Thursday, December 26, 2013

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is enjoying some time off with family and friends! I want to thank everyone for their kind holiday wishes and thoughtful gifts. I'm off to Cuba for the remainder of the break to get away from the cold weather. I wish your families health and happiness in the new year! See you back at school on January 6th!!
Thanks for all of the lovely cards!!
Below are a few pictures of some of the activities we did before winter break began:

Ornament patterns!



We created a pictograph based on where each student took the first bite of their gingerbread cookie.

Gingerbread decorating!

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Gingerbread Activities

Below are a few pictures of what we have been working during our gingerbread unit. Grade 2 students created books about different types of nouns. Grade 1 students created gingerbread stories and they had to choose a setting for their story that was different from the original story.

Can you guess where this gingerbread story takes place??


Art, Art and More Art!

We learned about Piet Mondrian who was a Dutch painter and we were inspired to create art similar to his. I had students create art similar to his because he mostly used primary colours and we have been talking a lot about primary and secondary colours in class.


Wee just completed reindeer pastel art on Friday. We had a ton of fun drawing the facial features on the reindeer to make each look unique.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Winter (and Christmas)!

We have been extremely busy throughout the month of November and now the beginning of December. Students worked very hard to have their portfolios ready to share with their families. We are now busy finishing up our final winter concert rehearsals and look forward to concert day on Thursday! We have begun a countdown in the classroom to winter break and we will all need the break after these past couple of exciting and busy months.

Below are a few pictures to highlight what we have been up to.

We designed bird feeders


We  began our gingerbread man theme

We are learning to compare and contrast stories

We are learning about primary and secondary colours

We are learning all about place value and the value of a digit depending on the place it is in

Monday, October 28, 2013

Bats and Pumpkins, Oh My!

We learned about "how to" writing and had a discussion about why we use this type of writing and where we would find it. Students were reminded to add detail to be sure that another person could read the "how to carve a pumpkin" writing and actually be able to carve a pumpkin! Check out some of our finished work.



 Our study on bats has taught us so many facts already! Grade two students are working with a partner on non-fiction bat research and grade one students are working on finding bat facts in books with Ms Mowat. Take a look at our bat plasticine art.




Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We read the story, "The Great Turkey Race" last week and talked about what happened in the story. We have been focusing on reading comprehension, understanding what we are reading and retelling the main events of stories. We had a lot of fun with this silly story!

Thanks to Cara Carrol for the cute turkey template!




Up, Up and Away!

We have been working hard to complete our most recent mixed media art project. Our finished hot air balloon art is fantastic and I am so proud of how the pictures turned out.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

Skip Counting

Skip counting has been one of our main focuses in math this term. We are skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s (forwards and backwards). Students have engaged in a variety of activities to improve their skills.  It is recommended that children practice skip counting at home. You can have your child skip count groups of objects such as pairs of socks, coins, cutlery, etc.


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

What Else is New in Room 23?

The "No, David" books are helpful when teaching students about making good choices. We created our "Peacemakers and Peacebreakers" chart as a reminder to think about choices before you make them.
We created our "Check 5" but it should actually be our "Check 6" poster, to help us remember what we need to do to be respectful listeners when we are at the carpet. We continue to work on this daily!
 Skip Counting is part of our daily calendar routine. Practice counting objects in groups at home (lego pieces, socks, spoons, coins, etc.)

Important pattern terms.

We have started "Read to Self" and we are working on becoming stronger readers! We have talked about what the students' job is during "Read to Self" and what the teacher's job is.

We have begun to add strategies to our CAFE menu. It is very important to stop and check for understanding when reading a story. Stop every few pages and talk about what is happening in the story.

We are learning new words and songs in French.




Line Art





Check out the awesome line art we created! We discussed different types of lines and learned about warm and cool colours before completing the leaf line art!

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Welcome Back!

We had a wonderful first day back at school! We talked about how we felt starting a brand new school year, drank "jitter juice", created a time capsule that we won't look at until the end of the year and created our first class book titled, "First Day Feelings". Can't wait until next week, hopefully the weather continues to stay warm for the next while!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Summer Holidays!

Before I go on and on about my summer holidays thus far, I want to once again thank all of my students and their parents for an absolutely wonderful school year! Thank you for the lovely gifts I was given on the last day of school as well. I'm so excited to be teaching some of my students from grade 1 next school year and can't wait to finally settle in as a permanent teacher at Athlone teaching 1/2.

I have already been out and about in the province over the past few weekends, camping at Clear Lake, golfing at Hecla Island, gardening in my backyard and boating at the cabin. Thought I'd share a few photos of my summer adventures so far! 

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer so far and feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you have been up to!

Have a great summer break!

Ms Mowat :)
Ribbit, ribbit
Moose on Lake Winnipeg
Beautiful butterfly at Hecla Island
Goose family
Happy Canada Day!





Peppers from my garden
Jasper enjoyed herself at the lake

Thanks for the flowers Timothy and thanks for the candle Tila!