have read with other people? 

iThink iShare iLearn

On Friday we talked about the roles of a listener and the roles of the speaker.  Once we had the criteria set we broke into groups and listened to some of our classmates present their time lines.
Our job as listeners was to make connections and ask questions to find out more information.
We discovered that we all had many things in common.  Some of us were born in the same hospital, some of us like to do the same types of things and some of us have been to the same places for holidays!  We also learned some new things about each other.  The speakers did an excellent job presenting their information and the listeners were very respectful.  It was wonderful to see so much learning and sharing going on.  Students were very engaged in the activity!

Where Art and Literature Meet

A few weeks ago while we were visiting Mrs. Schnare's class blog we noticed  their beautiful water colour scarecrows. We were so inspired by them we decided to try doing the same thing.  She was kind enough to lend us the book, The Lonely Scarecrow to read.  We also read two other books about scarecrow.  While we were reading we  looked closely at the way the illustrators painted the pictures of the scarecrows and how they made the fields look real.

Once we had finished reading we were ready and keen to draw and paint our own versions of scarecrows. We did a draft first to practice getting the proportion right.  We wanted our scarecrows to appear closer to the viewer so we drew them the biggest and we drew them first.  Then we added the background details. Here is a sneak peek of two of the drafts!

 Here is the painted version of the same scarecrows.  We are so proud of the way they turned out!

Thank you Mrs. Schnare and her class for inspiring us!

Have you ever tried to paint like illustrators from books?  
We will be posting more of our scarecrows on our individual blogs next week! Check there in the coming weeks to see more!

Our Skyping Buddies

Last Tuesday was our second skype date with Mrs. Schnare's class.  We read Chapter 3 of Marty McGuire and we found out Marty has been chosen to be the princess in the play!  We're not sure she is too happy about it since we know that she would rather be catching frogs!  We studied the picture at the end of the chapter and tried to figure out how she was feeling from her facial expression.  Many of us thought she was shocked, disappointed, angry, mad and upset.  We also looked at the boy beside her and thought it could be Rupert and that he wasn't too happy.  We're thinking that he's thinking, "I have to kiss MARTY!"



What do you think?

We Are Thankful for So Many Things!

Today we watched a video clip of the many wonderful things in our world while at the same time listening to the song "What a Wonderful Life" by Louis Armstrong.  We brainstormed for the many things we are thankful for in our lives.  We made a web of all our ideas.

Then we chose one idea (or more) and printed them on a leaf.  When all the leaves were finished we  put them on our Tree of Thankfulness in the front foyer of our school for everyone to see!

Our Tree of Thankfulness






What are you thankful for?