One Teacher's Adventures

  I know I haven't written in awhile.  It has been a busy February for me!    1. I had some sort of cold/flu hybrid that knocked me down for the first two weeks!  We've had gorgeous weather, I had to miss two weekends stuck inside in bed with no voice and no energy :(  Happily, I am feeling much better now and got to enjoy some excellent west coast Canadian winter weather!        Can you believe these were taken on February 24th?  In Canada?      2. I reached 350 Likes on Facebook and 400 followers on Teachers Pay Teachers .  To celebrate, I had a sale and giveaway that was a lot of fun!   3. I've been slogging through report cards for both my classes.  I created a new format this term and it required a lot of set up.  I'm used to writing middle school reports - very few comments accompanied by a letter grade.  Elementary reports are SO much work!  Thankfully, I have completed my reports and am really happy with how they turned out.  

My Grade 4's are learning about weather in science.  To help them understand the water cycle better, we created foldable water cycles.   On each of the four flaps, we wrote the processes of the water cycle, and under the flaps, gave definitions of the process or information about that part of the water cycle.   My students enjoyed making the foldables, and now have a better understanding of the water cycle.  This activity was a great supplement to the weather pack I created.  The class is working through that pack, but when we came to the water cycle section, a significant group of them were still confused about the processes.  Instead of simply memorizing the water cycle, they were able to engage with it.  This activity was a good, interactive piece that helped to cement the ideas into their memories.  After they created the foldable, almost every student earned 100% on the water cycle quiz in the weather pack! To view the weather pack we are u

My Grade 4's have been learning about perspective in our art lessons.  Last week, we completed a project looking at one-point perspective.  This is a project that I've done before, and the class next door was working on at the same time (coincidentally).  I think it stands up as an art lesson because it is simple, but effective.   Students start with a vanishing point in the middle of their page and draw straight lines out from that point to the 4 corners of the page.  As the images get closer to the middle of the page, they get smaller, creating the illusion that they are getting further away. I let my students decide which media to use.  Some used markers, others used paint, and some used pastels.  I think they turned out beautifully.

I'm in the middle of my "Symbols of Canada" unit with my Grade 1's.   It has been a learning experience for me, as I haven't taught Grade 1 since I was a student teacher, but it has been really fun!   I'm enjoying bringing in resources for my kids all about Canada and British Columbia. Last week, I showed them "O Canada" from Ted Harrison, a Canadian painter who recently passed away.     I love Harrison's paintings.  They are full of colour and his style is so distinctive.  As a class, we discussed the images in the book and pointed out Canadian landscapes and symbols.       This week, I brought in "S is for Spirit Bear" by G. Gregory Roberts and Bob Doucet.  While Ted Harrison's book has a lot of images of Northern Canada, "S is for Spirit Bear" focusses on British Columbia.      It is an Alphabet Book of B.C. with beautiful illustrations by Bob Doucet.   We live in B.C. and