“Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how.”
- Chris Hadfield IMPORTANT INFORMATION Making Memories Family Night On Thursday, December 14 from 6:30 - 7:30, please join us for an evening of fun and community building! Events include:
We Club will be providing lots of optional opportunities for giving back: Giving Tree We have adopted a family of 13 from GW Skene. Stop by the Giving Tree and pick up a gift tag off the tree. Shop with your family to fill the need on the card and return the unwrapped gift and card by Monday, December 18. Fill a Sock, Fill a Need, Fill a Heart You have probably seen the boxes and posters placed around the school for this initiative already. We are accepting donations to fill socks for the homeless at the Drop In Center to open on Christmas morning. Toothbrushes, gloves, mitts, hats, travel size toiletries, hair brushes, combs, gift cards (McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Subway), cough drops, candies, lip balm, travel mugs. (We already have lots of floss and tooth paste). Making Memories Sale On the evening of the Making Memories Sale, our WE Club students will be selling ornaments and some other handmade items. All proceeds will be split between the Drop In Center, our adopted family and the Food Bank. The week before the Making Memories night, we will be showing off some of our beautiful handicrafts to entice some sales the evening of December 14th. We look forward to sharing a fun evening together! -------------------------------------------------------------- Mayor's Food DriveThe Grade 2 students are organizing a food drive to support our local Food Bank. Please send in non-perishable food or money to be donated on December 15. IMPORTANT DATES December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 65 days under our belt, 115 days to go! This morning, we explored Peru! Well, first we drew what we think a Peruvian is (tying in the with I Am…), and then we looked at books and the first link on the Social Studies blog page. Students created a double page layout on their visual journals, one side labelled “Observations” and the other side as “Wonders”. This is the pre-learning we are doing as we begin our Peruvian centres. We learned from one book that Peru has over 2 500 potatoes. Another that houses are on stilts (I wonder why…). On Thursday, Ms England will be with the class helping them create arpilleras, an three-dimensional quilt showing the way of life for a Peruvian, so today, we learned about them and studied some quilts for their features. After lunch, Constable Jan came in to talk to the class about digital citizenship and how to be safe on the internet. He read us a book called Digiduck, a story about a duck who gets a not-so-flattering picture of his friend, and he is about to share it with all his friends on the Farmyard internet. Ask your child what happened next. After a requested game of “Lemonade!”, students continued to work on the props for the Photo Booths. We are almost done! The are beautiful, colourful creations, which they will be able to take home on Friday. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Hello!
Here is dome information regarding our... Making Memories Family Night On Thursday, December 14 from 6:30 - 7:30, please join us for an evening of fun and community building! Events include:
We Club will be providing lots of optional opportunities for giving back: Giving Tree We have adopted a family of 13 from GW Skene. Stop by the Giving Tree and pick up a gift tag off the tree. Shop with your family to fill the need on the card and return the unwrapped gift and card by Monday, December 18. Fill a Sock, Fill a Need, Fill a Heart You have probably seen the boxes and posters placed around the school for this initiative already. We are accepting donations to fill socks for the homeless at the Drop In Center to open on Christmas morning. Toothbrushes, gloves, mitts, hats, travel size toiletries, hair brushes, combs, gift cards (McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Subway), cough drops, candies, lip balm, travel mugs. (We already have lots of floss and tooth paste). Making Memories Sale On the evening of the Making Memories Sale, our WE Club students will be selling ornaments and some other handmade items. All proceeds will be split between the Drop In Center, our adopted family and the Food Bank. The week before the Making Memories night, we will be showing off some of our beautiful handicrafts to entice some sales the evening of December 14th. We look forward to sharing a fun evening together! -------------------------------------------------------------- Mayor's Food DriveThe Grade 2 students are organizing a food drive to support our local Food Bank. Please send in non-perishable food or money to be donated on December 15. "What a fun day! This type of event is what the years of training were for. A happy, busy crew, working hard, loving life in space."
- Chris Hadfield, tweeting from space IMPORTANT INFORMATION PD Day A reminder that there is a PD Day on TOMORROW! IMPORTANT DATES December 8: PD Day - No school for the students December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 64 days under our belt, 116 days to go! Students did their Spelling Check-In. I don’t want to call it a test. I was calling it a quiz, but really it’s a check-in to make sure they are on the right track with their learning, and that the activities they are doing are helping. It’s a way for me to keep track of their progress, and also a way to keep them honest when they are doing their independent word work. Plus I think they like it. After this, we looked at a Ways to Make Different Numbers sheet that will become part of a Literacy Centre. We had some good chats about the different strategies to use to figure out rounding, even or odd numbers, the difference between a digit and a number, and that YES! we can use the anchor chart in the classroom to help us find the answer. One student even made the connection to a math activity they did in Grade 2. That brought to recess, and after recess, we read some more about Owen and Mzee, the baby hippo and giant tortoise that formed an inseparable bond at an animal sanctuary in Kenya, after Owen lost his mother and pod in the 2004 tsunami. We had our last day for the Hour of Code/Week of Code, but seeing the massive interest in this, I will definitely be bringing this into the class again. After lunch, we added some more glitter to my desk, as the kids were busy creating more props for next week. They are designers and problem solvers! I hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend! (For those that have it. For those that don’t I hope you have a wonderful long weekend where you happen to be working on one of those days.) Cheerios! Ms Lauf But I was never fearful. We had everything under control. Push past your fear of heights. You become more skilled with practice. Knowledge helps you to stay calm.
- Chris Hadfield IMPORTANT INFORMATION PD Day A reminder that there is a PD Day on Friday. IMPORTANT DATES December 8: PD Day - No school for the students December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 63 days under our belt, 117 days to go! Word Work. Literacy Centres. Repeat. We are in the groove! Centres was followed by Music, which was followed by adding our journal entries into the Visual Journal Table of Contents. We will be revisiting over the next couple weeks everything we have done so far in our Journals for three reasons:
I have a class of coders! Students went on The Hour of Code (The Week of Code) again today. Students are learning that when they have 20 tabs/windows open, with things running on some of them, it slows the computer down, and it makes it hard to hear things. A valuable lesson to keep computers running smoothly. After lunch, we began making our props for the Family Winter Evening Event next week. We talked about proportions and minimum and maximum sizes of the props, and then I let them lose to create. They are making fun props! My desk is now sparkly, which as a former window display designer, is heaven. Sparkles make everything better. Except oatmeal. Cheerios! Ms Lauf “Square astronaut, round hole. It’s the story of my life, really: trying to figure out how to get where I want to go when just getting out the door seems impossible."
- Chris Hadfield IMPORTANT INFORMATION Scholastic Book Orders Scholastic Book orders are due tomorrow! IMPORTANT DATES December 6: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) December 8: PD Day - No school for the students December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 62 days under our belt, 118 days to go! After students checked in, we reviewed our posters comparing the numbers 67 and 607. I had students do a gallery walk, analyzing each one for clarity, meaning was it easy to follow the thinking. Students then wrote a reflection about which one they found the easiest to follow and WHY. Always the why. The purpose for this was to have students consider the clarity of their own work, and to be mindful about how they organized information, so anyone can look at what they are doing and know what they were doing and why. Always the why. After music, students started Literacy Centres off with Word Work. This was followed by other centres. Students are now tracking which centres they were at with a rubric and checklist. Things are rolling along swimmingly with Centres! HUZZAH! After recess, students explored the world of coding. We will continue this over the next couple days. I will have students do a reflection about this, and how they think this might apply to what we are learning, and what they already know. After lunch, we went outside for a game of Lemonade!, a charade-tag game. I love watching the half the class act out different professions. After this, we began to look at poetry books. The intention for this is to introduce them to the different styles, and the immense amount of topics you can write about. The next step will be for students to identify 3-4 poems they like and why. After gym, we continued to look at the poems. After this, students got ready for home. After that, I’m not sure what their day had in store for them, but hopefully it was full of happiness and love. Cheerios! Ms Lauf "What my father figured out was, if you can't get out, you just either blow something up, or you eat something, or you just throw penguins in the air."
- Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson IMPORTANT INFORMATION Warm Clothes Tomorrow! I will be taking the kids out tomorrow for a make-up gym class from when Elder Shirley was here, and we did not have access to the gym. Please remind your child to have and/or wear they mittens and a toque (and every day). Scholastic Book Orders December Scholastic Book Orders came home today. They are due Wednesday December 6th, if you would like the books here before the break. We Club Making Memories Sale On the evening of the Making Memories Sale, our WE Club students will be selling ornaments and some other handmade items. All proceeds will be split between the Drop In Center, our adopted family and the Food Bank. The week before the Making Memories night, we will be showing off some of our beautiful handicrafts to entice some sales the evening of December 14th. Fill a Sock, Fill a Need, Fill a Heart You have probably seen the boxes and posters placed around the school for this initiative already. We are accepting donations to fill socks for the homeless at the Drop In Center to open on Christmas morning. Giving Tree We have adopted a family with 10 children that have just moved out of “In from the Cold” and they are not being supported by them anymore. There will be tags for needs to be filled for each of the family members. This tree will be put out on the Making Memories Night for families to participate and support this family in need. Volunteers for the Year An email has come out to those that have signed up with Jodi, our classroom coordinator, regarding the volunteering needs for the rest of the year. *Please note: This does NOT include walks to Fish Creek.* If you are interested, please sign up! We truly could not do these without you, plus how fun is it to go on a field trip?! In class Tunisia Field Trip - Tuesday Dec 19 3 volunteers needed from 8:45 - 11 am Glenbow Museum - Tuesday March 13 4-5 volunteers needed from 8:15 am – 2:30 pm Zoo School - Calgary Zoo – Monday April 9 – Friday April 13 5 volunteers needed everyday! From 8:00 am – 2:30 pm Parking will be paid for, if you will meet us at the zoo – Ms Lauf will need your license plate to register it with the Calgary Zoo. Weaslehead Field Trip (outside all day) - Wednesday May 9 4-5 volunteers needed from 8:15 am – 2:30 pm If you are able to help out for any of these events. Please let me Ms Lauf or myself know. IMPORTANT DATES December 6: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) December 8: PD Day - No school for the students December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 61 days under our belt, 119 days to go! Monday Morning Blah Blah started off our day. The class is getting into the protocol of it, sharing their weekend, listening to others speak, and waiting their turn. They set their goals for the week, wrote about their weekend, and then it was Literacy Centres. Students are using a rubric to keep their on-task behaviour in check, a Tic-Tac-Toe board to keep track of their Daily Word Work, and a table to keep track of what centres they have done and which ones they still need to do. The intention of this schedule is to help them learn to manage their time, as each centre, except for Word Work which is daily, should be done by the end of the week. Daily check-ins will also be done to help them manage their time; and if need be, I can give them a timer, so they can start developing a sense of time. After recess, I started reading Owen and Mzee to them, a story of a displaced baby hippo from Kenya and a 130 tortoise, who developed a friendship after Owen (the hippo) lost his pod in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. We are 2 pages in. This is another hook for the students as we are figuring out our learning intention for Zoo School in April. This was followed by our first session for the Week of Code, an opportunity for students to learn about how computer/video games are made through various activities. We will be doing 3 more sessions. So far, the feedback from the students is excitement! YAY! A definite change of learning how to code from my day, when we learned on Apple II+ computers, and I made a line turtle that moved 1 cm. And it took four moths to make. After lunch, students did a self-assessment of themselves as a learner and school community member. These are good to do to help remind students to not be hard on themselves, and that kindness, friendliness, curiosity, and respect helps our learning. We dove further into numeracy with looking at two numbers (67 and 607), and ways we can represent them. Students were paired off, and they used our anchor chart to help them out. I reminded the students that we are just starting this out, and if they don’t understand something, that’s okay. The big idea is to ask for help, and focus on one thing at a time. Beginning tomorrow, I have offered for students to bring a copy of the anchor chart home, along with a sheet of different numbers that they can work on at home. This is not homework, but an extension/practice, as well as an opportunity for your child to share with you what they are doing in the class. I am not expecting it back. After gym, we finished up our number task, and a student shared her weekend with Clover, our class pet. They went to the zoo, where one of the hippos got a good scrubbing. Stay warm! Cheerios! Ms Lauf Making Memories Sale
On the evening of the Making Memories Sale, our WE Club students will be selling ornaments and some other handmade items. All proceeds will be split between the Drop In Center, our adopted family and the Food Bank. The week before the Making Memories night, we will be showing off some of our beautiful handicrafts to entice some sales the evening of December 14th. Fill a Sock, Fill a Need, Fill a Heart You have probably seen the boxes and posters placed around the school for this initiative already. We are accepting donations to fill socks for the homeless at the Drop In Center to open on Christmas morning. Giving Tree We have adopted a family with 10 children that have just moved out of “In from the Cold” and they are not being supported by them anymore. There will be tags for needs to be filled for each of the family members. This tree will be put out on the Making Memories Night for families to participate and support this family in need. “I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you're going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won't be able to re-fold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can pull over and have picnic with a pig. And if you can help it never fly as cargo.” Jim Henson IMPORTANT INFORMATION Volunteers for the Year An email has come out to those that have signed up with Jodi, our classroom coordinator, regarding the volunteering needs for the rest of the year. *Please note: This does NOT include walks to Fish Creek.* If you are interested, please sign up! We truly could not do these without you, plus how fun is it to go on a field trip?! In class Tunisia Field Trip - Tuesday Dec 19 3 volunteers needed from 8:45 - 11 am Glenbow Museum - Tuesday March 13 4-5 volunteers needed from 8:15 am – 2:30 pm Zoo School - Calgary Zoo – Monday April 9 – Friday April 13 5 volunteers needed everyday! From 8:00 am – 2:30 pm Parking will be paid for, if you will meet us at the zoo – Ms Lauf will need your license plate to register it with the Calgary Zoo. Weaslehead Field Trip (outside all day) - Wednesday May 9 4-5 volunteers needed from 8:15 am – 2:30 pm If you are able to help out for any of these events. Please let me Ms Lauf or myself know. Water Bottles I strongly urge students to have a water bottle in the classroom, so as to minimize interruptions in lessons and learning. IMPORTANT DATES December 6: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) December 8: PD Day - No school for the students December 14: Family Winter Event in the evening December 19: Teacher’s Pet In-Class Presentation & Stations (morning) December 20: Fun Lunch (Boston Pizza) December 20: Report Cards sent home December 21: Winter Party (1:30 - 2:30) December 21: Last School day before Winter Break December 22: PD Day - No school for students OUR DAY 60 days under our belt, 120 days to go! Today, we looked at the Hundreds Chart and revisited patterns. Students started the day analyzing an increasing pattern rule, and how it looks on a Hundreds Chart. After a few moments, they wrote down on thing they noticed, maybe two, and then they shared their observations. I assured them that every comment is worthy, even if we think it’s nothing, because some of the greatest discoveries have been “What if…” or “How about…”. Here are some of the things students noticed:
We then created our own. Some overheard comments: “Ohhhhh!!! I get it now!” and “Well, that was easy!” Sometimes, we make things bigger than it is, something that we discussed in reflection. Students then used the 100 chart to solve some more increasing pattern problems. Next week, we will explore decreasing patterns and the Hundred Chart, and reflect if there are any similarities or differences. I’m smelling a Venn diagram coming on. If Venn diagrams smell. Maybe if the paper was perfumed. After music, students reflected on their Goal of the Week, wrote a short sentence for the pastel drawings, finished up their pastel drawings, and worked on the pattern Scoot challenge. Next week, we will be doing some coding for the Week of Code (thank-you Ms England for signing our classes up!), as well as getting our Photo Booth ready for the Family Winter Evening Event on the 14th. We will be wrapping up Rocks and Minerals as well. Our next science unit will be Hearing and Sound. Cheerios! Ms Lauf |
AuthorMs Lauf Archives
June 2018
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