Paint My School Contest

Recently a parent in the school community

sent me some information about a contest that CBC's

North by Northwest was hosting.  The contest was
for students to draw a picture of what they liked
about their school and to briefly explain why they
chose to create their image.  The prize was a book
written by Katherine Gibson and Margriet Ruurs,
about Canadian painter Ted Harrison, called
"A Brush Full of Colour:  The World of Ted
Harrison".  We were one of ten schools around the
province that won!  Ty Sivak's picture of the apple
was picked as a winner!  Congratulations Ty!
And thank you to Carole Duffy who gave us the
idea to enter the contest-she knew we had
studied Ted Harrison's art last year and she also
knows we like to enter contests!  We are looking
forward to the book arriving for our school
library.

Enjoy!

A friend of mine sent me this short video.  It is a good reminder for all of us about how different we all are and how we all learn differently.  Enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy/videos/1125589420815248/

Halloween mural

Halloween stations are always so

fun!  I adopted Kim's mural idea from

last year.  This is the haunted house

designed by all the students of The

Annex.

Monster math

This was such a fun lesson!  Ms. Conklin,

Ms. Lui and myself got together on one

of our Pro D days and designed this

lesson.  Frankenstein's monsters all

had eye infections and they needed

eye drops.  The students decided how

many eyes their monsters would have

and how many eye drops they needed

in each eye.  Then they did the math

to solve the problem.  Very fun combining

art and math!

Pumpkin Math

First we worked together to carve our pumpkins.

Then we estimated the number of seeds we had.

Next we chose a referent number (an exact number

of seeds to refer to) and we made piles that looked

like our referent pile.  Then we skip counted an

approximate number of seeds.  And finally,

we had some fantastically creative pumpkins to decorate

our classroom!

Camosun Bog

Please enjoy some of our poems that were inspired by our recent trip to Camosun Bog.

Bog, by Clara

The leaves flickering like a candle

As I walk through the bog

It was quiet in the bog

All you could hear was the evergreen trees swaying back and forth

The birds chirping and the wind howling like a wolf

Waves of wind came tumbling over like an earthquake.

The Bog, by Holden

The wind

blows through me

I feel cold

It feels like ice

When I was at the Bog, by Sadie

The birds were soaring 

through the branches of the dark green leaves from the pine trees

The leaves whispered in the wind

Camosun Fun, by Quinlan

I walked through the Bog

With the wind blowing through my face

As soft as a chickadee's wings.

I walked a little further

Suddenly I heard what I was waiting for

The chattering of the leaves

It felt like I was in Paradise

Bog, by Clare

I walk through the bog

I smell chocolately thick mud

I hear leaves whispering to one another

I feel the hairy orange underleafs of Labrador Tea

The bird are singing in a chorus

I jump on the peat

I jump so high

It is like I am flying

I smell the Cedar coming from the distance

I knew I would have to go home soon

Calendar Time

Rather than the traditional calendar time

where the class sits and watches while 

the special helper does the calendar jobs,

every student has their own calendar folder

where they track the number of days at

school, keep the monthly calendar including

special events, tally the weather, and develop 

their number sense by creating equations that

equal the date of number of days at school.  

Sea crows at the beach

At the Annex, we've developed a

wonderful tradition of reading a fantastic

story written by a local author, Shannon

Stewart, whom I met at a professional 

development workshop.  I bought her book, 

Sea Crow, and we've used it ever since

to address the many worries our

students have.  We read the book

at school, talk about our worries, go to

the beach, design and build our sea 

crows and then whisper our worries

to them.  I love this trip!  I love being

out in the fresh air scavenging on the

beach and watching our students

work together to create  magnificent 

sea crows.

Patterns

Patterns are cool!  Division 4 has just wrapped up

learning about repeating, increasing, and decreasing 

patterns.  

Choosing Time

I'm always amazed by the creativity of our students when they get to play.  They love to design and build elaborate contraptions combining elements of math and engineering-just look at all the patterns and symmetry in these buildings!  Not to mention the negotiating skills it takes to produce such works of art!