Smarties

We are sooooo SMART!  That was the main back-to-school lesson in my class this year. After meeting some friends who had done a UDL course this summer, I was intrigued with the Multiple Intelligence part of the course.  Not as if this was new to me, anyone going through teacher's training is introduced to Howard Gardner's work on this.

What I really liked was how student's were introduced to these smarts.  One of the activities I learned about and did was make a class brain.  Simple enough; every child made a play dough snake.  These were piled up to make the brain.  The crucial part was then to map the class strengths.  After compiling surveys and talking about and finding our own strengths, they were written on a flag and put on the brain.  The idea is that students not only recognize each others' strengths but they know where to go to for help in these areas.  :) 

What I really wished for with these lessons is to create a kinder and more understanding classroom environment; one where students recognize their own and other's strengths and also recognize that each of us needs help from others in different areas and that is OK.

These are our back-to-school portraits which I tied in with the lesson. Everyone did their drawing, water-colour painted it, and then made a list of things they were good at.  These were typed up and the students added them to their dried paintings. 

Interesting that it is your fastidious kids who really find it difficult coming up with things they are good at.

And a more recent portrait of us all!

Thanks to Elma at Schuel Stoff for inspiring me to do another post.  The intentions are always present, it is the actual work that is a bit difficult.  

Australia Theme

                      

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.

My Australia Pinterest Board

Soil Wordle

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!