On Fridays, we sometimes turn off the lights and read in the dark with flashlights. Flashlight Friday is VERY popular.
Language Arts
Chopsticks
Amy Krouse Rosenthal is one of our favourite authors. This week, we read a book of hers called Chopsticks.
Most of the students in the class had never tried chopsticks or eaten sushi, so we gave it a try. First we rubbed them together to get rid of any splinters…
..and then we gave using them a try. There were lots of different techniques.
Incidentally, almost everyone loved the sushi.
The students’ writing about the possibilities of chopsticks will begin appearing on their blogs later today.
We Love to Read!
Nothing makes a teacher’s heart sing like a group of students reading together. I took these pictures during our most recent trip to the school library.
Tweeting With Elise Gravel
We have a lot of Elise Gravel books in our classroom, and the students love them.
Yesterday, we used Elise Gravel’s book I Want a Monster to help us to draw monsters. The students were so pleased with their results that they wished they could show them to her. Because I know that Elise Gravel is on Twitter, I suggested that the students tweet her their pictures. So we did.
And to the student’s delight, right at the end of our school day, she tweeted every one of the students back! “Best end of the day ever” they all said.
All About Moose Jaw
Our class is part of the pilot project for a wonderful initiative called A Kid’s Guide to Canada. It’s about kids digitally telling the story of where they live for Canada’s 150th birthday next year. The students chose the important things in our community themselves, took many of the pictures, dictated the text and recorded their thoughts and opinions. It’s so interesting to see what six year olds think are the important parts of their lives.
This project will be open for all Canadian classes beginning in January.
Letters to Santa
It’s the time of year that we need to let Santa know we are thinking of him. Together we decided that when we wrote to Santa we needed to thank him for last year’s gift, say something nice and then tell him what we were hoping to get this year. The students worked very hard on this; it’s an important document to get right. We mailed the letters to Santa, but first we took a picture of them so that you could see them on their blogs. Be sure to check to see their heart’s desires and their developing skills.
Stuffies At School
This week our book for the Global Read Aloud was Twenty Yawns, a story about a child who needs to find her stuffies to sleep. On Friday, we brought our own “sleep aids” to school. They helped us to read, to write and to think with the students in Illinois about how having a stuffed toy makes us feel.
Sneaky Reading
As we read Lauren Castillo’s book The Reader this week, it made us think of the places we read. Sometimes, we do “sneaky reading” when no one sees us. Here are some kids that I caught trying to be sneaky in their reading this week. Let me know if you see anyone doing some sneaky reading at home!
You can see all of our tweets about sneaky reading here.
Building Our Stamina
We Are Readers!
This past year, the students recorded their reading in November, February and June using an app called Book Creator. The results of this are on their blogs, showing their developing reading prowess through the school year. One example is below. Check the others out on the students’ blogs and leave them a comment to tell them how clever they are.