The Integrated Arts

We have had the opportunity to have a guest artist come work with us in our classroom.  David Perrett is an accomplished multimedia visual artist and sculptor.  One of the art pieces he created is the bus shelter sculpture on Ellice Ave in front of the University of Winnipeg.  On David's first visit, he had the students draw their self-portraits.

                       

Race to 100

In grade 3, students work with numbers up to 1000.  That means we are working a lot with 3-digit numbers.  To re-familiarize students with place value and base ten blocks, we played a game called Race to 100.  What are "Base Ten Blocks"?  They are manipulatives that represent the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands.  These hands-on objects are an excellent way to help students understand place value and the concept of regrouping.

Team 25

Team 25 is settling into our classroom routines and we have come up with a list of "Classroom Beliefs".  During the last month of school, we have spent a lot of time reviewing these beliefs and talking about what they look like in our room.  Here is the list we came up with:

Moving On

After 12 great years of teaching grades 3, 4 and 3/4 multiage, at Heritage School, it was time to change things up a bit.  It was incredibly hard to say good bye to all the students, families and staff who had become such an important part of my life. I have learned a tonne over the years and have so many awesome memories from Heritage School.

On the other hand, I am very excited to be starting this new chapter of my career at Strathmillan School.  All of the staff and families have been so welcoming and I feel very fortunate to be joining such an amazing school!

My Farewell Video

Thank you to all the teachers and students who were involved in making this video. It means so much to me. A special thanks to Mr. B who made it all possible and also seemed to find every possible photo of me during my pregnancy years. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2KNC5GzHZw

My Hockey All Stars

, Noah, this post is for you.  It has taken me WAY too long to get these hockey pics on the blog.  Several of the students who attend Heritage School have been fortunate enough to have participated in the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy this year.  I was able to sneak away from school to watch the progress they had made on the ice a few times.  The students from our class who got to skate every Wednesday at the Ice Complex were Noah, Jonah, Nathan, Myla, Dez and Chloe.  I hope when you kids are all grown up, you remember what a wonderful experience this was and how lucky you were to have been able to take part in such an experience.  I know that I will always remember the day that Ms. Burland and I got our own personal tour of the Jets locker room and I got my picture taken by Bogosian's equipment! He's my favourite!

   

In Harmony With Harmony

As part of The Integrated Arts program, we have welcomed local singer/song writer, Harmony Parent into our classroom.   I met Harmony back in April with a few other teachers from our school.  She impressed us with her musical talent and wanted to give us a real taste of what she could do with our students in the classroom.  By the end of the 2 hour session, Ms. Burland, Mrs. Waters, Mr. B. and myself had collaborated with Harmony to write a song about mummification ( I wonder who chose that topic! LOL!) Harmony decided that the lyrics would fit the tune of Alice Cooper's song "Poison".  It was actually really easy for us to write the lyrics.  Ms. Burland and I were the experts on Ancient Egypt so we were enthusiastically shouting out all the facts and of course, Mr. B is a natural when it comes to writing songs.  Anyway, we had a blast and I had our song "Journey to the Underworld" stuck in my head for weeks!  I used my laptop and the Garage Band app to record Harmony singing the song and playing her guitar so that I could play it for the students when I returned to school.  The students loved it too!  Since then, Harmony created an awesome video to accompany the song and she renamed it "Die Like an Egyptian".  I've included the YouTube link below for you to check it out.

When Harmony got the chance to finally meet MY fabulous group of talented students, they blew her away by singing their very own Egg Drop song.  She was SO impressed and I was SO proud of them! On our first session with Harmony, we decided that we will be writing a song about plants, to fit in with the Grade 3 Science curriculum. After much debate, we finally agreed that the "tune" of the song would be set to Taylor Swift's, "Trouble".  Stay "tuned" for our the release of Room 20's second big hit this year!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEGoJIwsdys