Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is Skating for the Grade 1-3’s. We will be leaving the school at approximately 12:30 and arriving at the Prospera Centre shortly thereafter. If you are able to come and help out that would be great!

We have been listening to Bobby McFerrin this week. He is an amazing vocalist that has spent many years fine-tuning the craft of singing and I thought I would share a couple of videos featuring him singing. He makes singing look so easy!

As you may know, I love creativity and getting kids to think outside of the box. I believe that there is nothing more important than teaching students how to think for themselves and not having to depend on others to solve things for them or think for them. Not every problem we encounter can be easily solved and many of the problems facing this next generation will require some very creative thinking. As a result, last year, I came up with the idea of giving science challenges to the students as a way to get them thinking in creative ways and to develop problem solving skills. I also wanted to devise a way for families to do something together to help build parents build these skills in their children. I didn’t want just homework that involved doing the same work over and over that they had already done in school. I wanted something that the whole family could enjoy and work together on as a family; as problem solvers; as teamwork! These Science challenges are meant to be fun, family projects. I will provide plenty of time to work on the projects. There will be no winners or losers. Every idea should be and will be celebrated. However, there will be accountability in that, students will be marked on their completed projects. It will be marked as part of their marks for the report card. The mark will simply consist of 5 points for completed project, 3 points for projects that are complete but are late and 0 marks for students who do not complete the projects.

I encourage you to do these projects as a family. Your child can work with you, with their siblings or anyone else in their families (immediate or otherwise) who is interested in participating. However, the keyword is working with you! Please do not do the project for your child as that negates the whole purpose. If you have any questions, please feel free to come talk to me:

So here it is, This week’s Science Challenge:

Make a car using some/all of the following materials, but nothing else. Scissors may be used in construction but not in the solution.

• 3 cardboard boxes (any size, shape, kind — cereal, crackers, etc.),

• 4 paperclips,
  

• 4 q-tips and
  

• glue.

This project is due Friday, Nov. 13!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. On Friday, we had a great time doing some pumpkin math. Students estimated the weight and circumference of their pumpkins, as well as the number of seeds that were in the pumpkin. Once the estimating was complete, students actually got to weigh and measure their pumpkins! Then it was time to get goopy! We had a great time getting our hands right into the pumpkins scooping the seeds out and counting all the seeds. We learned that there really is no correlation between the size of the pumpkin and the number of seeds inside of it. We then entered all our data into the online Seed Counting Project 2009! Including our school, 246 schools participated with a total of 106, 935 seeds counted!!! We will be looking at the data tomorrow! Once the seeds were all cleaned out and counted (and separated into 100’s, 10’s and units), we talked about polygons and the students learned that a polygon is a shape with three or more straight sides. So, in other words, a triangle would be a polygon as would an octagon. Once students understood what a polygon was, their challenge was to carve polygon patterns into their pumpkins. No simple face carving for us, no sireee! Polygon carving all the way!!! Here are a couple of videos showing us hard at work!

Here are the spelling words for this week:

M-6

And the link to this weeks Spelling City:

Our memory verse this week comes from Jeremiah 32:17

Ah, Sovereign Lord. You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

Check back tomorrow for the start of something exciting!!!!

I found a great site a couple of days ago which allows you to create polls to find out information about various things. So I thought I would try it. I will also put photos and videos from our Pumpkin Math Day up this weekend but I just wanted to do a quick post today. So here is my poll. Try it out and lets see what happens!

I also found this hilarious photo of toy stormtroopers that I thought you would like.

Oh, and speaking of Star Wars, if you haven’t been able to find a costume yet or simply want to add something to the old costume chest for inside playing, check out these great masks you can print out and use. Just click on the picture to get them and more masks!

Unless you have been living in a cave lately, you have probably heard about the new movie, “Where the Wild Things Are” that came out a few weeks ago. Well, today our class looked at the original book with story and illustrations by Maurice Sendek and talked about the various characters, words, and other elements from the story. Tomorrow, we will be using the book to gather ideas as a springboard for our own stories. We will be trying to create new endings for the story that start where the book leaves off. When I read the story, I was very surprised to find out that the story only has ten sentences in it. So, we decided that our stories will only have ten stories in it as well. It should be very interesting to see how the students use the ideas to create their own, creative endings to the story with only ten sentences to work with. We will also be putting the good copies on the blog for you to read and share with your family!!

Here is a video of the story along with the trailer from the movie. Kylie had already seen the movie and told us about many of the differences from the book. It sounds like a great movie!

Here is the spelling list for this week with the link for spelling city. The memory verse will go up on the blog tomorrow. Also a note that Friday will be Fall Colour Day and I am looking for some volunteers for a project we will be doing on that day as well. It would be for the morning. I told the students that they do not want to miss Friday as it will be an action packed day!!!!

Spelling M 5

Here is a story from Storybird.com that Eilidh and I co-wrote. I am really enjoying the ability to put these stories into the blog. If you have a story that you would like me to include just let me know the name of the story and I will keep my eye out for it to embed it in the blog. Enjoy!

donuts anybody? on Storybird

Just a quick post of some fun things. In the rush of last week, I forgot to mention that tomorrow is School Colours Day – jeans, and red, white or black shirt. If you do not wish to wear those colours, you must wear your uniform. As well, please try to pick a shirt that is mostly red, white or black with as small a logo as possible if there is a logo on your shirt.

I just discovered that today, Storybird.com is now allowing you to embed stories into your blog. So let’s get going!!! I have added the very first storybird I ever did below! Enjoy!

An Animal Alphabet on Storybird

Finally, a fun video from a series that my wife and I enjoy. The Simon the Cat series of videos are always hilarious. Enjoy the rest of your day! I am off to do some singing!!!! Ta ta!

I really enjoyed this article on giving compliments on this nice site I just found called Eensies. In the article the authors talk about the importance of giving compliments and the different types of compliments; some of which are more effective than others. I have pasted the article below:

We all try OUR best to focus on positive reinforcement and giving our kiddos compliments that will make them feel confident and validate their efforts. However, it’s quite easy to forget to teach them the art of complimenting. We do want them passing on the love to siblings, friends and you!

At school we make lists of compliments- a.k.a. “put-ups” in kid language. We discuss ones that are heartfelt, “You are a good friend because you listen to me.” Ones that are nice, but don’t really boost someone up such as, “I like your shoes.” And ones that compliment a specific skill, “You are good at reading because you use characters’ voices.”

It takes some time, lots of practice and the opportunity to discuss how it makes them feel to give and receive put-ups. But, little by little, I start to “catch” the kids spreading words of kindness. Of course, we discuss the opposite, the put-downs, and what they sound and feel like. But, I try to accentuate the positive in an effort to eliminate the negative. Why not give it a try at home?

This is something we could try to focus on in our weekly class meetings. We always start our class meeting with greetings where the students learn to look others in the eyes and shake hands properly. We then go on to thanking the people in our class for the good things they did. These tips would certainly fit in when we talk about why we are thanking the other classmates for what they did that was nice. It would also make a nice lesson on how to treat friends and encourage others.

Here is a nice video talking about raising people up, which is what we can do when we try to compliment and not hurt people. I’m not always a Josh Groban fan but I really like the African Children’s Choir.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you for doing your homework tonight and cheering for the Oilers. The cheering and encouragement from all of you paid off and the Oilers were victorious over the Canucks. The final score was 2-1. Thanks for all your wonderful support!!

Here is a little bit of fun to start of your weekend. We have been listening to the Brad Mehldau Trio this week. They are a jazz trio using piano, bass and drums. They probably are one of the bigger names amongst the most recent of jazz groups coming out and we have really been enjoying them. The low key, soft sounds have really been nice to have as background. Anyway, I found this video a few days ago and I thought it would be a nice compliment to what we had been listening to. It is a jazz piece by John Coltrane called Giant Steps. The author of the video took the music and matched it with the sound of the music to create a really neat video where you can follow the music along with the sound to get an idea of how they match.

Have a great weekend!