Tuesday 15 December 2015

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

The Countdown continues.....2 MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL

We started our day right off the bat with practice in the gym!!  This was a run through of our large group performance and storytelling.  The songs sound wonderful and our mc's and storytellers are ready for the big day tomorrow!

Back in class, we took a nutrition and body break so that we were ready for our small group rehearsals until lunch time.  Students are reminded to use big voices and big movements and to breathe deeply if they feel the WHOOSH tomorrow!  Take this evening off and rest up!  Have a good night's sleep and a good breakfast in the morning so you are ready for our dress rehearsal.

Christmas caroling is always a joy!  Look at the members of our class who were performing Tone Chimes.  Look at the tall student with a beard in the middle.

The storytelling practices are going well.  This afternoon we had the opportunity to practice in our performance spaces.  We worked on our volume, movement and getting rid of our whooooshes.

In Mrs. Bowles Math Group looked at what 'balance' means.  We are going to use this to help us with making balanced equations.  Today we used pattern blocks to make balanced equations.


In Mr. Demman's Math group we demonstrated our understanding of all the information collected while discussing patterns and relations.  We applied that understanding to pattern recognition and problem solving.


Things to Remember:

1.)  Please remember donations for the Humane Society by Thursday.
2.)  PE will be outside this week because of the gym being set up for practices.  Please dress warmly.
3.)  Wednesday, December 16th is our Performance Date - 6:00 pm  Your child will be bringing home a slip that tells where their performance takes place.  Doors won't open until 5:45 and there is a performance in the gym prior to heading to your child's performance area.

Question of the Day:

What do Santa's Elves learn at school?

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Monday 14 December 2015

Monday, December 14th, 2015

The Christmas countdown has begun!
Three more days of school.

We had an exciting morning as we spent time with the Puppy Pals dogs and their handlers!  We were so fortunate to have them come in and share their experiences is how to train a puppy to be a service dog.  We learned that both the dog and the handler need to have a grown mindset!  Blaise has many special talents!  Please tell your parents about some of the things she can do to help people!












After snack and read aloud, we spent some time practicing for our performance on Wednesday evening.  Please continue to practice at home!  We look forward to seeing everyone here on Wednesday evening!

This afternoon we tried to pack as much into an afternoon as possible.  We started off with math.  In Mrs. Bowles' group we finished up our "Show What You Know" about Patterns.  You have all really come a long way in explaining your thinking.  No brain surgery for Mrs. Bowles.
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We have accomplished a lot in our learning and you should be excited about what you are showing me.

With Mr. Demman we learned about balanced equations.  We formed our discussion around the importance of the equal sign. We identified the difference between equations and non-equations.

We are almost done Wonder.  We hope to be finished before the break.

After our Nutrition Break we spent some time filming our storytelling. We will be adding them to our IRIS.  We won't share them with our parents until after our presentation on Wednesday evening.  We don't want to ruin the surprise. 

In gym, we played a riveting game of Partner-Scooter Capture the flag.  The students worked effectively as partners and as team members.  Great work!!! 

We finished the day with some Twitter work.  Please check @thewonders80 and see a picture of our day with the therapy dogs.  We also posted a couple of polls for you to answer.

Things to Remember:
1.)  Wednesday is Performance Evening - 6:00 pm. - we will send home a slip of paper to let you all know which room they will be performing in.  All parents will meet in the gym to watch a short performance.

2.)  Thursday afternoon will be caroling and a small party.  If you would like to send in a healthy snack for the class please email  tabowles@cbe.ab.ca

3.)  The  Stead family is collecting donations for the Calgary Humane Society.  If you have any of the following items you would like to donate.  We will collect them here in our class:
 ~ old towels, "flat" sheets  (most needed) or blankets
~ ice cream pails
~ canned dog or cat food. 
Zabby if you could let us know when you need these items by on the blog. It would be greatly appreciated.  You can bring items into the class until Thursday.


4.) Students and parents of Cranston School are being invited to participate in an online survey suggesting names for the new Middle School. The link below will take you to the survey - please complete by January 6, 2016.  Thank you!


Question of the Day:

What is your favourite activity to do over the winter break?

Thursday 10 December 2015

Thursday, December 10th, 2015

We started our morning off with a reading comprehension strategy about making predictions.  Mr Demman read 'Ish' and "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds.  We stopped along the way to practice the strategy while also making story connections to growth and fixed mindsets.

Jeff Stockton paid us another visit today.  We practiced our story telling in our groups in preparation for our upcoming performances; so many great stories and fantastic interpretations from our story tellers!

In math, with Mr. Demman, we discussed the difference between tables and charts.  We discovered that there are many reasons to use both and how they can help us sort information and solve problems.  As a group we created a table for our data that then informed our chart.

In Mrs. Bowles' math group, we were showing what we have learned during our work on patterns. Boy do we ever know a lot.  She is very pleased with how much better we have gotten at explaining our thinking.

Mr. Stockton came and worked with us on an escape plan if our Woooosh gets too much for us when we are performing.  He then told us a great story where Mrs. Bowles shot us down from bubble gum balloons with spitballs!  Ask me about that???

We were invited to watch the other grade 1/2 Christmas Concert today. It was called The Reindeer Whisperer.  It was so good!  We laughed at the reindeer that kept saying, "I want to be a dentist."

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1.)  Sorry Zabby we forgot to talk about the project you are doing with your family.
The family is collecting donations for the Calgary Humane Society.  If you have any of the following items you would like to donate.  We will collect them here in our class:
 ~ old towels, "flat" sheets  (most needed) or blankets
~ ice cream pails
~ canned dog or cat food.
Zabby if you could let us know when you need these items by on the blog. It would be greatly appreciated.
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2.)  We are still collecting for the Mayor's Food Bank
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3.)  We will be going outside for a little bit tomorrow but not the full hour as we have a presentation at 11:00 a.m.

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Tell us how you are feeling about performing your story.  What strategy are you using to help you with your Wooosh.

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

Hello Everyone,

This morning was a busy one and we all worked our best through it!  We started with a round of Daily 5 to get ourselves on track.  Mrs. Zwack and Mr. Demman are trying to get to everyone as often as possible during the busy schedule of Jeff Stockton and the many concerts we have been taking part in.

Next we were off to Jeff Stockton with all of the grade 3/4's in the hub.  We broke off into our small rehearsal groups and then had time to practice our storytelling.  Our focus is now on using our voices and our faces and our bodies to help tell the story!

Mrs. Zwack suggests that all student go into the bathroom at home and practice in front of the big mirror.  That way, you can try out different voices for the characters, add in some facial expressions and experiment with different movements.  After some practice time, have your family act as an audience (or your pets, or dolls, or stuffies) and pretend that you are doing your actual performance!  Did you know that if you practice every time as though it is performance day, your muscle memory will kick in and you will be setting strong brain pathways for the night of the performance?  

After snack and read aloud, we reviewed our Growth Mindset-Fixed Mindset sorting activity that we had started last week.  We worked together to decide which statements went in which category.  Our students are getting very good at knowing the difference between the two and that our thinking can determine much of our success!  We will keep the poster up in our room for reference throughout the year.

This afternoon was so full of learning and experiencing I am sure that we are all still vibrating.

We started off with math.  We finally got a whole hour in today, which was awesome!

In Mrs. Bowles' group we finished our investigation on the 12 Days of Christmas.  Mrs. Bowles' lost the pictures that she had taken of our patterns that we had built.  So we needed to use another strategy to help us find out how many gifts True Love gave to Me.  We looked at the chart that we had started and identified the pattern and from finding that pattern we were able to complete the chart and find out how many gifts.  We also had to use some mental math and addition strategies to help us finish the increasing pattern of all the gifts.   We found out that "Me" received a total of 364 gifts.  We also decided that that was a lot of gifts and many of them were birds, which meant there would be a lot of bird droppings.
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After our Nutrition Break we had a session with Mr. Jeff Stockton.  Today we worked on our presentation volume.  Please share with your families the difference levels of volume you have and need to be a storyteller.

We were honoured to be invited to the Grade 1/2 Hope/Harmony Dress Rehearsal.  It was called Christmas at the OK Corral.  It was cute, funny and we even learned a lesson for the season.

We finished off our afternoon by working on our Science Inquiry Scripts.  We hope to get them done soon so that we can make our videos and share them with you on IRIS.

As you can see we have been very busy and still involved in the holiday season.

Things to Remember:
1.)  Non -perishable food for the food bank
2.)  Practice your storytelling
3.) Mathletics - we have pattern activities for you
4.) Do something kind for someone else - see if they notice

Question of the Day:

How are you feeling about the busyness of this time of year?  Can you share a strategy to keep your focus at school?