Budding Daffodil

I just had to drop by at school today.  The daffodil buds were beckoning. I had to see if they opened and get pics to show they kids in case the miss this stage.

A most brilliant yellow was beaming from the opening bud!

This morning we woke up to this scene.  The snow came silently during the night without warning.  I went for a long walk last evening and there was not a hint of snow or rain!  The children greatly enjoyed the wet snow and mild weather.  Needless to say, by 3:00 it had all but disappeared.

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."
-  Henry Van Dyke, Fisherman's Luck, 1899

When I saw this chunk of daffodils peeking through the soil in my flower garden I was pleasantly surprised.  How often do we get flowers in March in this part of Manitoba?  When a winter storm threatened them I decided to  transplant the bulbs.   Most years they do not survive to the blooming stage so I tried my luck by bringing them indoors.

I potted them and lugged them to school to a sunny spot on a book-shelf.  We were all pleasantly surprised to find them not only a lot taller but with buds when we came back to school the following Monday.

Most of my students have never seen a daffodil and were awing over one we saw in a book this week.  I can't wait for them to see a real one!


 'for behold, the winter is past;
     the rain is over and gone.
 The flowers appear on the earth,
    the time of singing has come,'


Song of Solomon 2:11-12

The pictures were re-sized and edited with picmonkey - a new photo editing program online.  Already a favourite of mine, if you used picnik;  picmonkey is a great alternative.

Dusk

If you glance up in the evening sky lately you will notice a few brighter stars than normally.  These happen to be a planetary show of Venus and Jupiter in the west and Mars in the east.  Though they appear as nothing more than brighter stars, I still find it interesting that we get to see planets unaided by a magnifying device.  Also this is a rather uncommon occurance that you get both planets together like this.  Read more about the event here. 

This is my attempt to capture Venus and Jupiter.

March

Okay, so March is NEVER green in Manitoba, hardly ever brown, and this year, the white colour has only been dominant the last week.  Whatever snow we've been getting managed to blow away or melt.  However, this last snowfall, though not much, has been sticking around.

I was going through last summer's photos when I found these pics.  It's amazing how beautiful everything is.  Pictures that were deemed not much are stunningly beautiful if your life has been void of  fresh new colours.

 Had to post the ferns in honour of the green month!

... and the nest, just because I like the colour too.

February Fun

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.

You can find the game here.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Add-10-More-Bingo

 I tried to have a variety of activities for the day.  This was an easy craft I found which everyone, kindergartens included enjoyed making.

http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-837271-sweetheart-songbirds--t/

Who Can Read?

'Jeremiah learns to Read' by Jo Ellen Bogart is a wonderful book to introduce the importance of reading to children.  Jeremiah, who has children and grandchildren, and can do almost anything, from building split-rail fences to making maple syrup, wants to learn to read.  At the end of the story he ends up going to school and learning.

The book is also great for creating discussion.  Who is Jeremiah?  Why would he want to read?  What would he read if he could?  I wonder why he can't read.  Do you read?   Who else have you seen reading?  and  next will be What do you read? What have you seen others reading?

I used the book with my fluent readers for guided reading and as a read-aloud with my kindergartens.  With the Ks I went on to do a chart on 'Who can read?'.  They all now know that THEY can read.  They read their and others' names, numbers, some letters...

We are working on this little repetitive book.
They draw, I write the words.

For this little guy I wrote the first page words, he took matters into his own hands for the next.  I never saw it until I checked their books after school.

When I came around to him again and asked what to write this time, he said, "Darion can read."  

 "I can read." I said and wrote it down that way.  Well, he knows what he wants to say, and (honestly, this is the first real writing he has done!)  He wrote it his way!  I love it!

Christmas

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!