Ink Troubles and Bug Bags

Only three more weeks of school! With report cards and parent-teacher day behind us, Alex and I are counting down the days we have left before we go home for the holidays. Korra will be staying at a kennel in Winnipeg this year. She'll have Ollie to play with the entire time, so I don't feel too bad about leaving her for three weeks.

Alex has the kids working on classification in science. When Alex handed out the bags of toy bugs he suggested that they held live insects. He assures me their reactions were priceless.

 

In art we're working on relief printing. The ink I was able to get through the school is pretty terrible, and it will wreck the poly-blocks if we're not careful. This meant that I ended up having to ink up most of the blocks myself. Still, everyone got to print their image at least three times so I'll call it a win.

Next Friday we will be displaying our prints as well as performing three songs at our school's first ever Art Festival. 

November Is Almost Over!

November is flying by. Report cards go out next week and after that Christmas takes over until we go home for the holidays. Somehow we manage to find time to take Korra out for walks to the park (aka the playground). There are always other dogs around for her to play with so it makes getting enough exercise pretty easy.

This puppy was recently flown out to Winnipeg to be taken in by Manitoba Mutts. They foster dogs until they are able to find them good homes. I really liked this puppy (she reminded me of Korra for obvious reasons), so I'm glad she's on her way to finding the perfect family.

Ender and I did the Blanket Exercise with our classes  a few weeks ago. The activity uses blankets to represent the land we now call Canada and students played the part of the indigenous cultures and nations who live on those lands. The exercise goes through the history of treaty-making, colonization and resistance that resulted in the Canada we know today.

At first the blankets cover the whole floor, and students can walk or sit where they like. They can only stand on the blankets and not the floor, but that's not really a problem because the blankets cover the entire floor.

By the time we finish the remaining students (those who did not 'die' because of disease, relocation, or abuse) were confined to blankets just large enough to stand on (reserves). It's a really good activity though it needs some modification for younger, less patient students.

Our Reading Workshop has been going really well. Students are learning how to choose books and many of them are feeling motivated to actually finish them. Right now the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi is really popular.

And to finish things off we had our Bazaar of the year last night. Enjoy the face-painting photos.

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KES Haunted House 2014

Ender started doing the haunted house with the grade sixes in his first year. Since then we've been putting this thing on annually and getting better and better every time. Because it's our last year at Kistiganwacheeng Elementary we wanted to give it our all. While the process has left me completely exhausted I also feel really proud of what we did this year. Let's take a tour...

We wanted to change the overall layout from last year. In the past years guests went through the haunted house and were chased out the way they came after they got their candy. This made the whole thing go very slowly. So we hung the tarps differently to create a one way route which streamlined the whole performance.

Lead by Mr.A dressed as a demon, guests were lead through a "spooky forest." We took down the ceiling tiles to make it seem less like a classroom, and then hung branches, cobwebs and purple lights. As you walk through the "forest," students on the other side of the tarp wall reached out to startle guests.

We set up the mask wall (Or as Ender called it the 'Wall of Things I've Killed') at the end of the forest. While wearing a mask, students put their heads through the holes and held perfectly still until people got close enough to scare.

We created a claustrophobic tunnel called the Terrifying Tunnel of Darkness ('And we call it that because nothing bad ever happens in there') using garbage bags to make a low ceiling. Again, the students reached out for feet from underneath the tarps.

At the end of the tunnel is the dragon with glowing eyes and a smoke machine inside. Ms. Jordan, dressed up in scars and a cloak, offered the kids a story about her dead husband (played by a student in a coffin on the floor) and candy for the road. When the kids reach for their candy a hand pops out from the bowl. Once the kids get their candy, they are told to hurry out before the spirit of Jordan's husband gets them.

On the way out there is one final scare from a student dressed as a scarecrow. We stuffed their outfit with newsprint so that if anyone poked them they would think it was just a dummy.

We had so much fun putting on the haunted house this year. We were able to raise enough money to cover the new instruments we bought for the school in October. I really hope that we can continue to do big projects like this at the next school we work at.

5 Days of Halloween

Monday  

We began the week by taking apart my classroom and setting up Ender's classroom as a work space for both classes. Table space was the name of the game as students finished the final layer of papier-mâché on their masks and set them all out to dry. 

Last week we all wrote epitaph poems about our grisly deaths which we displayed in the hall. 

  

  

We started to cover my walls with black paper, moved some of the ceiling tiles to make a creepy open space, and hung some branches we collected earlier to create our spooky forest.

Tuesday  (Orange Day)

Today was the last day of observing and recording for the bacteria plates. Ender knew that a science representative from MFNERC would be visiting the high school at that time, and asked her to swing by our classroom that day to join in the fun and to take the disgusting plates back to Winnipeg with her to be disposed of properly.





































             

Last week we made posters for a contest to help promote healthy eating. We didn't win but they're still pretty great.

Students (finally) finished the papier-mâché step of their masks. We let them dry overnight in Ender's classroom so we could paint the next day.

Wednesday  (Silly Hair Day)

We finished decorating the door, set up the structure of the haunted house with tarps, and began painting the masks.

The masks needed a solid base colour which then needed to dry before any dry-brushing or detailing can happen. This was a new and frustrating concept for some of the kids. They wanted to paint everything at once (like you would with tempra paint on paper).

Thursday 

We continued to decorate the haunted house. We finished painting the masks, and with the help of grade two teacher Miss Jordan, we were able to get all the final details glued on. The masks look outstanding this year! I didn't take any pictures of the kids working because I just didn't have time. I think I sat down once and it was at 2:40.

Friday  (Costume Day!) 

We finished up some final details on the haunted house and then watched "Blink"(an episode of Doctor Who).

Ender told scary stories in the haunted house, and in the afternoon we had snacks and played some games.

After a long,but fun day we hurried home to get ready for the haunted house (which I will go into detail about in my next post).