Another week a different seat

New seating plans are like Christmas day for kids it seems. They have been asking me to give them a new seating plan for a while and tomorrow they will be surprised with groups. I will post some pictures in the morning or tomorrow afternoon. We had a great week academically last week but the sillies got in the way occasionally. This week we are going to work to get back on track and continue to kick butt on the things we have been doing. I picked up a great book on the rights of a child on Saturday and am very excited to start looking at Quality of Life in the weeks to come. We have been working at getting our Daily 5 running and we are a few steps closer with the kids knowing the reading level they should be working on and soon the mini conferences will begin. Short week this week and next then the long haul until Christmas begins. Can't believe a month has already flown by. Class pet should be making an appearance by weeks end. Stay tuned!

Mr.G

FRIDAY FUN DAY!

Crisis averted the internet in my hotel room is terrible but I seem to be having some luck. So Friday...I think we worked so hard this week we needed a little break. So today after a little math check up, that on the whole the kids dominated, we entered the land of ART and rocking out to such classics as Call You Maybe and Glad You Came haha. I read The Dot  by the fantastic Peter Reynolds and then we worked on our own DOT work. It was a great day filled with fun. Now I am in Edmonton where Teacher Appreciation day has led me to completing my Peter Reynolds library :) Tomorrow is the Reptile Expo where the hope is I can find the perfect class pet...Wish me luck.

Mr.G

Lots of running kids and a skunk...

Busy day today. Started the morning with more science experiments with pillars. Had a great discussion question around the shape of pillars. Who knew how much stronger a circle was than a square or triangle. We began our Penpal letters but still have a way to go. Math had us working at organizing and comparing numbers. The class got it really fast and we will be working a bit more on it tomorrow to nail it. This afternoon we had the Terry Fox run it was fun getting to know more of the quiet kids as we  walked at the back of the pack. One of the kids filled me in on all the fancy houses in the area. It was very fun. Nearing the end of the first half of the walk there was this smell...A skunk was in the area. The smell at moments was very powerful and the eyes even watered. Luckily no one was sprayed other than maybe some neighbourhood dog. The day ended in a bit of chaos but man it was a fun time :)

Bring on the weekend!

Mr.G

Books Books and More Books

So how do I describe the level of joy I experienced today....My book order arrived! While my kids put in a couple orders I definitely spent more :) It is so worth it though. 

Sweet Robert Munsch on CD!!!

It may not look like there is a lot here but there is a ton :)

Aside from the books coming in we had the most fun stacking text books on paper pillers to see how much it could support. One platform had a central pillar the other was on four smaller pillars and low and behold we hit 24 text books the kids cheered and the tower tumbled it was AWESOME. Terry Fox  run tomorrow!

Cheers,

Mr.G

A classroom full of plastic phones

Take a little PVC pipe and stick a few pieces together and BAM you have a little phone. A few of my kids discovered a little bucket that had a few of these little "phones" sitting inside. At first one student was reading to themselves listening to their own voice, soon after all the little phones were being used. Some kids did not like hearing themselves but others claimed how much easier it was to hear themselves. It will be interesting to see how the use of these little phones impacts our reading time. The Principal even asked about them :)

Tomorrow the goal is to get some Cafe lessons in and Daily 5 practice done including introducing Working with Words. Daily 5 is a structure for literacy education that develops independent reading and writing to allow for more individual attention for those who are struggling with various concepts. Within this Daily 5 time the students will have the choice of 5 different activities that they will work on independently these options are Word Work, Work on Writing, Read to Self, Read to Others and Listen to Reading. We are VERY excited for our set of Robert Munsch audio books to arrive this week to get our listen to reading station up and running. While students are working within these groups I will have the opportunity to begin Guided Reading groups with students that need more individualized time to work on skills that will assist them in Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expanding Vocabulary or C.A.F.E for short.

Busy week continues tomorrow but it is already Wednesday!

Size isn't everything...

Great day today with the kids working hard, having fun and building bridges. We had some time working on number expression in math and even played some addition bingo for a little break from the "tough" stuff. We began the process of writing to our pen pals in Edmonton who attend Mount Royal Elementary.  They have an arts focus so should be interesting looking at the differences in schools and students. For some reason a few became fixed on asking about bathrooms... but the final product should be bathroom talk free :)

Our Social Studies posters which can be viewed on the page were presented and the kids did a great job introducing us to the basics of our studied nations. Science class was a lot of fun as we studied arches and the impact the distance the arch covers has on its stability. Our 20cm arch of simple paper held an amazing 520 grams. The 30cm arch did not perform as well maxing out at 300grams. There were many great observations and conclusions made but the winning moment of the day came in the form of one of the boys proclaiming "Mr.Gilson I think it shows size is not everything" With that we are done another day. Until tomorrow. We hope you enjoy reading about our day!

Cheers,
Mr.G

Another week here we come

Wow time sure does fly. This past week was so mixed up but things are back to normal for tomorrow. I am so excited to announce we have some pen pals with a school in Edmonton which will be a blast. We are going to be hopefully getting a lot of work down this week as the month is coming to a close. ALREADY ONE MONTH HAS PAST! That is crazy to me. THe students have done a lot this week but please be sure to check the Social Studies page for a sneak peek at some of their work! Ok Monday here we come. 

My space behind my desk haha

Word Wall

Reward Beans- the kids love trading up. Store is this Friday!

A little blurry but this is the Reading Superheroes board complete with their own player pieces! 

Thanks Miss K for the sweet money. Skip counting will be so fun....hopefully

No classes today

Missed the kids today but still worked in the classroom. Hoping to chat with some parents over the next week :)   Have a great weekend!

Day 13....I think

So we are 13 days into actual school. This of course does not count weekends. It has been a very busy week with interruptions to our regular schedule. The kids have been real champs about the wacky week. We are back to a more regular week next week and with that comes a calm feeling :) The kids can definitely tell when things are not the normal routine as well.  Totally forgot to get pictures of the kids beam creations in Science today :( but I will post their great posters they have created to introduce the countries we will be studying for Social Studies. No School tomorrow for the kids but I will be hard at work creating a few IPP's (Individual Program Plans) to better serve my students. Hope you all have a GREAT weekend. I am States bound tomorrow afternoon to stock up on my favourite treats and hopefully find Candy Corn Oreo cookies. Wish me luck.

-Mr.G

Final 5 minutes

Today was a long long day. I was split in my duties which was fine because I have incredible students and an incredible EA. Back and forth working with multiple classes though still took its toll. The kids had a great day filled with math games, gym and art. But the end of the day came and one of my students came up and said Mr.G can you just be with us tomorrow...FOR SURE. Tomorrow will be a great day!

While Mr.G was away Mrs.F Saves the day!

Here is a fantastic first blog posting from my wonderful colleague Mrs.F who filled in for me today and helped out with the Super 3's.

The moment I walked through the classroom door I felt at home. Wonderful group of kids,clean and open classroom and an overall good feeling. Many were flying around working hard and a few of the others seemed like they may have been hit with a villains freeze ray, they were not getting going even if I lit a fire under their patooties. They all were willing to help me though if I was ever in need. Definitely Superheroes in training.

To my surprise there was even a student that I had when teaching grade one 2 years ago. She was my Sunshine then and was again today :)

Then came PICTURE DAY. Who is the arch enemy of picture day you might ask? Time and last recess would be the villains of our day. Once lovely braids and perfectly groomed children now had red faces and windblown hair. I sped into action getting fans on the red faced kids to cool them down and braiding hair like I was saving the world. As teachers we wear many hats sometimes even capes :)

I loved my day with the Super 3's and if they would have me I would love to become an adopted Super 3 :)

Mrs.F 

Any time Mrs.F thanks for maning the ship :) 

-Mr.G

Great Guided Reading PD

Love learning better ways to reach the kids! Time to help develop some SUPER READERS!

-Mr.G

Case of the Mondays

That was our reason to explain away the pace we worked but in the end we had a very successful day. Social posters started and hopefully will post pictures tomorrow evening...more likely Thursday though. Began writing letters to Robert Munsch and had a big Robert Munsch read-a-thon. Has anyone thought about how CREEPY "A Promise is a Promise" really is? I am pretty sure the kids do now haha. We laughed hard at "I Have to Go" and the kids found out I love "50 below zero" It was a great day in the end.  Tomorrow I am meeting bound but there will be a guest blogger tomorrow evening so tune in. For now I will continue cutting out math games to the new KILLERS album.

Until tomorrow,

Mr.G

The weekend goes so fast.

Ready for another busy week. I will be away Tuesday and thinking we might need a guest blogger. This week we are building paper girders, working on skip counting, creating posters and writing a letter to Robert Munsch. Busy week but it is going to be a BLAST. Stay tuned. Just a reminder there will be NO SCHOOL Friday.

Day 9 The weekend already?

Wow this week just flew by! We had a great day with TRIBES this morning and kids sharing with each other something they cherished. A lot of "blankies" and a baby brother made the list.  Math quiz on Place Value related material and the class did very well :) Catch up in LA getting letters done to characters of The Paper Bag Princess, postcards of our summer and some free writing. Art ended our day making some mosaics. Busy day, fun day and I am ready for the weekend! Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading,

Mr.G

Day 8 Ending the day with Reading Buddies

After the busy week we have had being introduced to scooter tag and chain tag and a high energy math skip counting adventure that involved a little leap frog we are one tired group. We had some chill out time to discuss a strange phenomenon in China where their longest river has turned red and Reading Buddies. It is great seeing kids come down from the big leagues (grade 6) and spend time with the younger kids. Friday tomorrow....Math Assessment, LA catch up and a little Art.  Check out the other pages for updates on what we are up to. If you are reading the blog please follow us so we know :)

Cheers,

Mr.G

Day 7...The day a stick broke

Ok so today was an interesting one. Science was really fun as the class was all marching around looking at materials we will be using to build with in  the future. While i was knee deep in plasticine one student came up to apologize for breaking a popsicle stick checking if it would bend. I told her it is a popsicle stick, what did you learn? Her response, "Wood is not as good as plastic, plastic can bend." While there is a lot more to learn on the properties of different materials I will break a ton of popsicle sticks to have more true learning moments. Meeting the parents tomorrow. Off to take the dog for a walk. Until tomorrow.

Day 6

Introduced the kids to Cafe and The Daily 5 today. Slow going but worth it in the end. Math was another fun adventure today. We were expanding numbers like crazy and even played a matching game tracking down the person with the standard number match to the expanded number partner. The kids had a fun time and we learned how to put numbers in expanded form so win-win. Social Studies saw us attempting to gain a bit of knowledge on the nations we plan to study. These posters will be a challenge but the final products will be cool and posted for all to see. Man I forgot how draining a day full of learning can be...Until tomorrow...

Cheers,

Mr.G

Week 2 has arrived- Day 5

It was a busy day for us after a nice weekend break. Language Arts was full of sentence practice and the creation of Postcards that will be finding their way to the Principal to let him know how we spent our summer. We began looking at Numbers to 1000 today and our focus will be on "Place Value" for the next few days. Then we will become counting machines and hopefully wrap things up by the end of the month. Social and Science also saw their real start today. Be ready for some cool updates later this week!

Day 4 Hello Weekend

Well week one has come and gone. What a fun adventure it has already become. Today we played a few Tribes games and found out some really cool things about each other (one of us is related to Pocahontas!) We also took a shot at a math pre-test and now we know where we need to begin our numbers unit. Next week is going to be interesting as we really dive right in to all the great things we get to do this year. Learning about countries all around the world, materials needed for building and a whole bunch more. Stay tuned!

Day 3

Well so far so good. Keeping up with posts and having a blast in class. Today we had a trial run on story writing. We learned a lot and are going to have a great time becoming SUPER writers. A game of soccer, readers theater, math investigations, a TRIBES activity where we learned about classmates and reading buddies with the grade 6 class ended a FULL day.  Tune in tomorrow for a look at our first art project.

Day 2

We had an exciting day, worked a little too hard the kids thought for the second day of school. We will dial it back a bit and do some Readers Theater, Reading Buddies and Tribes games tomorrow!

Day one

Had a great first day. Many handouts went home that need to come back signed if any parents check this out :) See everyone tomorrow.