A Good Teacher / A Good Student

We brainstormed and came up with a list of what makes a good teacher and what makes a good student.

When we brainstorm like this, sometimes the students do the writing and sometimes I write what they say. But it is ALWAYS in their words.
I would love it if the students always did the writing, but sometimes I help due to :
TIME - it is really hard for everyone else to sit and wait while someone writes a sentence. Multiply that by 21 sentences.  That is a lot of time (likely over an hour). We usually start to lose our audience after the second student writes :) . So we take turns. Because I can write while they talk!

Also -- some students feel shy about written in front of everyone at this point. Some students are not ready to write yet -- I will help to boost their confidence by having them write the first letter (or letters -- whatever sounds they know), then I complete the word.

I often do the writing if we are going to be reading the chart often and independently. But again -- it is in the students words.

The class was more vocal about what makes a good student!

International Dot Day September 15(ish)

"It was like our dots exploded!"

That was one of the comments from a Grade 1 student.

We have been exploring line, and we made our lines extend from our dots. We used colourful lines, skinny lines, thick lines, loop-de-loop lines, zig zag lines, and so many more!

Parents: you will see them all in person on Curriculum night -- this Thursday!

International Dot Day!

Today is International Dot Day!

International Dot Day, a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, began when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot on September 15, 2009.

  

Stay tuned to see how we "make our mark"! 

Welcome to Room 15!

Welcome to all new students and parents in Room 15!
We will try to keep you updated with our current classroom learning. If there is something that you would like to see on our blog -- please let Ms. Brown know!

You can also keep up to date with our learning by following our twitter account :
@msbrownsroom

Milk bags

Ms. Harris and her group of weavers have been putting our milk bags to good use!

They have completed one mattress which will be sent off to be used in a country that needs them. (We are not sure where it will go yet)

It took over 1000 milk bags to complete this mattress. Our class collected more than half of them!
(note the hands holding up the mattress -- these are Grade 8 students -- this mattress is huge!)

Happy Father's Day!

  Happy Fathers Day to all of the men in our lives -- our dads, daddys, babas, uncles, grandfathers, papous, and great grandfathers!

We painted blocks of wood and attached some very close up photos to them. They looked amazing -- sorry that I can't show the finished products.

We worked with bright acrylic paints and worked on layering and then adding details.

Introduction to equations

We are learning how to balance equations.

We learned that the equal sign ( = ) means "the same as"

To introduce the word "equation" we read this book and made up some funny word equations.
These were from the book : "small + bottle = baby" and "tall + coffee = grown-up" 

We were all familiar with equations such as
2+3=5
but students had difficulty when we switched things around a bit 5 = 2+?
We had been relying on standard equations for too long!

We used an actual balance scale to physically balance cubes to find out what "balanced".

The Grade 2's learned how to balance in a more complicated way.
They tried equations like 5+2 = 4+? 
We learned to solve one side of the equation, and then solve the other side.
Our balance scale mat really helps to remind us how to solve the equations.