Good Morning Everyone,
Today I am mainly going to talk about our week of Critical Thinking. All week we have been looking at our Boxes and thinking of what we will do with our box. The whole premise behind this project was to have children use their brains to think independently and creatively. All the children brought in boxes and then looked at them, really looked at them and thought, "what could they do with this box?".They drew their boxes and labelled their boxes and talked to the other children about what they might do. This was the step called "Analyzing?. The next day we made a plan. We were the architects designing our plan.What would we bring in for our box creation. How much effort would it take? Then we started the process of creating. The children in their family groups started to cut, glue, paint and develop. Afternoon of doing this, we spent the next day looking at our box once again asking ourselves the question..."did we need to make changes? did we do what we intended to do in the first place? do we need more materials? Why couldnt I do what i initially wanted to do?" Finally on Thursday afternoon we took more time to add to our boxes and do some more creating. You should have heard the chatter. They were so focussed on their creations. How it was coming along, what they needed to still do. The older children helped the younger children. The team work, the discussions were beautiful. We felt we still needed time on Friday afternoon to complete our boxes. Now on Tuesday we will spend time reflecting on our project. Did we have fun? Did we do what we wanted to do? Would we do it the same way next time? This is the reflection part and the children will talk with the others in the class, discussing their process. OnTuesday afternoon, there will be an art gallery set up and the entire school will do a walk through looking at all the boxes and what was created with them. What a wonderful project!! Thank you for helping support your child at home!!

Two other important things:
1) Please send skating forms filled out as soon as possible. At this point we are short drivers...so please, if you think you can drive let me know. We will need the help otherwise, we may have to cancel!

2) The Gala is coming soon...at the end of February. Our beautiful platter is finished and just awaiting firing!! Also our silent auction box, is sadly neglected. We have the "great novels" box...but anything goes. Books, gift cards, "wine"...i always have a glass of wine with my great novel..haha..or anything that you think would be a sell for the silent auction. Thank you to those who have donated something already!

With that, I hope you have had a lovely Saturday and will enjoy today as well. Remember no school on Monday...and I will see you all on Tuesday.
Cheers,
Teri

Learning about where penguins live.

Talking about the penguins, food, appearance, habitat and babies. A mini research project.

Good Morning Everyone,
It is dark outside!! But the beauty is, when I get home at 4pm, it is beginning to stay brighter and brighter, Spring is around the corner!! Having said that, there still is a lot of rain coming down and the kids are still asked to play outside at recess and lunch (not always, but they seem to love to go out for fresh air). So it is important that they have indoor shoes to change into when they are in the classroom, as the boots truck in lots of mud and wetness.We do spend time on the carpet for circle and directions so we like to keep the carpet as dry as possible!! Also, warm jackets, hats, umbrellas for outdoor play as often some of the children are coming in looking like drowned rats...and need to stay wet all day, contributing to some of the colds and coughs that I am hearing right now.

This last week was a great week of learning! The children were especially excited about the launch of our Big Box project. On Friday we spent time ANALYZING our box. We really looked at our box and we drew it. And as we were drawing it we were thinking, what will we do with our box, or boxes. Today we will also look at our box and do step two...today we will actually draw a plan of what we want to make with our box. On Tuesday we start to make. The school will provide glue, scissors, paint and paper...but we are asking if the children want/need tape, or any add ons, google eyes pipe cleaners etc, then they are to bring them themselves. We have one building session on Tuesday and one on Thursday.

This last week we also had Deana in and she read us a story about the Orca Chief.The children are currently working on their pictures and on their writing, some are posted outside the classroom.
We also are working on our Penguin unit...learning about the parts of the penguin, about their diet and their habitat. WE have been reading lots of stories as well and are discussing how fictional stories are based on facts and how do we figure what is what. The children are excellent listeners and discerners of fact vs/ fiction.

The gala is around the corner and we are busy painting our beautiful platter as well as we are asking parents/children to contribute to our silent auction box. Our Box is the great novel or books, or things associated with books. WE hope everyone will be able to contribute something fun to our box...even wine!!! Wine goes well with books!!

Coming out today you will be receiving a field trip form for our skating sessions that will be coming up. Please fill out the form, send the money in as soon as possible so we can check to see if we have enough drivers etc.

With that,
enjoy the pictures of us "analyzing" our boxes!!
Take care,
Teri

A big happy new year to everyone and an even bigger Welcome back! By the excitement of the children and their enthusiastic writing, I could see that they had a wonderful holiday and did lots of fun activities. It was great getting hugs and seeing everyone again. This past week we spent a lot of time on talking about what a resolution was. That it is like making a goal or a promise for them to keep getting better at things both at school and at home. We made wishes for our world as well! The children made some wonderful goals for themselves. They had to really think about what they were doing well and what they wanted to improve upon. I told them sometimes it is easy to make the goal but it is difficult to keep it...as us adults all know all to well!! But we keep persevering and trying! One of our classroom goals that we talked about was being "flexible", that sometimes change happens and we just have to roll with it without getting frustrated. I think our class does a very good job of this!!!

This week we also talked about Penguins. That will be our new science unit. We read a picture book about a penguin and then talked about how even though a picture book is fiction, it is based on facts...so we were to look at the things from the picture book to create our prior knowledge...what we already know about penguins. And then we wrote. Wow...they did a marvelous job! We have been working on penguin art as well..you will see it very very soon!!

On Thursday we began our new library unit with Mrs. Whitelaw. We will be learning about Barbara Reid, a Canadian author and illustrator. Whenever we begin a study of an author we learn all about her or him. I told them some stories about her as a child, her likes and dislikes. About her pets and her favourite colour. By the time the unit is done, the children should have an intimate knowledge of Barbara Reid and her style of writing and her special style of pictures....ask your child about her pictures. By the way Thursdays will be our new library book exchange time as well! 

Our time with Mrs. Montagano is back. She came in on Friday to talk about this months virtue. This months virtue is self discipline. They talked about self-discipline and then wrote a little bit about it. Mrs. Montagano was very pleased with everyone's listening skills and their writing skills!!

Finally I would like to once again welcome Marawan and his family to Bayview. They are from Egypt!  Lets give him and his family a big Bayview welcome!!

With that, I just want to add, that I will not be in school tomorrow, I think the flu has hit me and I have taken to the couch all day...ugg...Ms. Bailey will be in for me tomorrow, so that is wonderful! Please go over this with your child...appropriate behaviour with a guest teacher.

Thank you
and take care.
teri

telling what we already know about penguins

all about our holidays

making goals

penguin art

what we talked about with mrs. montagano

our memories from when we started this year