This week we helped out with the food drive at Westmount.
Counting the items we brought for the food bank (in groups of ten)…
Taking the food bank items outside…
All the collected food…
Our school collected over 800 pounds of food!
Classroom Life
Stone Soup
This week we read several versions of the book Sone Soup to compare them. The students were intrigued, so we made our own version. Just as in the stories, it was fit for a king!
PJ Day
Friday was PJ Day at Westmount and the students brought their favourite nighttime stuffed animal as well. What do you do when you are wearing PJ’s? You nap, of course! At the request of almost all of the students we had a short nap time in celebration of this special day.
Terry Fox Run
Terry Fox is a Canadian hero. Many years ago, after one of his legs was amputated because of cancer, he began a run across Canada to raise money for cancer research so that others would not have to go through what he did. Terry was not able to complete his run, so every year thousands of Canadians run to raise money in honour of him.
Terry ran for us. We all chose who we were running for and wrote it on stickers that we wore on our T-shirts.
Whisper Phones
Check out the new whisper phones we are now using during reading time. These devices, made from PVC pipe, let us hear what we are reading as we read (which helps with blending and fluency) and helps those students with loud voices to lower their voice as they read.
The Circle of Courage
One of our school’s goals this year is to learn to develop the four quadrants of the Circle of Courage in our lives. The four colours stand for belonging, independence, mastery and generosity. We’ll be working on each of these areas in our classroom this year.
We Are Teachers!
During the first week of school, we talked often about the fact that all of us (including Mrs. Cassidy) are learners. We decided that each of us is also a teacher because we can all learn from each other.
The students each chose a few props and then posed in a way that they thought a teacher looked for the pictures in this video. (And yes, the photo with the glasses perched on the end of the nose does look familiar.)
This year, we hope to all be teachers and learners together.
And We Are Back!
We are off to a great start this year! Here are a few scenes from our first week of school.
Lego Challenge
What could you make from 20 pieces of Lego? That was the challenge for the children. Each child received a bag with 20 assorted Lego pieces. No two bags were the same and the challenge was to create something from only those pieces. Children who had hoped to make a car or a house had to reconsider when they took their pieces out of their bags. They all rose to the challenge, though, and created something unique to describe to their classmates.
Here are some of the students hard at work…
And here are some of the finished products…
Reading to the Kindergarten Kids
Every spring, my students read to the kindergarten children to show off their newly acquired reading skills. This is a highly anticipated event as they all remember being read to when THEY were in kindergarten.
The students justifiably felt very proud of what they have accomplished in reading this year!