Twas the last day of school and all through my class

There were treats and laughs and movies and just a fantastic time. I am a wee bit of a Grinch at this time of year but the kids came dressed up like who's from whoville, Santa and Mrs.Claus and other Christmas characters and you can't help but feel fantastic. We watched a movie and visited with one another talked about our plans for the holiday and just had a great day. A few of the kids shared resolutions to avoid candy in the new year to avoid cavities :) Others said they want to spend more time with their siblings (awww). My resolution will be to learn more, from my students, colleagues and all those around me. I have had the most fantastic first 4 months of school. As I type that I am amazed the time passed so quickly. 4 months down and 6 to go. This has been the most fantastic year and it will only get better!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year...See you in 2 weeks!

Cheers,

Mr.G

Moments like today :)

         Christmas concert was great, kids did an amazing job with all the different songs that were performed. Our Choir teacher is an amazingly talented singer and she performed with her choir the most beautiful song I have ever heard sung by a school choir. I used my recess time to sneak back for an encore. Little moments make teaching the greatest job. Today was full of little moments, kids asking me to give them a tough question to solve (those that tried all had success and it was in the 100 millions!) or the gifts on the desk to start the day. Best moment of my day was looking over during our morning practice for the concert to see one of my fantastic kids fast asleep on the floor. It was just one of the those moments in all the noise and excitement to see them crashed on the floor was just the funniest thing. I woke him up and he went and had a little bit more of a rest through recess. Little guy must have been pretty tired but he performed like a star for the concert. Looking forward to the break and time at home with Mrs.Gilson but I sure am going to miss these fantastic kids! We are going to write some resolutions for the new year tomorrow. I will see if the kids want to post them. Have a great night, last Christmas concert in a couple hours....

Mr.G

2 days....

You would think I was talking about the end of school before the break but nope my no sugar challenge will end Friday. Today I received a couple gifts for Christmas which were really nice. I must talk about how much I miss my baking and chocolate and candy because I got an oven mitt and homemade chocolates. The smell alone was amazing and the kids thought it was SO funny to try and convince me that it was ok to eat them. I have not caved yet and figure I can make it through one more school day :) Christmas concert practice in the morning and then preforming in the afternoon. The kids are excited and do a great job.

We continued some bridge work today in science and things are really coming along. We re trying a new method for subtraction tomorrow and hoping it is the final piece of the puzzle to help all of us really understand subtraction.

Party on Friday after we get a few "work" items finished. THe kids want to post resolutions so look forward to those coming soon!

-Merry almost Christmas.

Mr.G

The no treats challenge

One thing my kids know about me is I love candy haha. So when the rest of my team decided to take up the 21 day challenge with a few alterations mainly just focusing on cutting out candy and chocolate. Now normally I would not have been able to last but I made the very smart call about telling my children about the challenge. Everyday they ask me if I cheated yet. The answer has been no and today was day 18 to which the kids gave a round of applause. Some are quick to point out that eating bread is eating sugar because there is lots of sugar in bread but like I said we made alterations haha.

We had a great day in math and language arts today and are gearing down with 3 days to go before the end of the year. Hopefully we get in a little story writing in the next few days but with the Christmas concert and holiday festivities time is running short.

Today I had kids challenge themselves to a drinking contest (chugging water) I heard about it after the fact but they did draw a comic to illustrate it. I found out what man club is (a group of boys that play on the slide haha) and had my little army of kids for supervision which I enjoy because it gives me a chance to get to know the kids better.

Last day of skating tomorrow, concert on Thursday.

Merry Christmas!

Mr.G

Tape-worms :)

Odd title I know haha. Today was a good day for the Super 3's. We began our morning with a conversation about safety in the wake of the terrible tragedy in Connecticut. Practiced what we thought was the best way to stay safe in any emergency and then went about our morning as normal. We had a fast lesson on finding unknowns and the kids seem to be getting it but it is still a little tricky for many of us. Time and practice will get us there :) We worked with Dictionaries and Thesauruses while reading Bartholomew Biddle and will practice more tomorrow. Really this is the best book I have read as a teaching tool ever. Fantastic book. The kids went skating for the second last time which they are really enjoying and we started to construct our fantastic bridges. At one point a student was taping another kids mouth closed to which I asked him to stop and by the end of their story as to why the tape was being used that way we discovered one of the kids thought eating tape was a pretty funny thing to do. One of the girls in class did not agree and warned him that eating tape will give you tapeworms. HA Grade 3 is the BEST!

The countdown to Christmas

Today was a fun day like all Fridays. We worked on the loose ends and got a lot finished, read a little and then had friendship keepers. One Friendship keep was written for a student saying nothing more than, "Thank you for being you". What a fantastic way to express appreciation for another person in the classroom. These are the rewards that make teaching the greatest profession in the world. I am grateful everyday that I get to work with such amazing kids. We have been finishing up life maps that we plan to share with the rest of the class and I took a few pictures. We also started working on building bridges and some great wanted posters using Similes in LA. Have a great weekend!

Mr.G

Government time

Today I announced we would be planning our Christmas party through a display of democracy we call government time (the kids love it). We have a Prime Minister of the class as well as opposition parties and we had a lengthy debate as to what we should be doing for our party talked about taxation and ultimately planned what will be a fun time. 

These last few weeks have literally flown by with skating, choir, skating, Christmas concert preparation  skating and more choir it seems like we start the day but never have enough time :) The kids have been so busy that I am not sure they even know we only have a week left before 2 weeks off. Tomorrow we are skating and working on a little bit of loose end tie ups so we come back from the holiday fresh. I will try to post so pictures of the things we have been doing tomorrow. 

Have a great Friday!

-Mr.G

Learning New Words and Loving it

Quick post today. Bartholomew Biddle and the Very Big Wind is a fantastic fun book that is helping us "Tune in" to new words without even knowing it is work. The excitement that was shown by every student as they found a new word in the dictionary that were heard in the story was great to see. Reading to the kids is one of my favorite things to do. They ask to read a book everyday and when we cant fit it in they sit with absolute attention waiting for the next word. I read that for children to really learn to enjoy reading they need to see the adults enjoying reading, laughing at the funny parts, reading with enthusiasm. I came across this quote and thought it applied well to todays thoughts.

Cheers,
-Mr.G

"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all."
— Jacqueline Kennedy

40 bracelets and a fantastic book

Today was a nice start to the week. I was greeted with a bag of 40 friendship bracelets that I was told were for me, put 2 on right there and am excited about having more for everyday until Christmas. Had the opportunity to read with a few of the kids today and saw some great growth. We practiced "tuning in" to new words with the book, "Bartholomew Biddle and the Very Big Wind"by Gary Ross. It is a fantastic book about a boy who uses his bed sheet and the wind to travel around. All written in rhyme it is fun to read and has some really great vocabulary. Skating continued today and the kids really love it. We practiced finding unknown variables in math (who knew that was a grade 3 skill???) and the kids did great and finished our day talking about building bridges which we will be starting this week. Tomorrow I am going to school to learn more ways to help inspire Mathamagicians and then back to work Wednesday to try some new stuff out with the kids. 9 days until Christmas holidays. Time FLIES when you are having fun!!!!

Cheers;

-Mr.G

Laughing until tears=Great Thursday

Today was another fun filled day. This morning we again tackled subtraction and borrowing. My land it can be confusing for these developing Mathamagicians but they all give their 100% best effort every question.

We had some great discussions about what is happening in a few of our novel studies and we are really getting into "The Whipping Boy" in one of our groups. Man Prince Brat is a piece of work. I am hoping he becomes more likeable when we get further in to the story.

We had a fun activity for the kids who could not go skating, we made elves using templates and our imagination. The kids did a really good job and we had a blast. One student finished early and was working with me on another art project. As I sharpened my pencil crayon and it broke 6 times he started laughing so hard he was crying which of course led to contagious laughter and many of us were all cracking up at my terrible luck.

Life in Grade 3 is great!

-Mr G

(Below are some of our elf examples as well as a look at the promised story pyramids.)

Polar Express finished with salt wash-Thanks Ms.K for the great idea!

A little more

Nothing says winter scene like a pack of wolves hunting a bull elk

Self portrait for pen pal letters

Story Pyramids 

Burnt ground is 2 words but we let it pass

Elfis get it? Brilliant grade 3, so funny. 

I think someone stole this ones present :) 

Classic

Long day...Late post

Skating, creating wanted posters looking for Santa's kidnapper and then an evening listening to choirs all around the area. Busy day time for bed. Big update tomorrow!

Mr.G

Learning and Laughing

Today was another busy day. This morning we decided to try doing a story pyramid. We used our "go to" Paper Bag Princess and had a lot of fun learning how to make story pyramids. I took pictures and of course forgot them at school so will post tomorrow. We have continued working on subtraction and tomorrow we are hoping for a classroom full of Mathamagicians. I must say subtraction is a lot harder than addition for some reason.

We continued talking about traditions and the kids compared traditions with each other and discovered they have a lot more in common than they thought. 

Funniest moment was when one of my 8 year olds in a hilarious voice asked some girls to move with   "Excuse me ladies" as he walked around them. Some days you need a good laugh and we had plenty in grade 3 today. If only we could bottle the stuff we could sell it and save the world! 

Cheers,

Mr.G

Christmas tunes and Templeton

Monday has come and gone in a flash. We had a great day, working on 3 digit by 3 digit addition ( still working on subtraction), talked about traditions and celebrations and a great session of Daily 5!

A majority of the class hit the skating rink for about an hour and the rest of us stayed behind and had some fun Christmas activities to complete. We rocked out to Christmas tunes (not my favorite music) and coloured a bunch of mini posters to help learn the 12 days of Christmas.

Highlight of my day was during Daily 5 and Guided Reading, we were working on making connections to our text and the kids were doing a great job. While discussing Charlotte's Web with one group we discussed being so upset that you don't want to eat (poor Wilbur) and the qualities of Templeton the rat. One student tried to explain his name between her giggles as Temple "Tonne" because he is so fat from being a lazy rat.

Love my job!

-Mr.G

PJ's, Popcorn and Picking Garbage

Fun Fridays continue to be the joy of our week. The kids rocked out some great reading comprehension and almost finished their pen pal letters. We will be mailing them out on Monday or Tuesday and are so excited. We spent time making self portraits that matched ourselves on PJ/Crazy Hair day. 

We spent some time writing about really happy moments in our lives, read some great books and created some winter scenes in art. 

We ended our day with store but not before the entire grade 3 class went out to do a little cleaning of the playground. We all ran around in our PJ's picking garbage all over the playground and had a great time making the playground a much cleaner place.

Love Fridays!

-Mr.G

Venturing into Negatives...the point of no return

Today was a great day :) After yesterday not going as planned in life things today were smooth as can be.

My amazing Sidekick Mrs.R was away and stepping in for her was the amazing Mrs. O. We had a blast and she was awesome to work with.

The kids worked very hard on some art this morning that are turning out wonderfully. We are finishing our Pen Pal letters and working hard on subtraction.

Today some kids ventured into negatives and so we ran with it. Most could not fully understand the concept but we had one Mathamagician that was comfortable with it.

Nothing makes your day as a teacher more than when kids write you notes about how awesome you are or thanking you just for teaching them. Great way to end the day.

-Mr.G

Pen Pal questions= laughter

Today was a quick day for Mr.G I had to step out for the afternoon but the morning went by like a rocket! The kids wrote back to their Pen Pals in Edmonton and had a great time reading their letters and answering their questions.

A few Highlights

• Student being asked if she was Chinese, she laughed but the kids were confused by the question.
• A student asking their Pen Pal to write neater next time...we took that request out.
• A student recounting the time they ate the preserving material in a Beef Jerky package and discussing how he was poisoned but is better now.

The letters they are writing are great and the kids had a fantastic time writing them so win win in my books. I can't wait to see the kids tomorrow and the towers they built this afternoon in my absence.

-Mr.G

Puppies and Social Studies=BEST DAY EVER

Ok so pretty much every day in Grade 3 is a new BEST DAY EVER but today was so fun. Reading NERDS book 2 is great fun but reading NERDS book 2 and having a parent bring in the most adorable little puppies EVER made for a fantastic morning. We also received our pen pal letters and are very excited to write back to our Edmonton friends. This afternoon we had an amazing discussion on quality of life in India and the kids really made the connections to what we have been talking about in class. It was a perfect way to end the day. Tomorrow we write letters, write some friendship keepers, work on subtraction and BUILD A TOWER! Come back soon!

-Mr.G

Oh Monday you come so fast

It is like the weekend does not really exist. Just a blink of the eye and it is gone. That being said there is nothing better than greeting the kids in the morning and hearing about their weekends.

Today we began 2 of the 3 different novel studies we are doing with readers at various levels. We are reading the Whipping boy in one group and it is fun talking about quality of life and seeing the students make connections with their lives, our Social Studies curriculum and the novel.

Our Science class was spent looking at finishing their Playgrounds and they turned out great. Problem solving using Salt Dough, Straws, Pipe Cleaners and various recycling materials was an adventure.

We have a parent bringing in puppies tomorrow, I have been instructed by no means am I to bring one home...We will see.

Already Tuesday tomorrow. Hopefully putting up our Life Maps by weeks end but if not they are coming soon :)

Cheers,

Mr.G

Fun Friday Fun Friday :)

Reading comprehension, spelling quiz, reading, creating our dream bedrooms and creating maps of our lives. The kids worked very hard all day but we had a lot of laughs and a great time. It was very fun to see what they felt was an important event in the early years of their life. Lost teeth, broken bones and baptisms seemed to top the list. The amount of car crashes and close calls I found surprising as well. We are sharing with class members on Monday so it should be fun. We finished the day with Friendship Keepers which is always a fun uplifting way to end the day. Kind words shared with each other creates a great environment and we are already seeing more friendships develop with these social building activities. Great Day! 

-Mr.G

Give peace a chance

Today I give thanks for having the most excellent group of 8 and 9 year olds in the universe. We had a fantastic day in grade 3 with tons of fun in science, tons of learning in math and a great debate during our current event time.

In Science we began constructing pieces of playground equipment. The only rule was that they had to create a blueprint for they piece of equipment. Students used paper clips, tape, straws, cardboard, egg cartons, pipe cleaners and salt dough and they came up with some great things.

In Math we continued working on addition and regrouping. We came up with a strategy of taking the numbers to their expanded form and then adding them together in their easier place value groups. We had a lot of success, kids even chose to keep doing math rather than going outside for recess.

Finally in Social Studies we decided to debate and discuss the issue of hostilities between Israel and Gaza. We watched news clips looked at maps and discussed some of the history and then the kids entered into a debate on what they think should happen. It was very interesting to see what the kids thought. We had some that thought it would be best for Israel to leave the people of Gaza alone and give them more areas to settle and that should solve the problem. Others thought that they should just split up the West Bank area and share it equally. A final group talked about how Israel should only go after Hamas and leave the innocent people in Gaza alone. It was very cool to see that they understood the impact on quality of life living in this region would have and in their simple uncomplicated opinions that the right thing to do would be to help the innocent and protect your families. Of course we came to no conclusion but the ideas floating around the room were very cool to watch develop :)

Teaching is the BEST

-Mr.G