This Week At School

This week at school I....

Was a grade 1/2 Spanish immersion teacher (and no I do not speak Spanish)

English and Spanish word wall

Needless to say we had an English speaking day!

I was a home ec teacher!

We attempted to make brownies but very few groups had brownies that were done by the end of the class... so the vice principal came in to supervise them while I moved on to my next class (which was in another room).

I was an art teacher... we used clay and drew.

And on Valentine's Day I was a kindergarten teacher!

For some reason I thought it would go over better than what it did... they had WAY TOO MUCH SUGAR!

We also watched a movie for part of the day (thank goodness)

Naturally I had to get a picture of me in my Valentine's Day ensemble... so basically the pink shirt with blue hearts all over it.  One of the kindergarten kids added a sticker onto the pocket of my sweater though.

And yes I purposefully included all the words of encouragement this mirror had to offer.

I'm on fire...why thank you!

Valentine's Day Art Activities

Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that comes and then it goes without another mention... so do we really need to do an art activity just for that one day?  The answer is always YES!

Anyways, since it's almost Valentine's Day I figured it was the perfect time to round up some art activities that might just go with the theme of February 14th.

Here are some projects that I've done in the past:

Heart Art

Heart Trees

Paul Klee

... Psst... this Paul Klee one I likely got the idea from here

And here are some that I've found off of one my favourite blogs to get art ideas from (A Faithful Attempt)

Painted Paper Plate Sewing Craft

Mixed Media Candy Hearts

Mondrain Hearts

What are some of your favourite art activities to do with your students during Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day Art

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had done a quick Valentine's Day art activity with the grade 2/3 class I was in (I know it was a bit before Valentine's Day but the teacher had requested it... maybe she put the art work up in the hall or something).

It was super easy to do and I pretty much started by showing them the sample pictures from this website.

After I showed them what we would be doing we talked about some of the things we noticed about the pictures (the trees took up the whole space on the page, there were lots of hearts in the tree and some were on the ground, etc).  

I kept the picture up on the projector for them to refer back to when they wanted and of course there were a few that just copied the example but I also encouraged them to be creative as well.

Here is what that grade 2/3 class came up with

one of the branches on this one (or the nose?) is sticking out of the paper!

To keep them from wasting a bunch of paper I cut the brown construction paper in half (the long way... so that they could make as long of branches as they wanted) and the pink and red construction paper in half the other way.  The kids could come up and ask for more but most didn't so I felt like it was likely a good amount of paper for them to be using.

Psst...

Here's another Valentine's Day related art lesson

And if you are still looking for a good Valentine Day card to hand out to your students this year when I taught grade 5/6 I used these mustache cards and put a sucker through each one (they were a big hit!)

Valentine Boxes

An entire year ago I was working at a school where the entire school (ok, it may have had only 2 classes and about 30 students) made valentine boxes... Valentine's day has to be one of  my least favourite holidays... I must admit I'm lacking the creativity to plan something grand for my students to do on this day... but then I saw these kids being so creative with their valentine boxes and I thought to myself... "Hmm... why not have kids plan their own craft to make on this day and have it also serve the purpose of holding all their valentines".  So, I'm posting this a bit before Valentine's Day just in case you are also lacking the creativity for Valentine's Day and need some ideas!

I would have students plan their box out a week or so before we made them and have them gather up the supplies (for the most part) that they will be needing for it.  

unicorn valentine box

tractor valentine box

panda valentine box

Lego valentine box

The whole schools valentine boxes

And just a warning... we cut the slots in the top with a box cutter which I always kept out of reach of all the children... and who ended up getting cut with it in the end?  I did... so be careful!

Paul Klee Art Lesson

You can find the lesson I used here 

I started off my art class much the same way.  I quickly googled "Paul Klee" in an image search and we looked at some of the pictures he had done and talked about them.  We talked about what we think he used to create his images and what we saw in them... it was nothing too deep or spectacular but this is only grade 4.  I also had a short biography on Paul Klee printed that I showed the kids (you can see it in the middle of one of my bulletin boards below).  They thought the picture I choose to put on the bottom was scary and told me to switch it to something else.  

I did not oblige 

(yes, the ones who get to school early were watching me create the biography)

We spent 2 classes (so about an hour) learning about Paul and doing the line drawing and crayon colouring part of the lesson.

I'm not entirely sure but I don't think I did a great job at explaining how to do this step... although I did mention numerous times to not do too careful of a job of colouring and to leave white spaces so that the paint would have something to stick to.

The kids wanted me to make one... can you guess which is mine?

The following week we finished up our colouring (if we needed to) and then painted over them (I only gave them the option of purple, pink, or red paint)

My Paul Klee art is on this bulletin board.

What step did we forget?

We were supposed to dab off the excess paint.

Whoops.

I guess some of the paint was thin enough that the paint doesn't completely take over the art... but some *ahemREDahem* definitely went on a little thick.

Ah well, they still enjoyed doing it and think it looks good.

Also, we don't have those hockey puck type paints.   I think what we have is acrylic paint (in MASSIVE containers) so I just squirt a little in a yogurt cup and mix in some water with it to thin it out.  It works alright.

This Week At School

-  In ART we finished up our Valentine's Day project (okay, we actually took a science class to do this)

-  We are basically done our SCIENCE unit on light.  The kids are planning commercials to demonstrate the different uses of light in creative ways (solar panels, sensors, and cds are all playing a part)

-  Everyone is still loving multiplying (which makes me feel awesome)

-  We've been watching a lot of the Olympics (I've been putting it on for my grade 4's during lunch).  One day I put it on early and we were watching figure skating.  Those kids, such critics!  They were having none of the girl from China who fell a couple of times.  They really want to watch curling but I haven't let them.  Do they know how entertaining it is?  I've told them I'll put it on when Canada is playing.

-  We have been graphing the Olympics in math and our bulletin board is looking great.  I'll snap a picture of it next week sometime.

-  I love that my grade 4's loved Valentine's Day.  It makes me so happy.  I honestly didn't plan much except that I booked us on the tobaggon run.  Apparently that was all they needed.  We also made envelopes to put our valentines in, moved and cleaned desks, and ate cookies I made for them.  It was a successful morning.

-  Projections for staffing for next year are in.  Let the fun begin!

Paul Klee Valentine's Day art... we missed a step.  Stay tuned for what we did.

So many pink cookies.  I had 2 boxes of strawberry cake mix from the states (because you can't get it here... or at least you used to not be able to) and made my recess helpers and grade 4's cookies.  I thought they did not taste good.  They loved them.  

I let them do whatever they wanted for their Valentine's envelopes... the only criteria was include your name and make it have to do with Valentine's Day.  I'm really impressed.  The girl who did the 2nd photo took the time to sharpen a red pencil crayon and then rub the shavings of colour onto her page with a kleenex!  So creative!

Sidenote:  I kept telling them we were making valentine envelopes for the last few days.  Apparently I say it wrong by saying it "on-ve-lope".  "it's en-ve-lope Miss Penner" so now I can't say envelope or more.

This Week At School

-  Was a full week!... for reals we haven't had to work a full 5 days for a very long time (no snow days this week)

-  In MATH we are full steam ahead with multiplication and can you believe it.. I've had multiple kids come up and tell me they are liking math.  I'm flabbergasted.  The student that I was really worried about not getting it is getting it amazingly and my students on another program who have been working adding and subtracting up until now are also doing a slower multiplication program.  We are all multiplying and it feels great!

-  We are double timing it in ART class.  Working on Valentine's Day art projects (which I feel like I botched the instructions on.... hopefully they still turn out okay) and a movement piece for later on (we started the movement piece weeks ago, then had a bunch of snow days and a pipeline explosion so it is just on hold until after Valentine's Day).  Stay tuned for instructions on both of our projects!

-  Friday's are Olympic day in math class.  Yesterday I showed them a chart of the medal counts from the Winter Olympics four years ago and based on that we predicted what we thought the medal counts would be for this year (For Canada, USA, Germany, Russia, and China - they picked the countries... okay I made them pick Canada, USA, and Russia).  We are working on creating a pictograph on our outside bulletin board for the medal count and in the classroom we will work on bar graphs for the medal counts (which will eventually turn into a computer lesson to create the graph in Excel).  Stay tuned for a picture of our bulletin board!

-  Speaking of COMPUTER CLASS, we are finally doing more than just All The Right Type and free time!  This week we worked on using word art in Word to create name tags for our desks (I made them remove their old ones because some had multiplication charts on them).  

-  In SCIENCE we watched for a shadow for at least a week to appear on a certain tree in the school yard.  But alas, it has been cloudy (naturally, the sun would come out after we did the lesson inside rather than outside).  In case you are ever having a very gloomy week and want to teach your students about shadows I found a great website to hep teach kids about shadow lengths!  First we predicted what we thought shadows looked like throughout the day and then we went through the website.  Afterwards they had a worksheet to do to show where a shadow would come from a tree at different times... some got it, some didn't take their time and all the shadow lengths looked the same, some drew their shadows coming from random places.  I think we will go back and look at it next again next science class.  For the record, it got sunny the day after the lesson and my students have been OBSESSED with checking its shadow and counting how many steps long it is at different times.

-  In FRENCH we are doing I Love To Read Month.  We went through one really easy book and then we went through a book about a groups favourite games.  I've told my class to try to remember what it was like when they were learning to read English. What did they do to try to figure out what was going on in the story?  So we've been looking at pictures and recognizing words that they've already learned.  I must admit they have a much better memory than I originally thought!  I also introduced the word "Nous" this week which refers to a group of people.  I even stuck up a new poster on the wall that I thought showed this best. Since we were talking about Nous I figured may as well tell them about Je, Tu, Il, Elle, Vous, Ils, and Elles as well.  They already knew about Je and a little about Tu, Il, and Elle.  Every day 1 we head to the library to do an online program to just reinforce what they are learning in the classroom.  They are pretty into it which is great (and one less day I have to plan something for!)

-  Haven't had much ELA this week since my lovely grade 8's are doing a DARE program.  On Friday when I supervised they watched a couple of videos and one talked a little about plagiarism... so happy for this since some of my students are definitely plagiarizing on their blogs and apparently me telling them they could get in serious trouble later on if they make that a habit isn't enough for them to stop.  Hopefully they get it now.  

-  I've been having trouble with getting my 8's to hand stuff in.  This week I'm trying something new... we've been writing short stories and I should definitely have more handed in than what I currently do so anyone who hasn't handed in their first story we did (on an inanimate object) by Monday gets to spend their next day 5 (so Thursday) lunch hour in the computer room working on getting it done.  Next week it will be anyone who hasn't handed in story #2 and posted an article review.  The following week their third story.  It pushed at least one of my students to get their work handed in sooner.  Not sure what to do in grade 4 with this.  I only send homework in math and only when they don't do well on their hand in question... I definitely have some that need the extra practice and I'm worried about report card time...

Apparently it has been a busy week!

Here are some lovely photos of our week at school....

We watched some Olympic snowboarding on Thursday in French class because I was missing half my class (for the record we started out watching about Festival du Voyegeur).  It was just the qualifiers but one guy fell... the response in the classroom was shock and then someone said "well, at least he made it to the Olympics" we also watched parts of the opening ceremonies on Friday at different times.  My grade 4's watched it at lunch.

Pop Art Snowflakes ours didn't turn out as well as the originals on the site.

Our Valentine's art

The beginnings of our movement pieces... I am well aware they look like nothing special right now

I got to school REALLY early yesterday morning to take some of these pictures, get old stuff off bulletin boards and get grades into my computer.