Stories of the Landscape through Land Art

Today our project was to build a piece of  temporary land art that told a story about the landscape, using natural spaces and objects collected from the woods.

We began by watching a YouTube video of an artist named Andy Goldsworthy.  He creates land art in Scotland and England.  He is inspired by nature and when he is walking, hiking or traveling he looks for spaces that inspire him to create a piece of land art.  The only way that people can enjoy his art is if they come upon it in their travels as they are outside.  Because it is temporary he never knows how long it will be there to be enjoyed by others.  We felt inspired and so we went outside and began to work on our own pieces of land art.  We could work by ourselves or in groups of two or three.  Enjoy our pieces of temporary land art in the Whispering Woods.

Rinse and Repeat

This morning we worked on the same projects that we were working on yesterday.  This afternoon we were working very hard on our dioramas so that we can finish them for sharing to our big buddies and some of the other classes.

We started our Helper Jar today, that means that each day we will choose a new helper.  For this helper day they will be asked to bring something from our sharing category.  We brainstormed a whole bunch of categories this morning.

Our helper on Monday will be Nicholas.  Our sharing category is to bring something that you have made to show to the class.

Tomorrow will be a regular fresh air Friday.

Mr "P" Spirit Day

1. Things we did today, this morning we read a story called "The Prairie Alphabet".   After the story we talked about what things from our list made yesterday, were in the story.  Then we had to fill in a chart with a partner.  It was about the prairies, we could use words and pictures.  The categories on the chart were: buildings, landscape, climate, resources, job and culture. Culture includes people, food, music.   We also added transportation on to the back.
2. Math, We worked on our Pattern Paloozas.
3. We copied our landscape practice sketch on to our water color paper.
4. We had finish up and free choice. Our finish up jobs were journals and facts for our bug research.
5. Word work and printing, letter Hh today.  The grade twos used ideas from the "Ways to Practice Our Words" poster to practice words from their word list.
6. We had a lot of fun today looking for Mr. "P" original tickets to try and win a prize.

Here we are with our Mr. "P" mannequin.
"Peace out"

Mrs. Polski came and read us our take home book.  She left us in suspense to see what happens at the end.  We have to read it at home to find out!

This week we have been working on the climbing wall in gym.  We have been practicing trying to keep our bodies close to the wall and our bottoms in so that our core is engaged and close to the wall.  

There can only be one person on each panel.  Mrs. Hamby stands on the mats to spot us.

We move across the wall from one end to another .

It is making our arms stronger too!

Spirit Day

Tomorrow will be a Spirit Day.
The Spirit Day committee has decided that it will be a MR. P Spirit Day!
That means that you can dress like Mr. P, flannel shirts, plaid shirts, sweat shirts, or t-shirts and jeans.  You can also bring your favorite travel mug and carry it around with you all day. If you have a fake mustache or beard you can wear it.  There will be "Mr. P" originals hiding around the school and if you are lucky enough to find one you can bring it to room 4 and you will have your name put in to a  prize draw.

Tomorrow will be Mrs. Thompson's, our Mount Royal practicum student, last day in our classroom.  We made some cards for her this afternoon as a way to show our appreciation and a heart felt goodbye.

This morning after guided reading we began a conversation and about the prairies, as this is one of the communities for our our social studies focus this year.  We brainstormed and made a list what we think you might see if you were exploring or driving through a prairie community.  After that we read a story by David Bouchard called, "If You're Not From The Prairie".  As we learn more about the prairies we will see whether or not what we thought was true.  We also looked at a map of Canada to see which provinces were prairie provinces.  We discovered that Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are the prairie provinces.

In math today we had a Pattern Palooza Challenge.  The challenge is that we have to fill a large piece of graph chart paper with patterns.  The challenge has two rules.  One rule is that you can only repeat the same type of pattern twice.  This means if you make an ABAB pattern you can only make another AB pattern one more time.  The other rule is that two patterns of the same type can't be right beside each other.  We have to use letters to describe the core of the pattern and write them into the boxes of the core.  We also have to outline the core of the pattern in each row.  Once we finish these we will have them laminated to become our fun lunch placemats.

Pattern Palooza Challenge

Treat Day Tomorrow

Reminder- Tomorrow is treat day sponsored by room 2.  Please remember to send 25 cents for each treat that you would like your child to buy.

We started off the morning with guided reading and home reading.  We only had one home reading helper today.  There seems to be a flu bug going around the grade one and two classrooms and our home reading volunteer had it too.  We hope he is feeling better soon.

We worked on journals this morning.  Many of us tried to remember our journal writing goals that we had made at conferences and we made an effort to work hard towards that goal today.

After recess we had word work and printing.  The grade twos got to highlight all the words that they had correct on the spelling review from last week.  Most of us have words to practice and try to get better at spelling.

In math today we went  on to Mathletics and to practice patterning and numbers.  We are getting better at logging on to the computer so that we have more time to do what our job is that day.

We started the afternoon with finishing up journals and free choice for those that had finished.

In computer time today we had to create a small sign of our bug's name to go along with our diorama.  After Mrs. Hamby checked it, we printed them right away.

Then we had library and gym.
In gym today we got to go on the climbing wall.  The grade ones went first while the grade twos used the badminton racquets and then they switched so that everyone could have a turn.

CBC Production Day

We worked very hard to get ready for this day.

The first and last song we recorded were our best ones.

We think it went really well and so did Mr. O'Reilly

We sang the song three times.

We had professionals to help us. One was Mr. Embry, and he video taped us and the other  person was  Rob, the sound recorder and he is Mr. O'Reilly's band mate.

The song was 3 minutes long.

The grade four, five and six classes made the props and sets.

We practiced three days this week and they were long practices.

All three grade one and two classes performed in the afternoon all together.

These are the singers.

It was so much work but it was so much fun!

Here are the percussionists and the xylophone players.

This is the other group of percussionists and xylophone players.

The performance will be on Youtube in about a week.  The link will be added to our school page.

Conferences and CBC Musical

Today we spent the day preparing for conferences.  We worked hard on our arthropod research and dioramas and we also cleaned out our desks and organized some of our work.  

In math we talked about and tried out some growing patterns.  We used our insect patterns to try and show a growing pattern.  Some of us chose to continue to work on the  patterns we had started yesterday.

In the afternoon we had another practice to prepare for tomorrow's recording of "The Yellow Taxi".

Grades one and two will be recording in the afternoon.

Tomorrow evening and Friday will be Face to Face Conferences.  If you have not yet booked your conference please go online to book it.  There will be no school Friday.

CBC Music Practice

This morning after guided reading we worked on our arthropod research.  Many of us have started our dioramas and have been adding more details each day.  Some of us are trying to compete our research bubbles of food, habitat, survival and interesting facts.

In word work the grade twos finished their spelling test and the grade ones had book bin time.
In math today, we worked on finishing up our pattern posters and some of us worked on insect patterns.  Our job was to create patterns using insect pictures and show a variety of pattern types.

This afternoon we had a long practice with all the grade one and two classes together.  We did two things really well.  We set up the instruments without dropping them and we played really well.  Tomorrow we can improve on two things.  They are not wasting time and making sure that we are listening better.
This afternoon we worked on our landscape sketches and then we went to our practice.  We felt very tired after the practice.

Stories of the Landscape

Today we worked as photographers and artists..  We are learning to all stories of the landscape.  We tarted by reading a story about Claude Monet and how his pantings told stories of his garden landscape in France.  Then we looked at Ansel Adams black and white photography and how his photos tell landscape stories.  We also looked at work from the Group of Seven.  We looked at pictures and paintings and talked about what the focal point of the picture .  We also talked about what story the artist might be trying to tell about the landscape.

We were put into small groups and we had to go outside and take our own photos of the landscape.  We were only supposed to take 10 photos and they were supposed to be pictures that told interesting stories of the land.  When we went back inside we looked at photos that had taken and had to choose the one that we thought told the most interesting story.  We then did a practice sketch of that picture in preparation for a painting.Here are some of our landscape stories...