“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Between stealing moments of watching the Olympic games in Russia we have actually been doing some work. :) I have tried to tie in the Social Studies with this very exciting period for sports enthusiasts. Definitely and effortlessly we are getting the citizenship and pride of your country covered. Getting to see the symbols and anthem in action has also been a great experience. Though not normally involved, I do like to see how Canada does on the world stage. Very well, I would say!!
We are doing a mini-unit on Russia and I found this great art project on pinterest. We have been seeing these giant Matryoshkas (How Russian!) on the slopes in Russia. After painting a background, we traced, drew and brightly coloured the shapes; cut them out and pasted them to the background. The kids really enjoyed drawing the designs and colouring them... and who's to say that a Matryoshka can't have horns?!
Now for a taste of traditional Russian Music and costume, here's some lively music...
I found this video along with other activities at this site. Activity Village
School has been busy as ever. I am looking forward to a bit of a break after Valentine's Day. We have just finished off a social studies unit on Australia. What a great country to study! The uniqueness of it adds to the interest. Being a continent, island, and country in itself was a great lesson to my students. They have been introduced to these concepts and to all the facts that make for a very interesting study!
When putting together a unit study my first stop is always the school library. Here are some of the books I found and used.
Story books
Books by Mem Fox -- One of my favourite authors and she's from Australia.
Early chapter books and step-by-step drawing books.
Non-fiction books.
and of course we made a book -- A is for Australia, an acrostic poem.
Uluru Rock came in central on this page of amazing animals by one of my first graders.
Paintings of the Coral Reef.
We started with finger-painting a blue background. Then we added yellow paint to the top and red to the bottom and mixed them with the blue to make green and purple for the hues of the sea. The students used their thumb print for the school of fish and added sea plants in yellow. This was a nice activity that was successful for all students.
Aborigine Dot Art
The Australian animal was drawn on black paper, cut out, and then decorated with different sized dots in metallic tempera paints. We also made boomerangs, but some things make it home faster than others. I never got a picture.
Animal Non-fiction stories.
You-tube is a great source of information.
Great Barrier Reef Video -- my students just love this one. We are watching it a little at a time as we find a few minutes.
My students' all time favourite song!
...and my favourite Australian collection!
If you will be studying Australia, here is a link to my pinterest board.
Our first science unit of the year is coming to an end. We started with a unit on soil in the environment. This has been a great study, for me and the students. We now have a compost bin in the trees by the school. A bit late in the year to start with, but it will be a good learning experiment anyway.
We did an art piece on the components in soil. I put the students in groups and had them come up with things we find in soil. We then gathered in front of the SMARTboard and they read their list as I typed them into the wordle generator. The great thing about the generator is that if you enter repeats, the word increases in size. We then picked the style and colour we wanted. Earth tones, of course, worked really well for this. One of the kids was quick to notice that earthworm came out in an earth-wormy kind of colour!
After making the wordle, they each drew and coloured in crayon the items on the list. We then gave the drawing a black paint wash. They turned out well.
I kept the rocks part of the unit back as we would like to take a field trip to the rock pit at Souris. Now all we need is for the sun to shine again!
Today was our much anticipated pumpkin day at school. After the first hard frost we were invited to the pumpkin patch and every child got to pick their own pumpkin. They had fun and each knew what they were looking for; size, colour, or shape were important to individual students.
We started our day with reading a selection of books from our pumpkin collection.
Next we measured and recorded the height of our pumpkin, counted the lines, and drew it. Then we got to see if the pumpkin floated or sunk. This is always a surprise to the students!
Then we had a step by step drawing lesson. Everyone enjoyed this and everyone was successful! Our first attempt was done in our sketchbooks, then we got heavier paper, drew it again, traced with a fall coloured sharpie, and water-colour painted it.
Finally we cleaned our pumpkins and carved them! Most of the students were able to carve their own. I wouldn't have trusted them, but this is a group with many boys and they all have treasured pocket knifes that are used for a variety of tasks including sharpening arrows and skinning branches!
Crude, but effective; and well-loved too!
Proud as punch!
After dinner we finished cleaning up and then enjoyed a few more of our pumpkin stories. While the grades two and three students practiced a reader's theater on pumpkins, the grade ones finished their paintings.
As the paintings dried we watched The Berenstain Bears - The Prize Pumpkin found here.
Lastly our pumpkin paintings were cut out, labeled and displayed with our back-to-school scarecrows. This was a fun day for us all! Next up -- Apple Day!
I am sitting in a classroom and the only sounds I hear are the wind blowing and a lawnmower in the distance. This is a rare day indeed -- the first one this term where I get the school to myself. Granted, I had my kindies this morning. They didn't get to go on the much anticipated field's trip to Winnipeg. There are seven of them. That is too many five-year-olds to keep an eye on, the trip to Winnipeg too long and who knows how kindergartners will sit through a few Imax movies.
It was the parents' decision to keep them home. They will get a local fun trip some time this week.
I took the opportunity of having them alone and did an art project which we have been waiting to try -- Plasticine art by Barbara Reid. She has a series of great videos and written instructions of her techniques on her website. There is also a gallery of student art to view which my students enjoyed immensely.
So here are our master-pieces! I must say I expected to work a few days on these, but this is kindergarten...and we just DO!
Now, I must get back to work. I have started on end-of-year clean-up. I know I should do reports, but I find I work better in a cleaner environment!
We made these origami butterflies a few weeks ago as one of our theme activities.
Seeing that the fox differed by only a few folds we attempted these too. Every one had a few finished ones and I am always happy to see that some students go off on a tangent once the know how to do this.
Origami Fox Family - created by one of my students in Grade 2.
These are quite simple to make and after a few tries my students' fox collection grew to a family group! The brown paper is origami paper and the orange is simply sheets from a desk note block and plain paper cut down to size.
The weather has been just gorgeous. This winter has been storybook perfect. Sometimes I admit I miss the snow and cold, but that aside, the weather has been perfect for outdoors activities. I have never seen kids get so much out of sledding, their main hill -- a ditch by the school. Normally the snow is too deep for sledding around here. This year, the children have been using their sleds and toboggans since the first snowfall. They have been using the hills not just for sledding, but also as a skiing outlet.
We went sledding as part of our Valentine's Day fun. The sledding hill at Spruce Woods Park is closed this year due to absence of snow. Another in Brandon that was contacted is also not open. That was good news to me (I don't like any field trips!) though the kids absolutely love spending time at the sledding hill in Spruce Woods Park for a day.
We have a decent hill going down one of our larger sloughs. Valentine's Day was balmy so the snow was almost too sticky at first, but after a few runs, the going was good!
Of course, I spent my time refereeing the gang. Kids see no qualms in coming back in the same path as the others are zooming down. How they manage without adult supervision in their own time is beyond me.
After a half hour of sliding fun, we came back to school, ready for games and snack.
In the morning for math time, I had a few games ready to play. The 'Ten More' was a great one as my Grades 1- 3 are learning about math strategies now. It was simply throwing a die and adding ten more. I had the younger students use a bead frame until they got the pattern.
Wow... only one post this school year! I had no choice but to check back here when a spammer invaded. Great that there is such a thing as 'block'!!
I always try to keep Christmas at school from turning into a craft fair. There is just too much lost when you give in to doing every cute and neat idea around.
We started our celebration with a countdown calender. The students each water-coloured (y'all know that water-colour paints are my favourite colouring medium!) a sheet of paper for the background. This activity is still connected to the Kindergartens' colour unit. We only started mixing colours the last two months. I take out the specific colours I want them to use from their palettes. That way they are limited.
The first time we did this they had the primary colours. I waited for and loved to hear the first, "I made orange!". They did not expect it.
They then coloured a picture of an angel I found on the net, and cut out and assembled a booklet of numbers and a title. This was an activity I did a few years ago and lost. I was anxiously searching for it when it occurred to me that I can make my own!
The next week, we spent a few days on window stars. These we made with kite paper. The Kindergarten students folded an easier one than the rest of the class. I helped them with assembling. The grades 1-3 were on their own with this activity and did just fine. We now have brilliantly colours stars adorning our windows. The students of-course are eagerly waiting to take them home.
Once they had done the one-coloured star, they ventured to different colour combinations.
As you can see from outside the windows, we have almost no snow this year. That made it possible for us to have a real Christmas tree in our class this year. One of our families graciously brought it back for us when going to get their own tree.
I tried to keep it natural by limiting the decoration. The children think it wonderful!
I haven't posted student work in a while. Here are some of the projects we've done in the last few months.
Block printing -- the picture is etched in foam board, inked with a roller and pressed on to the paper. These turned out really well, I thought!
Tempera painting -- a block of cardboard was used to make the tree and their thumb-print for the snowy owls. The details were added with a fine line marker once it was dry.
Polar bears -- torn paper art. No scissors were used.
Polar bears again; this time out of air dry clay.
Valentines day mobile -- quilling idea, though out of larger strips.
Yes -- I still have a Nativity scene in my classroom.
I was going to put it away for the year when I found it thus arranged. I thought it too cute!!
As adults we like to make a pleasing scene where all figures are seen; kids have different thoughts. Someone arranged it so that all figures were huddled around the baby Jesus!
Today is our last school day before Christmas. I spent the morning finishing of things with the kids and doing a last minute practice of our song 'The Huron Carol'.
The picture shows a few of the crafts I did with my k-3 class this year. The stars, (2 kinds) were from a German site. http://www.basteln-gestalten.de/sterne-basteln
One of the stars begins with a triangle and one with a square. They were manageable for my Grade 1-3s.
The angel was from a little PM guided reading book, 'The Christmas Tree'. I read it with some students and they showed the other children how to make them. Cute and pretty straight forward.
It has the Nativity story told in poem form on one side and the pics to go with it on the other. The whole thing folds accordion style into a decorated mirror compact. Of course the kids loved it. Enough so that it is not being be-gifted by some of them. They want it for themselves!
Tonight is the school concert. It promises to be a great affair -- lots of singing which is a highlight to me. I shall try out my new flip video camera and see if I get anything worth posting.
Friday morning we had a visitor at school doing soapstone carvings (Native American) with all the students. The carver was of Metis origin and it was such a great experience for the students. He had a blanket spread out on the floor on which he sat and all his supplies were laid out on it. We all (me included) sat around him in a semi-circle.
I was amazed how successful the students all were with the little fish charms they carved.
When the students were almost done the first guided carving, they each got 2 more small slabs of soapstone and made a design of their own choice; some choosing to copy one of many that were on display and others their own original art. This leaflet was made by one of the grade six boys and was so good. There was a whimsicalness about it which was so original .
I joined in and was as immersed in the task as the kids were. It was nice to sit back again and follow along rather than being the instructor. The stone was great to carve. We used files of different sizes and scouring pads to polish the finished art. Following is the piece that I made with the instructor's guidance.
Much to everyones delight, he finished of by drilling a hole through the pieces and supplying a crude twine for a necklace. These have been proudly worn by the students whether or not the shape is identifiable!
