All Dressed Up!

Halloween is a whirlwind of activity at Chantrell Creek. The day starts off with an integrated morning for all the primary students.  The students are put into family groupings and travel to a variety of stations where they do arts, crafts, games and songs.  This year we were treated to a disco dance in the gym just before lunch.  Then it was back to our class for a special treat.  After lunch the whole school went to the gym for a parade where we got to see everyone dressed up in their costumes.  We ended our day with the Thriller and Popcorn dance led by our wonderful music teacher Mrs. Davis.  It was a wonderful but tiring day!  Here are a few pictures of us in our costumes!

How do you celebrate Halloween at your school?

More Halloween Fun!

 During our reading times we have been talking about what good readers do while reading.  Last week we practiced "making pictures in our head" while reading the book By the Light of the Halloween Moon by Caroline Stutson.  As we listened to the story we tried to recreate the images that were described in the book.  The book started by describing
 A toe!
A lean and gleaming toe that taps in the dead of night
By the light, by the light
By the light of the Halloween Moon!

One by one, a cat, a bat, a ghoul, a ghost, a witch and a sprite were described as reaching for that gleaming toe!

 Many of us weren`t sure what a ghoul or sprite looked like but we used our imaginations and the descriptive words in the story to help us draw them.

Can you find the witch, the cat, the bat, the ghoul, the ghost, the owl and the Halloween moon in our pictures?  Have you ever tried to visualize a story without seeing the pictures?  

Halloween Fun

 

This week in Art we looked at the drawings of Ed Emberley.  We noticed his drawings used many elements that we already knew how to draw . . . lines (straight, wavy and curved), all kinds of shapes (circles, rectangles, squares, triangles) and squiggles! We used his drawing books to practice making some Halloween pictures.  We noticed that he added one element at a time ~ many of us found this a really good technique while we are learning to draw.  We practiced making his Halloween pictures on the iPad using Draw and Tell. We LOVED doing this!  Check out our practice pictures. . . .

 Then we met with our buddies and used our knowledge to make a Halloween silhouette . . . We were very focused while we were working!

 And finally. . . . the finished product!

This picture was done at home!  Mabel brought it to share with us after working with her buddy during the day!

What do you think? Were we successful at creating Halloween silhouettes based on the style of Ed Emberley?  Have you tried recreating a piece of art based on a certain style?

Good News Bad News from Div. 10

Last week we got a new book from our Book Fair!  Gerry gave it to us! It is called, Good News Bad News by Jeff Mack.

  It is about a rabbit and a rat.  The rat (or is it a mouse? we couldn't decide!) always has bad news but the rabbit always turns it into good news.  This morning we made a connection between this book and something that happened in class this morning.  We usually have gym every Tuesday morning but the gym was closed today because they were fixing the basketball hoops.  The good news was we figured out something else to do!  First we did Big 4 and then some of us read our poetry binders in a big group.  This book was all about perspective and how you look at life!



How do you approach life?  Do you try and look at the bright side of things instead of focusing on the negative?  That's what we try and do in our class!

Where's the Logic?

In Math today our class played a game called Pumpkin Logic with Mrs. de Jager's class.  The object of the game is not to end up with the bat.  Each pair started with some pumpkins and one bat.  You take turns taking either one or two pumpkins.  There was lots of conversation about a strategy that would help you win  the game.  I wonder if it matters who goes first?  Does it matter how many you take first? Does it make a difference if you start with a different number of pumpkins?  What about trying it with 3 players?  There must be some logic here!

                                                                           Hmmmm. . . . how many should I take?

6 left?  what should I do?

You really have to think ahead to play this game!

Have you played any logic games?

This Makes My Heart Sing!

Today after our morning challenge a small group of kids got their poetry books and started reading together!  Watch the group grow as kids finish their morning work and join in!  These truly are an amazing bunch of kids!  I just stood by and smiled with pride!

Huskies. . .

This year we chose to be the Huskies.  We have spent the last few weeks learning about them.  We found out lots of information from books, stories and the internet. We know that . . .

                                *they have special markings on their face
                                *they have either blue or brown eyes (or one of both!)
                                *they have two coats of fur; an undercoat and a thicker outer coat
                                *they have 6-8 babies at a time
                                *they live in cold places
                                *they are hard working  (and so are we!)

We had Mrs. Metz come visit us.  She taught us how to draw a Husky.

We are very proud of our drawings.  What have you been learning in your class?  Do you have a class name?