WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE...

what I figured out how to do this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's going to be EPIC!

Camera

I have to get better at remembering to bring my camera to work. The kids had such a blast at our outdoor celebration and they walked/ran their little hearts out for Terry Fox today. I missed great photo ops :(

We've been working on assessments such as OWA (Ontario Writing Assessment) and spelling inventories. Next week the Grade 4s write the CCAT (Canadian Cognitive Ability Test) and both grades will be writing their CASI reading comprehension assessments.

Our class was a better place today because of Hailey who offered to help another student find his math work and subsequently clean out his desk after school today. I also have quite the group of helpers at recess who complete various tasks around the room to make my life easier (and it's not even cold out yet!!)

Love our class!!

Tribes Appreciations

Miss Hall appreciates Ethan for helping other students.
Josh appreciates Ethan for helping him with his work.
Nathan appreciates Ethan for helping him sweep the classroom.
Makenna appreciates Miss Hall because at open house last night she said that she would keep her forever.
Amy said that she appreciates Robin and Christina for helping to clean up the classroom after Art.
Robin appreciates the same thing as Amy.
Dawson appreciates Hailey for sharing her pencil crayons and markers with him.
Dan appreciated Dawson for being more mature.
Isaac appreciates Hailey's encouragement.
Sebastian appreciated Kaden lending and sharing his things with him.
Kaden appreciated Ethan for cooperating with him when he was showing him things outside.
Ethan appreciates Tyler for having a nice conversation with him.
Maxx appreciated Cannon, Colby, and Owen for entertaining him at open house.
Hailey appreciated Madison for letting her use her plasma car.
Rylee appreciated Riley, Makenna, and Hailey for helping her learn to use her mom's retro roller-skates.
Erika appreciates madison for sharing with her.
Owen appreciated Maxx for his nice comments.
Justin appreciates Madison for letting him use her plasma car.

And that was Miss Hall's Grade 4/5 class appreciation statements in tribes.

Christina  
Minister of Education

Thanks for Coming

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to tonight's Open House. I hope you enjoyed looking around our classroom and at your child's work. I was grateful for all of the positive feedback from parents, it is nice to feel appreciated.

Our class is working on giving and receiving appreciation through Tribes. It is tricky for some students to point out good things about other people (some find it embarrassing) but I know this will come with time.

I received a couple of questions about homework tonight. I will address this in my weekly report on Friday...when the students will be assessing THEMSELVES for the first time. I have the kids complete the Learning Skills section of the weekly report on the last Friday of every month. I am interested to see how reflective they will be.

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I forgot my Star yesterday. My memory capacity seems to be full lately so I may need an extra brain to hold it all in!

I would like to thank Erika for her endless patience and kindness toward others. She makes our class a better place when she leads quietly by example. You amaze me every day.

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Today our class became a better place when ...

We will be answering this question tomorrow during Community Circle. Our Minister of Education Miss Sidoff will be posting the responses shortly. Our other Minister of Education Mr. Abma will be working on our website whenever it decides to work properly.

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I have some creative juices flowing around my busy brain about an in-class Pinterest board. Look around for pictures, photos and logos that you may want to add.
To be continued....

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Guess who earned their first Celebration of the year?!

Tomorrow will be a special day for three reasons:
1. It's Open House at Cherrywood from 4-6pm
2. It's Hat Day. Bring in $1 and get to wear your hat all day in class. Proceeds go to the Terry Fox Foundation.
3. We're celebrating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Number 83 gave us our first full row and so tomorrow we're celebrating with outdoor play (as voted for by the class the first week of school). Madame Rocca kindly agreed to turn their Phys Ed class into part of our celebration and then I will meet them outside for the last period of the day. A note went home today about what they are allowed to bring in. Remember, anything with wheels or pogo sticks require a helmet and a permission slip. No exceptions. No phone calls home.

I came back to work with a glowing note from Mr. Crowe. Thank you class for showing your true colours. I am very proud of you for your efforts while I was away.

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Some things that we did today:

A police officer from the CN Railway came in to speak to the junior division about railroad safety. Our class was fantastic fantastic fantastic during the presentation! One proud teacher here let me tell you.

Minister positions were awarded this morning, ask your child what job they have for Term 1.

We started our Math Journals which will hopefully be done by tomorrow for you to see at the Open House.

In Art we are cutting out our secondary and tertiary colour squares to make the first letter of our names for our first Art project.

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Thank you for signing and returning the weekly report each Monday, I appreciate it very much.

Our Ministers of Education will be starting to write our blog and website (when it's fixed) as soon as we can work out a schedule.

Our First Bump

     Today we ran into our first bump in the road as a class. You may have had some interesting dinner conversation this evening. On my prep the kids had a different teacher and they were left to finish up a math activity and then present it. Upon my return the report was less than positive on the class' choices and work ethic. 

I was shocked. I was devastated. MY class?! Not a chance. Our class is based on mutual respect and we have built a trust over the past 3 weeks. My only issue thus far has been some chatting at inappropriate times or the class taking longer than I'd like to quiet down after a transition, such as coming in from recess. I brag about my class all the time. They rock. This news made me quite disappointed.

Today we hit a bump. A rock so to speak.

I am a firm believer that speaking when angry is not a good decision so I stayed quiet and wrote them a letter so that when they came in from recess they knew what to do. I took the time to watch interactions and listen to their discussions. After their apology letters to the other teacher were turned in, I read them and noticed that many were written by individuals or pairs, not in the same math groups as I had requested. So I asked why. We had a healthy 20 minute discussion where various individuals expressed their opinion.

After some reflection, I would like to write the amazing class a follow-up letter since I will be at a workshop tomorrow.

Dear Class,

After reading your letters and having our discussion about what happened, I have a few things I would like to say to you. First, I heard what all of you were saying and I now understand where your frustrations came from. I feel I should apologize for jumping the gun so to speak, and not hearing your side before lunch. There are always 2 sides to a story (or 29 in this case). That being said, as you know, I will not listen to tattling. There comes a time when being able to solve your own minor problems is important. If someone is not contributing to your group work, then remind them of our 4 agreements. Tell them to change their behaviour and carry on with what YOU should be doing. If all else fails, remove yourself from the situation or get a teacher. To receive a report like the one I did, it could not have been just one or two students, it had to be more than that. Most of you would agree that it was louder and less respectful than usual. Thank you for your honesty. 

When I left today you were all working well together. There were a few of you who were stuck on where to start, but that is why you were in a group - to discuss and problem solve together. With pointers, you were on your way! For those students who were accused of sitting around doing nothing, not contributing, or fooling around, did you agree with what your peers said? Not everyone works well in a group, but it is a necessary skill to attain at school. I am looking forward to you learning this, as it will be a long year if no one wants to work with you because of poor work ethic and disrespect. There is a lot to learn from working with people in your class: younger or older, male or female, visual or kinesthetic learners, people with logic or music smarts, those who are left- or right-brained. We're all able to contribute in some way. And if you really just don't get it, then use Attentive Listening and show Mutual Respect by not fooling around or arguing. At the very least, be engaged. 

Although I did not agree with your approach, I respected the way some of you stood up for yourselves to explain why you thought apology letters were "stupid" because you were trying your hardest and I teach you to treat others the way you want to be treated, and you didn't feel respected. I was very impressed with the argument and evidence you provided. Some harder lessons some of you need to learn though:

                   

1. Every teacher is different. Not everyone teaches like I do. And I don't teach like them. Neither one is good or bad. Just different. You will have other teachers. Teachers you don't know yet. Let me tell you, they have it the hardest! They are coming into a class of 28 and don't know your names or your learning styles or when it's a good time for a mint or when you really need a movement break. Even if I write down every routine we have step by step, word by word, they still won't get it the way I do. Just like when I go in next door to teach Science, I don't know the 5/6s that well yet and I don't teach like Miss Rutherford does. Her students likely struggle with that as much as you did today in Math. In these cases, you have to roll with the punches and find a way to get along and get through the day. Just like you will tomorrow when I am away. You have to respectfully explain what we do and why we do it, without getting all excited and speaking rudely as if that teacher SHOULD know...because they likely don't. And that my friends, is okay. It's a learning process. Remember though that when you put your guard up, so do others.

2. Adults should be given respect. Kids should be given respect. It's a two-way street. Taking the approach of treating others the way you feel they are treating you, is different than treating others the way you want to be treated. An eye for an eye is not the solution. Then no one has any eyes! Think about it. (It's okay to laugh, I know I'm funny)

3. Life can be frustrating and seem unfair. There are times when we are right and times when we are wrong. Today you were wrong, but you were also right. Today I was right and I was also wrong. Today you apologized and tonight I will apologize to you for only listening to one side and not exploring the 'facts' as Ethan would say. We all make mistakes (like the 8 I missed on the chessboard - sorry again Rylee!). If we didn't make mistakes, we wouldn't be learning. I will put 5 numbers back on the Celebration Board. 

Sincerely, 

Your Favourite Teacher in the Whole Wide World

Miss Hall

P.S. I hope you have a fabulous day with Mr. Crowe tomorrow. I know he will be excited to see you all. Please think about today and apply what you learned tomorrow. Just like we talked about in Community Circle, everything should stay the same even when I'm not there. We are a class together, I am not a babysitter, I am your teacher. You are in control of how our class operates just as much as I am. Take that control and do something good with it!

Character is how you live when no one is looking. Do you agree?

Our Little Buddies

We had our first session of Reading Buddies today. We are paired up with Mrs. Sinclair's Grade 1/2 class. Some of us have a student all to ourselves and others are sharing a student because we have 28 in our class and Mrs. Sinclair has 17. You do the math...

I explained the importance of being good role models and staying on task to ensure the younger kids were learning good habits. I discussed my Reading Buddy Book of Doom page for those that chose not to fulfil their responsibilities. Let me tell you, I probably didn't even have to bring up that type of a consequence because this class of mine is FANTABULOUS!! (I wonder if I can make us some extra money by creating words like that?) They were so incredible that fantastic and fabulous and amazing and outstanding are just not good enough words to describe them. I was so proud of my students that I had a little tear in my eye. Honestly. They were that wonderful. It sure made up for the noisy line-up following our fire drill this morning ;-)

Ask your child how many lines we have left where we only need one more number before we get to have our first celebration? It's so close we can taste it! I hope they get it tomorrow because I am away at a workshop on Friday and I really want to be there when that final number is drawn. That will be a big challenge for them...first day without me. Self-regulation at it's finest. I just realized that if they get the number tomorrow then the celebration would be scheduled for Friday and then I would miss it :(

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Thank you for sending in your old magazines. We will be using them for an art project involving tertiary colours as well as for finding letters to decorate the covers of our interactive math journals which we will be starting next week.

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Some days there many students who catch my attention with their effort to make our class a welcoming, caring place to learn. For example, Makenna offered to stay in for recess to sweep the floor, Rylee donated a monkey to decorate our class, everyone put an incredible amount of effort into being good role models for their Reading Buddies, Robyn volunteered another answer! Dalton organized all of the book bins for Mrs. Sinclair without being asked, the whole class worked well together during our Did You Hear About? activity and then spoke in front of each other without any fear or hesitation, the fire drill was well done, and Mr. McNaughton complemented our class on their behaviour inside and outside at second nutrition/fitness break. Hailey made a point to share a fidget with a student who didn't have one and Justin wanted to share all of his gum with the class. It can't get any better than that can it? What do you think? Is their a way our class could improve (or 'get better'?)

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Oh do I ever love his science videos. So many of his parodies are often over the kids' heads or maybe I'm just getting old, but they make me laugh. What a great way to consolidate learning. We watched part of Bill Nye's video on Pseudoscience. Ask your child what that means. We will be finishing it next Science class and then looking at our notes. I explained to the class that when we watch videos in class they are not time fillers, but are learning opportunities. Today we focused on finding the main idea of the movie and taking notes. This is an art we will develop over the year.

An important discussion happened today. I explained how split grades work and how I could approach Science and Social Studies: I could teach 2 units at the same time and hope for solid independent learning or I could teach shorter units to the class as a whole with a focus on topics not covered in previous years (while in a split grade). They chose the later (phew) and it was unanimous that the human body was of interest so that is what we will start with. It's one of my favourite units to teach! Following this unit, we will cover a Grade 4 unit and then switch over to Social Studies. I will swap back and forth throughout the year. These subjects are also incorporated into our Literacy curriculum so that all aspects of the curriculum are covered. Your child will only be evaluated on the content for his/her grade.

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I would like to thank Christina for making our class a better place today. She is always willing to help out, no matter what the job is. Today she took it upon herself to make sure my game shelf was stocked properly after our indoor recesses (which were very well received by the teachers on duty - great job 4/5s, you make me proud!)  and she helped two Grade 4s at the same time with their Minister Applications. Thank you for being such a wonderful student all around.

My favourite thought of the day was when Maxx said that Pseudoscience was, "...the BEST Bill Nye  video he'd EVER seen!"  I'm glad you enjoyed it. It gets better the 2nd half!

I forgot...

I pressed the publish button before I wrote about who made our class a better place today. I think everyone did their part to welcome our new students, but I would like to say a special thank you to Isaac who took it upon himself to sweep the classroom after second break. The floor was a disaster and our class is learning about cleaning up after ourselves and making sure that Ms. Christie doesn't have extra work to do when we are gone. Thank you Isaac for so selfishly cleaning up even when it wasn't your mess. What a great example! It drives me bonkers when I ask students to pick something up off the floor and they say, "It's not mine." I hope that our class follows your lead in good stewardship.

Great job persevering today Josh. Your self-advocacy is admirable.

Incredible!

We have 9 new students in our class and you would never have known it was their first day in our room. They were INCREDIBLE! Thank you for your respect and attention during all of our routine conversations and surveys.

A huge, ginormous, gigantic THANK YOU to our Grade 5s who were excellent role models and very helpful today.

Tomorrow we get into our curriculum while we continue to get to know each other. In Math we will be looking at Patterning. We also begin Science where we will be looking at a Bill Nye (my favourite part of teaching Science!) to find out what science really is. And what it isn't. Have you ever heard of Pseudoscience?

Should be a great day!

A Busy Weekend

I don't have long to write and to be honest, I am really looking forward to when my Ministers take over this job! Now that we are a split we have to get the 4s to apply for jobs so I will not be able to post them tomorrow. Hopefully by next Monday. I spent the majority of my weekend at work setting up for our 'new' class and things look a bit different. I didn't bring my camera in but picture it:

• the side board with our celebrations hundreds chart, expectations, and schedule are all on the left side of the Smart Board
• the side blackboard (under the alphabets) is empty and ready for work to fill it
• the desks are in groups of 4 with a space in the middle for us to walk. If everyone can demonstrate the ability to self regulate then we get into our Tribes even faster! 
• the circle table is at the front now and I managed to find a way to keep our space for Community Circle!!!!!!! 
• I have no idea where to store the t.v. though...

It's been a weekend full of work and a cold (boo). Brennan has a cold too. How was your weekend?

Smart Board

Ask your child about Math today.

What got crumpled?
What will be new?
Did they like it?
Was it hard?
Does that matter?
What does perseverance have to do with it?
Can they do it?

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Isaac and Kaden made my day today with their attention and excitement in Math. They made our class better by taking a risk and kicking it's butt!

Have You Persevered Today?

Yesterday we had an assembly about Terry Fox.
Yesterday we talked about Miss Hall's "I Have Character Award".
Can you guess which character trait we strive toward in September?

Yesterday we began group work. I chose groups of 3 for the students to work in. Some were successful, others needed to improve. So we talked about it and we made plans for what needed to change.

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Today we revisited the same groups of 3 with a different activity. MUCH improvement. Well done Grade 5s! I was incredibly proud and very very very impressed.

Today I gave the class a new challenge: pick a partner that you will work well with to complete a math assignment. Similar to yesterday, some excelled, and others needed to rethink their approach to working in a group. We will be discussing this tomorrow in Math. We will also be connecting this activity to Cherrywood's September Character Trait. What is it again?

Ah yes, perseverance.

Perseverance is not giving up.
Perseverance is trying when you don't think you can do it.
Perseverance is being brave enough to learn from your mistakes instead of sitting around being silly and wasting time.
Perseverance is what Terry Fox had.
Perseverance is what I hope all of my students have because in our class, "Misstakes are allowed to happen" - it says so on our board. If we don't make mistakes we cannot learn. And if we don't try, we cannot make mistakes.

Think about it.

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We all learn differently and we can learn from each other:
There are times to learn by yourself and there are times to learn from a teacher.
There are times to learn from your family and there are times to learn from your peers.
Learning happens every day but you have to put yourself out there. You can do it. I believe in you. And somewhere deep down inside...you believe in yourself too.

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Robin and Kylee, you made our class a better place by raising your hands and volunteering answers. Great job at working toward your goal!

Tyler, you are an incredible addition to Cherrywood Acres. Thank you for your patience and kindness. You rock!

Change

Change can be really hard. There are some people who thrive on it and others, like myself, who like things to stay status quo. As I'm sure you've heard, we will be changing from a Grade 5 class to a Grade 4/5 class after next week. The kids had mixed reviews on this announcement Friday. The one consensus was that no one wanted to be in a split, no matter where it was or who was teaching it.

When I went to school we had straight classes with about 30 kids in each and somehow I got through without being in a split. But there are advantages to having multi-aged students together. The younger ones have older mature role models, and the older ones can help the younger ones while developing their leadership skills. We all learn differently and at different paces. The older students who need extra review will get it. The younger ones who are ready for the next challenge will get it. It's a win-win. I have taught a Grade 5/6 split before and although it was tricky scheduling and planning wise for me, the kids all made it through and they had a fabulous year. Splits actually lend themselves nicely to the new philosophy of teaching. There will be some overlap, particularly in Science and Social Studies, but the rest of the subjects build on the previous year's curriculum and will contain old and new information that students can access at their level.

Friday was a whirlwind of activities. We finished up our How We Learn unit and we now know our learning styles, what kind of smart we are, what part of the brain we use the most, and our personality colours. I took pictures of the kids so that we can make our Who Are You? placemats on Monday. I appreciated how patient our class was filling in all of these surveys for me - all of it is important information to me to know as their teacher. I think they learned a lot about themselves though and I am interested in seeing how they apply their areas of expertise next week when we begin group work.

The kids did really well on their Spelling Inventory assessments, I was really impressed with their knowledge of spelling patterns. French was fantastique! Everyone is caught up on their Diary of a ___________ Kid entries. We had Phys Ed with Miss Rutherford's class outside and it turns out that I need to get back to my gym because those kids are WAY faster than I am and I am not very good at this Manhunt game.

Here are the pictures I promised:

Our Tweets

Coloured section is our 'account'/name handles.
White portion is our thought on respect.
Red ink is our hashtag for respect to create a trend.

Our Name Glyphs

I would like to recognize the whole class for clapping for Kylee when she won 3 draws in a row AND got one of the Mind Trap questions correct. I honestly have an amazing group of kids!

Don't forget to sign the weekly report (which I almost forgot to send home - yikes!) and return it on Monday. Have a fantastic weekend.

We Survived Day 3

Today's title courtesy of Colby!

Ah what did we do today?

Community Circle
We found out our True Colour and discovered if we were left, middle or right brained

The class tackled their first rotary classes today and did very well. Another proud moment!

In the afternoon I gave the kids a book pass and they learned how the class library is set up. Ask your child which books he/she rated as a 5 (must read). Scholastic orders went home today and are due on September 28th for those who are interested. The kids chose a book and completed a reading interest survey.

We wrote another diary page, took a 3-minute 'test' that only 3 people passed (it's my favourite test to give as it is really funny), and answered our first Mind Trap puzzle. Comment below if you were a winner!

I am exhausted, how about you? This heat is really doing me in. Don't forget to bring a water bottle to stay hydrated and indoor shoes because you have Phys Ed tomorrow. I actually remembered to bring my camera in to take pictures of our Twitter board. And I did take pictures. Without the memory card in my camera! Ugh.

My shining star today was Tyler. I am at a loss for words about how he humbly showed patience and gave his forgiveness. What an incredible model he is for the class. My hat is off to you young man.

Couldn't Have Been Prouder

We started Tribes today, which is a co-operative learning program that will set the stage for the rest of the year. It is based on 4 agreements: Attentive Listening, Appreciation/No Put Downs, Right to Pass, and my favourite...Mutual Respect. I am hoping to have a Community Circle at least once a day. I introduced the Tribbles and we played one of the get-to-know you games. To learn more about the philosophy of the program, click here.

We had a big discussion about fidgets during Community Circle. As mentioned in my parent letter, self-regulation is an important factor of success in school. Children need to be able to regulate their bodies and their minds in order to focus on lessons and task completion. That can be difficult to do when you're 10 and a kinesthetic learner! I call sensory objects fidgets, and when taught how and when to use them appropriately, they can be very beneficial for any type of learner. In the beginning they are often distracting and used as toys, but the novelty wears off and in the end, only those who truly need them will use them. I purchase many of my fidgets from the Dollar Store and I encouraged the kids to bring in their own. For some children who are chatty or like to chew on pencils, I find gum and mints reduce these behaviours. I allow gum chewing in my room (and my class only) as well as sucking on or chewing mints. A note will go home about this by the end of the week.

After reading Do Unto Otters, we created our own Twitter accounts (on paper, not on the internet) and we 'tweeted' our views on respect and created the hashtag #respect so that we could trend. It took me an hour of researching to figure out how to 'Twitter' and what a hashtag was...is that a sign that I'm getting old?! If I can remember to bring in my camera I'll take a picture of our tweets and post it tomorrow.

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This is where the proud moment came...on our first trip as a class down the hallway to the other side of the school, not one single person had to be spoken to. All students were quiet. That was pretty cool...but it gets better. We've been talking about self-regulation A LOT in the past two days so I decided to give them their first challenge: sit where you want in the computer lab, beside whoever you want, and be able to follow my lesson and complete your work. And THEY DID IT. On day 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I discovered that many students needed to brush up on their recycling skills so in Computers they created a table in Microsoft Word and researched how the Niagara Region sorts their garbage. Each student had to find 5 things that went into the blue bin, the grey bin, the garbage and the compost. We'll be adding graphics to our files and creating posters to help educate the rest of the school on how to make Cherrywood become more eco-friendly.

Many of the students were eager to learn about the classroom Minister jobs and worked diligently on filling out their applications. Other students asked if they could "just not have a job". Ask your child about my answer and my reasoning.

All agendas were signed this morning...thank you! I'm looking forward to reading over the parent surveys this weekend.

Your child found out if they were an auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learner today. If all goes as planned they will know their True Colour tomorrow.

Challenge #2: self-regulation in their first rotary subjects (French with Madame Rocca and Music with Mrs. Illich). I hope they make me as proud tomorrow as they did today!

My shout out tonight goes to Katie-Lynn who worked hard to make improvements in self-regulation. She led by example and made our classroom a better place with her maturity and dedication to her goal. Great job!

Thank you also to Nathan who yesterday afternoon took the time to come back and tell me to have a good night (and I did).

Our First Day

Well our first day came and went so fast we didn't even realize the time. We were sharing our summer stories and looking at my pictures when the bell rang for lunch and we were all like, "What? It's lunch? Already?"

Seriously.

We had a hot, humid, but fun first day. The kids learned a lot about me and I have started to learn a bit about them. In case you were given the "it was okay" answer (with a pre-teen shrug) when you asked how the first day of school was, here's what we did:

First, we had breakfast. The kids used their manners and cleaned up well after themselves. I showed them where things were in the room and talked about independence. After that we did an agenda scavenger hunt. Did you know that strawberries have more Vitamin C in them than oranges? Ask your child if elephants can jump...

The kids learned about Caught Ya tickets and we decided on our Celebration plans. The first one we're working toward is ______________________. The kids know :)

We worked on our Diary of a _______________ Kid project. We had some pretty neat verbs and adjectives.

This is when the day started to fly. We tried watching my old-school summer slide show on the Smart Board and discovered just how slow computers can be when programs aren't compatible and jpg images are large. The kids were patient though and in between picture loading and program restarting we threw the football around while talking about the best summer memory. Then BAM the bell rang.

Following second break we made our name glyphs in Art, finished our diary entries and then did paperwork. Lots of paperwork and agenda information and forms...Please sign your child's agenda each night so that I know you are seeing it.

All in all I think the kids had a good time. I know I did. I feel fortunate to have such a great group of kids to learn with each day.

If your child came away with anything today, I hope it was that I am big on RESPECT. It's my number one expectation. Respect for themselves, respect for others, respect for property, respect for differences. The rest will all fall into place once we are cohesive group who respects each other in and out of the class. I also like them to clean up after themselves and push in their chairs :-)

When I make my blog posts (which I am hoping to do each day, if not every other), I will try to spotlight a student who went out of their way to make our classroom a better place. Today that was Matthew. He was always offering to help and swept up other people's messes for them without being asked. We don't even have a broom yet so that was impressive! Thanks to you.

And also thanks to Josh whose end of the day comment will never be forgotten: "This was the best first day I've ever had!"

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Welcome back everyone! In just 2 short days school will be back in and we will be starting a whole new year. For you it's Grade 5. For me it's year 9 of teaching. 

Here's what I've been working on this summer: 

Our Word Wall

Our Reading Centre

All of our books are sorted by genre or author and are labeled to help students with their independence in returning them. This also saves Miss Hall a huge headache!

Student supply area

Our Smart Board!!!!!!!!! It just needs a visit from the computer technician and it will be ready to rock.

Our Math Wall will be used for a Multiple Intelligences Board for the first week. We will be learning about how 'smart' we are.

Student desks are in an L shape but will hopefully be in groups by October.

I hope you had a great summer. I sure did!