Teamwork!

We're getting down to the final weeks of the school year and there is still so much to do! I still want to get a lot of writing done, and Ender still needs to cover an entire unit of science. There just is not enough time in the short and often disrupted Garden Hill year to cover things the way we want to. It`s frustrating but we're still really excited for summer.

Before March Break, Ender and I  did a lot of group work activities with our students. In science our students were investigating electricity and renewable energy. To finish up the unit, Ender assigned an in class research project on renewable energy which we called the 60 Minute Poster Challenge. For the challenge, students were given tablets and art supplies and needed to research and complete an informative poster about their chosen energy source within 60 minutes. Each group had to assign a leader, an artist, writers and researchers, and answer specific questions about their energy source. At this point in the year, students have a good idea of their strengths in a group so they can assign these roles themselves. It was interesting to see our students make the same choices we would for leadership.

We had some technical issues with the internet connection, but otherwise the activity went really well.  It was a close competition but the winning poster was for Biomass Energy. Their information was the most accurate and we liked their little trees.

In social studies, we have been investigating Indian Residential Schools and the Canadian Government's assimilation policy. Many of my students have grandparents or great aunts and uncles who attended these schools, but very few of them have really talked about what the schools were or what assimilation is, they just know that they were "bad." It's a difficult and sensitive subject, but the kids are really engaged and are asking good questions. To start off the unit we read Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell and illustrated by Kim LaFave. It's a story about a girl who is counting down the days until she will have to leave her family and attend residential school. We talked about how we can be afraid of and excited about something at the same time. We also discussed the differences between having a school in your community and going away for school.

We also looked at photos taken throughout the history of the schools. Students listed all the things they saw in the photos and we talked about what information we might be able to learn from what we saw. For example, the photo of Thomas Moore, which was used to promote the effectiveness of residential school for the purposes of assimilation, many of the students had a hard time identifying that it was two photos of the same person.

Finally our school elder Lucy spoke to the class about her experiences at Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School. Before she came to speak we read Sugar Falls, a comic by David Robertson and illustrated by Scott Henderson based on Cross Lake First Nation Elder Betty Ross's real life experiences at residential school. After we read the comic I asked the class to think of questions they might have for Lucy. Afterwards we reflected on what we had learned and thought of new questions we could investigate on our own.



We also finally finished this collaborative map for ELA. Students were focused on shape and space, and needed to check with their classmates to see if their pieces would fit together. The map is from the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender which we are watching in class. I'll post the finished map next time.

Busy

A lot has been happening here these past two months. The school science fair is just a week and a half away, and our students are hard at work preparing their projects. We didn't have a science fair last year because of the school cancellations in January, so our students don't have the experience of grade 5 to fall back on. Working so independently is a new expectation and many of them had difficulties selecting projects and setting their own research goals. 

We seem to be getting the hang of things now. There are a few projects that stand a good chance at being selected for the Winnipeg science fair in March, and this year we are able to take 8 students! Front runners include building a simple robot and re-inventing the battery.

Our school was selected to participate in the Provincial Festival for the Arts in Winnipeg next week. I am able to take 12 students and 3 teachers to represent our school. The trip is next week and we've been scrambling to raise additional funds and plan. The trip will be similar to the science fair so I'll be taking two very similar trips to Winnipeg only weeks apart. It's a great opportunity but it's left me little time to think about much else.

Recently we've met some of the new nurses and have been spending time with them. It's funny that it's taken us over 2 years to talk to any of the nurses (they only live a 10 minute walk away) but I guess better late than never.

Ender and I often bring both classes together in either my room or his to do combined lessons. A few weeks ago after one of these combined lessons my students and I came back to our room find that a puppy had sneaked in and was taking a nap in the book nook. We have no idea how it got into the school, but one of my students thought it looked like her cousin's puppy and took it home with her. 

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. 

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).

Hand-washing Is Important Because Our Hands Are Disgusting!

 This October we've been working on a lot of big projects. Alex is finishing up his unit on microscopic life with bacteria plates. He made the agar at home and the kids have been recording the growth of whatever was on their hands that day. It's pretty disgusting but in the best way.

Their observations include drawing the plate and writing descriptions of what they see. These are skills they can apply to their own science fair projects in the new year.

 

For Grandparents Day in September our class read "The Wednesday Surprise" by Eve Bunting. It's about a girl who teaches her grandmother how to read. Students then wrote about what they could teach their own grandparents to do. 

Both classes are working hard on their monster masks in preparation for the haunted house. This will be the third (and final) year we'll be doing the haunted house, so Alex and I really wanted to improve on what we accomplished last year. The students pictured here are working on a paper mache dragon head which will have glowing red eyes and spew smoke.