Coffin Cares Assembly

We began our day with guided reading followed by working on our important ideas about me project.  We only had a short time for this since this morning we had our first Dr. Coffin Cares Assembly.  We recognized some of the important teams that work behind the scenes at our school such as the Green Team, Destination Conservation and the lLeadership team.  The Green team did a small skit about the use of snack wrappers and where they need to go for recycling.  We are one of the few schools in Calgary that is recycling candy/snack wrappers.  We also sang our school song lead by grade six students.  Mrs. Polski said that the school would be ordering more school t-shirts and possibly hoodies for families to buy.

After recess we practiced our song for the festive evening.  I have included a copy of the words in case you want to practice at home.



In math we worked on our opinion surveys.  Today we carried out the survey and some of us still need to finish that next week
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This afternoon we had music followed by self-portrait painting.  In gym we played the basketball game that we learned yesterday.  Tomorrow is Fresh Air Friday and we will be spending most of the morning outside in the woods.  Please make sure that your child has all the outdoor clothing needed to be comfortable for the morning.

This morning after guided reading we worked on our "what is important about me" ideas.  We created topic bubbles to include with our self portrait and then to be part of our book.  Some of our topics were celebrations, sports, family, friends, hobbies, art, music, travel and adventure, to name just a few. 

After recess we practiced our song for the festive evening with both grade one and two classes.

In math we worked on our opinion survey questions.  Tomorrow most of us will be ready to begin our survey.

This afternoon we began painting our self portraits.  Mrs. Hamby demonstrated how to paint various skin colors without using white and then also, hair and eyes.  We got started on painting bur we didn't finish.  We saw that all you need is bit of paint and then water to spread the color.  The tricky part is not using too much water or else it spreads and runs into other colors. 

In gym we played a game that was sort of like basketball.  We used a hoop for the baskets and our team had to try and get the ball to the person on our team that was standing in the hoop and they had to try to catch the ball.  Before we could try to get a point in our teams basket, we had to pass it to three people on our team.  We talked about making sure that we weren't the only one on our team having all the fun and that we needed to make sure we shared the ball with our team mates.  We will play this game again tomorrow.

Our helper tomorrow is Mika.
There is a festive evening notice going home today.  Please check your child's back pack for this notice.

What is Important About Me?

This morning when we had some new center choices during guided reading.  One new choice was making a popsicle stick word spacer and the other new center was making a mini book report about a story we like.  Ipads/word work was also still a center.  After guided reading we had library.

We read a story called "The Important Book".  We talked about what is important about us.  We each had to think about what is important about me and to me.  This will help us get ready to begin working on a book about ourselves.  When we know what is important we will know what we want to include in our books.  We will be making paper bag books.

After recess Mrs. Polski came and shared a story with us called, "Good Morning Canada".  It is a TD Book Giveaway program and we each got to have a copy to take home for ourselves.

In math today we talked about reasons for doing a survey.  One reason for a survey is when you need to find out an opinion because you want to make a change or have made a change.  We came up with Dr. Coffin ideas of questions you could ask for a survey.  Some of the ideas were;
Do you like fun lunch in the gym or in the classroom?
Do you like eating lunch more in the gym or in the classroom?
Do you like the curtain open or closed?
Which clubs would you want at our school? (choices provided by student)
Which days do you want for Spirit Days?
We only had enough time to share our question or write it down so we will have to work on them again tomorrow.

Before lunch we had to practice a song that we will be sharing for the festive evening.

After lunch we learned about tints and shades.  We practiced making tints by choosing a color and then adding a little bit more white to it each time.  We started with white and then added our color choice to it using a little bit more each time, so the last strip of color that we did was the darkest.  You could see the color getting darker with each strip of the paper.  It was cool!  Next time we will do shades by adding black.  That one will be trickier!

In gym today we played a mini basketball game with two people versus two people using hoops on the floor to score a point.  Each team of two had a hoop.

We still have lots of treats left over from treat day so we will be selling treats again tomorrow.

Our helper tomorrow is Yazmine. 

Saa'kokoto's Visit Today

This morning was our usual Monday morning routine.  We started with guided reading as others worked on their journal pictures.  At carpet time Mr. Hamby wrote a "hamburger paragraph" about her weekend.  She wrote about going to see the A Christmas Carol by Theatre Calgary.  We also had to find and correct her mistakes.  We also had a story called, "Snowmen All Year".  We worked on our journals until recess time.

After recess we had printing and word work time followed by Math.  In math today we had to finish our 4 choice survey graph.  When we were done we got to go onto Mathletics.

After lunch today Saa'kokoto came to visit our classroom again.  He talked to us about signs that animals give us to show that there is a change coming in the season and the weather.  He talked about horses becoming frisky and active before a storm.  He said that most animals turn their bodies to the storm but the bison never do.  They face the storm head on and all the snow gets caught up in the hair around their face.  That is one of the ways that we know that the buffalo are native to this land.  Most other animals turn their backs or bodies to the storm.  Horses and cows always do this.   He said that in the fall you can see crows gathering as well as other birds such as geese, to migrate to a warmer place.  He talked about how some animals including wild dogs such as wolves and coyotes get thicker coats to stay warm through the winter.  He also shared a story with us and the lesson in the story was that what matters most is what is on the inside of a person's heart, rather than what is on the outside, someone's appearance.  We won't have a chance to have another visit until the spring.

After our visit with Saa'kokoto we had time to finish up our journals followed by gym.

In gym today we played a mini one on one basketball type game called "Hoops".  We had a partner and a hoop on the floor.  Our partner had to guard the hoop and try to prevent us from scoring a point by bouncing the ball in the hoop. Our partner would wave his arms and use his body to block us from the hoop.   If we got a point we switched spots.
After that our class did jobs and sharing.  We noticed that our Amaryllis bulb seemed to be split open a little bit more. Maybe it is preparing for the stem to start pushing itself up.
* Our helper tomorrow is Maria.
*Tomorrow is also treat day hosted by room two.  Remember to bring 25 cents for a treat to be purchased at recess time.

Fresh Air Friday and our visit from Saa'kokoto (Randy Bottle)

I can't see anyone...

I think I see someone over there!

Here we are playing Camouflage in the Whispering Woods.  We had a conversation about predators and prey.  One way to tell whether or not the animal is a predator or prey is to look at where their eyes are placed.  A helpful saying is "Eyes on the side ready to hide.  Eyes on the front ready to hunt."  We also discussed things that prey would do or what they have on their bodies for protection and adaptability.  Our rule in the game was that the predator had to count to 20.  We all had to hide but we had to be able to see the predator from our hiding spot.  The predator had to stand in one spot and when we were spotted they would describe us or call out our name and we had to come out.  We played 4 rounds of the game.  It was so much fun!  We were surprised that even with some of our bright colors we could still hide in the trees by laying down in a dip or sitting against a tree.

Between activities we had our visit with Elder Randy Bottle.  His Blackfoot name is Saa'kokoto.  He talked to us about where colors come from in nature.  He said that the Blackfoot only use five colors to paint their tipis.  They are black, white, blue, red and yellow. All the colors come from berries, rocks and plants.  Black come from charcoal after the fire.  He told us that all berries were medicine.  He also taught us that the carvings at "Writing On Stone Provincial Park" were done by using deer antlers.  They can be very sharp and that is how the pictoglyphs were made.  They would use red ochre to add the red color to the pictures.  We will have another visit with him again on Monday afternoon.

Our second outdoor activity was the Rainbow Chip Walk.  We went out to the Natureground and we had to take a color chip out of the bag and see whether or not we could find that color in nature.  If we couldn't find the color in nature then we could look for something man made that was in the playground environment.

Music Production and Video Day

Please enjoy some pictures from our filming and recording session today!  It took us 1 1/2 hours and 4 takes.

*Monday our special helper will be Ahmad.
Tomorrow Mr. Randy Bottle will be visiting us again to share some of his stories and insights.  We will also be doing some activities outside related to color.

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This morning we worked on our larger Self Portraits using special fancy watercolor paper.  We drew our pictures and next time we will begin to paint them.  In math we worked on recording our survey information onto graphing paper.  We will have to finish on Monday.  When we finished the graph we had to record some ideas about what we found out by doing the survey.  Thank you to the helpers that volunteered for fun lunch and home reading today!

We worked on our self portraits today.  This is a practice for our water color paintings.

Here we are conducting our surveys in math.

Asking our questions...

Recording our tallies.

Tallying up the results.

 

We also had a very big practice today for our special music video tomorrow.  We will be recording the musical video performance tomorrow afternoon.  We are all very excited!
Reminder that tomorrow is fun lunch.

Tertiary Colors

This morning after guided reading we went to the library.  When we were at the library Mrs. Kidd reminded us that every Tuesday we need to remember to bring our library books.  If we don't bring them back she won't let us take out a new book.

Once we came back from library we shared a story called "Willy's Paintings" by Anthony Browne.  The paintings in the book were inspired by other famous paintings hanging in galleries around the world.  We talked about the portrait of Mona Lisa, as it was one of the few in the book.  After that Mrs Hamby demonstrated how an artist uses measurements and symmetry to plan a self portrait by making sure that things are lined up and symmetrical in the  drawings.  She folded the paper and then used some of those lines to show us.  She also held a paint brush by her eyebrow and showed how it lines up to the tip of her ear.  She also did it with Levi and it was the same too!  We will be making a self portrait water color to go on the cover of our books that we will be creating about ourselves.

In math today Mrs. Hamby did a survey about our favorite pizza flavors.  We found out that 7 people like Hawaiian, 9 for pepperoni, 3 for cheese, and 1 for vegetarian. The pepperoni crowd cheered! We had to come up with our own survey question with four choices.  Today we made our survey and tomorrow we will carry out the survey.

After lunch we worked on our Tertiary colors on the color wheel.  We had to mix our colors on a separate piece of paper and then paint them in.  We also had gym and music where practiced for the video.  It has been a very busy day!

Tomorrow is wear a moustache day for Movember and Thursday is Fun Lunch.
Our helper tomorrow is Avery.

Today we worked on our journal pictures during guided reading time.  After guided reading we met at the carpet and Mrs. Hamby showed us how write a paragraph using a hamburger model.  We call them "hamburger paragraphs".  The top bun is the topic sentence.  The tomato is a sentence giving a detail about the topic followed by the lettuce which is another detail and then the burger which is one or two more details about the topic.  The bottom bun is a concluding sentence.  In the end you would have about five or six sentences about one topic.  Mrs. Hamby did a demonstration with her topic sentence being that she started her Christmas shopping this weekend.  The grade twos were encouraged to try it and the grade ones that wanted to could try it as well.

After recess we had printing and the grade twos had solo book time where they needed to be reading a book at their own reading level. 

In math today we worked on finishing up our surveys and those that were done got to go onto Mathletics.

In science today we talked about the color wheel and how a primary color and a secondary color can make a tertiary color.  The colors are beside each other on the wheel with the tertiary color in between them.  We painted the primary and secondary into the wheel and tomorrow we will add the tertiary by mixing the colors to paint them in. 

In gym today we started working on some basketball skills such as dribbling and passing.  In the end we played a partner keep away game by practicing some of our dribbling and using our bodies to keep the ball away from our partners..
Photos are coming home today.
Wednesday is Movember moustache day.  Feel free to wear a moustache that day!
Thursday the day that the kids will be recording the music video.

The Amaryllis Race Is On!

After guided reading this morning we got to play the Guess Who game.  We made teams of three.  To get ready for the game we had to practice reading our teams clues.  When we were ready Mrs. Hamby matched us up with another team of three.  Each team took turns reading the clues and guessing who that might be from the team of three.  It was fun!  Sometimes it was hard to guess and sometimes it was easy to guess who it was.

After recess all the grade ones and twos met.  Mrs Hamby and Mrs. Armour planted Amaryllis bulbs, one for room 1 and 2 and one for the portable.  First we looked at the bulb and talked about what we would need to do so that it would grow.  We looked up some information about planting and watering as well as sunlight requirements.  Each plant needs water once a week until it has a bud.  Each plant needs to sit by the window.  Since both classes have a window we decided that would be the most fair instead of rooms 1 and 2 using "Sunny", the growing lamp in our room.  Once it has a bud we will need to water it twice a week until it blooms.  The race is to see which plant grows the fastest, we will measure once a week and then which plant blooms first.  It will be a "friendly" competition.

In math we worked on our graphs.  A few of us finished but most of us still need more time.  We will show them to you at conferences.  They will be in our math folders.

This afternoon we had music, gym and we also got our work and classroom ready to share with you at conferences.
Looking forward to seeing you and sharing with you, your child's progress over the next two days.  Gavin will be the helper on Monday.

Here are some photos of our day today.
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