Crazy Holiday Outfit Reminder

Hello there,

Sorry for the lack of posts last week. We had a jam-packed week that involved a field trip and the Holiday Concert. I think we were all knackered by the end of it all. Thanks to all the amazing parent volunteers who joined us on the trip. We almost had as many volunteers as students. Thanks for not stressing about the TTC.

Don't forget to dress your child up in over-the-top holiday clothes for Monday. The tackier, the better.

The kids were great at the concert. I'm hoping Christina's mom can somehow get the filmed version to us so we can upload it to the blog for your enjoyment.

Bye for now,

Erin Hawkins

Decorations Needed

Hello there,

Thanks to those who brought in decorations for our holidazzle basket. We could still use a few more donations if you are able to send in one or two decorations by Wednesday.

Thank you again,

Erin Hawkins

Here's my favourite Christmas song and video.

And here's the great Kate Bush with a nutty, but sweet song for the holidays. Enjoy!

This Week in Room 108

Expressions make language so much richer, don't you think? I can't believe "A piece of work" came from Shakespeare, not Joan Rivers.

Yes, just as I thought, getting ready for the Holiday Concert did eat somewhat into our instructional time last week. We still did quite a bit of work, but not as much as we'd usually do.

Please refer back to last week's This Week in Room 108 to see what we will continue working on this week. We will be moving on with procedural writing, capacity/mass and graphing this week. As well, we'll move on with short vowels o and u.

Homework: This week, students will complete unfinished work from class. This work will be stapled together. All marked work and signed and returned spelling tests can be saved at home. As well, we will be working on the expression, "That's the way the cookie crumbles." This week's spelling quiz will be on Thursday.

It looks like we have almost all of the returned permission forms for the field trip to the Scarborough Museum. We are going to have a lot of fun.

Please remember that there is no school on Friday.

All the best,

Erin Hawkins

Scroll down to see our procedural writing and daily food group graphing.

Students learned how to draw a house, the Ed Emberley way.

They followed step-by-step instructions...

They drew the house...

And now, they're writing about how to draw the house.


Look at those pensive minds! We're a class full of budding and blooming writers.
All the daily food group data collected by your children is slowly being added to a communal class food graph. When this is completed, we will analyze the data to find out more about what we're eating from the different food groups.

Christmasy Fun at MacKenzie House

Here's an email I received with tons (or metric tonnes) of activities over the holidays that don't cost an arm and a leg. I took my son to the MacKenzie house during Doors Open Toronto and we had a blast learning about this spirited one-time mayor of Toronto. Break out the bagpipes!

- Erin Hawkins

Hello Friends of Mackenzie House,

Here's what's coming up in December!

A Victorian Toronto Christmas: Tuesday, November 22 - Sunday, January 8

Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 4 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m.

December 24 & December 31: 10 to 3 p.m.

(Closed Mondays, December 25, 26 & January 1st)

This festive season, take a step back in time to Victorian Toronto and experience the magic of a traditional Christmas in 1859. Discover how families celebrated Christmas in the 19th century as you tour this festively decorated house. Enjoy mulled cider and a biscuit in the warmth of the historic kitchen. From November 22 until December 24, children are invited to Write a Letter to Santa Claus and mail it in our special Christmas mail box! Adults $5.71, Seniors/Youth $3.81, Children $3.33 (plus tax).

Print a Victorian-style "Happy Christmas" Card

Saturdays: December 3, 10, 17 & 24, 10 a.m. to Noon

On Saturday mornings in December, print your own copy of a seasonal greeting card on the 1845 printing press in the printshop! Afterwards, take a tour of the festively decorated mid-19th-century house. Enjoy mulled cider and biscuits in the warmth of the historic kitchen. Adults: $5.71, Seniors /Youth: $3.81, Children: $3.33 (plus tax).

Santa Stories: Family Storytelling Time for Ages 4 and up

Sunday, December 11, 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Gather in the cosy family room and listen to Christmas tales from the Victorian era. Pre-registration required: $10.50 plus tax per person includes cider and cookies in the historic kitchen. Please call 416-392-6915 to register.

Kids’ Crafts

Tuesday December 27 to Sunday, January 8, 12 to 4 p.m.

December 24 and 31, 10 to 3 p.m.

Closed Mondays and Holidays

Bring the family to visit the last home of Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, then enjoy printing in the recreated printshop and doing an historically-based craft. Included with admission. Adults: $5.71, Seniors /Youth: $3.81, Children: $3.33 plus tax.

Hogmanay!

Wednesday, December 28, 7 to 9 p.m.

Enjoy an evening of Scottish music and tastings of holiday foods at this traditional celebration of the New Year. The decorated house will be illuminated by gas and candlelight. The always entertaining Gin Lane will perform traditional music. Pre-registration and pre-payment required. Admission: $22.50 plus tax

"Here's to the Year that's Awa!"

Saturday, December 31, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

See the old year out at Mackenzie House! Print a souvenir copy of "Auld Lang Syne", hear about Scottish traditions regarding the passing of the old year and ringing in the new. Enjoy mulled cider and biscuits in the warmth of the historic kitchen. Adults: $5.71, Seniors /Youth: $3.81, Children: $3.33 plus tax.

Follow Mackenzie House on facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/mackenziehouse

Mackenzie House
Museum Services, Cultural Services

Economic Development & Culture

City of Toronto
Phone 416-392-6915
FAX 416 -392-0114
82 Bond Street
M5B 1X2

This Week in Room 108

A close shave: Check out your beautiful kids sporting moustachios, pencil thin moustaches and other funny facial hair. Thanks for the money. Our class raised over $15 for cancer research! P.S. Check out the tree stump that Kyra's family donated to our class. It's become a new fixture.

This week's post is brought to you by the excellent TV show Horrible Histories. I believe this is on BBC Kids. Check out Charles II's mo.

This week we're working on the following:

Reading: Guided reading and shared readings will focus on looking at the middle and endings of words when decoding. We will be looking for little words inside bigger words and breaking words into chunks, for sounding out. We will also begin discussing context clues and how looking at the whole sentence, or surrounding sentences can help us read unfamiliar words.

Writing: We will begin planning our procedural writing. As well, we'll be working on our printing skills. We'll also work on short vowel sounds in phonics.

Math: Measuring - capacity and mass. Lot's of hands-on learning.

Social Studies. Houses around the world. How does water get to a house in Toronto and other cities around the world? We'll also begin talking about the Jewish celebration Hanukkah with a craft and writing activity.

Science: Grade 1s will learn a bit about rocks as part of Living and Non-living Things. Grade 2s will begin learning about food chains, particularly those of aquatic animals.

* We will be working on our performance for the holiday concert. Depending on how smoothly that goes, we may or may not get to everything planned for the week, but we'll keep pushing forward.

Homework:

- Read a book a day or keep reading a chapter book. Record the book in your Reading Log.

- Spelling words: Grade 1s will be working on word family -ug: mug, bug, slug, chug, and tug. Grade 2s will work on - ain: train, pain, chain, rain, and drain. Don't forget the extra words on your list!

- There will be a different capacity activity for both grades to do. Please read the hand-out. Ask your child to tell you in their own words what "capacity" means.

- This week's expression is "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." We'll discuss it in class and come up with some examples. Please make sure your child creates a cartoon to illustrate this expression.

Have a great week!

Erin Hawkins

P.S. Please send in the field trip forms as soon as possible. Kindly send in the money in an envelope or baggie with your child's name on it. It's very hard for me to deal with loose money in the morning. Thanks for your understanding in this matter. P.S. If you can't send in two TTC tickets, please send in the cash for the TTC. We're also looking for parent volunteers. Let us know if you are able to come.

Thanks again!

Below, check out the photos from our water investigation last week.

CO was the winner of our first capacity estimation activity, so she was the bucket filler for our next activity: Guess how many measuring cups it takes to fill a bucket?

Here are our estimations. My estimation is at the bottom and was WAY off the mark.
MA was our trusty tabulator. Check out the tallies.
We took the bucket outside to get a sense of what it might be like having to carry water long distances in some areas of the world.
While this was going on, students had a go at water dowsing.
NJ was the winner of the bucket estimation activity. He guessed 15 cups of water and was the closest. Bravo!
Getting closer to water. We had a fascinating discussion about ground water and I heard many intelligent ideas about why water would just sit on the field and not drain down.



BK was determined to find water. A circle marks the spot.


Found it!

Student Made Books

Children can write - even if they're just learning to write. I was so happy last week when BK brought me this booklet he'd made at home, completely on his own steam. His mother had brought home some chicks for a couple of days and BK documented the experience in his book, making connections to germs and water - two things we've been learning about in class. Bravo!
Encourage your child to write about things that are interesting or important to them. Encourage them to sound out words and have fun writing, rather than worrying over spelling too much.
A germ-covered hand. E coli alert!




Thanks again, BK! I'm happy to document student work on our blog if you send it in.

Capital I

Since you've been to our room, I've taken down our Eid bulletin board and have begun boldly stapling up completed recounts written by your children. If we spend any more time writing recounts after this week, you'll find me curled up in the fetal position singing Gregorian chants.

The good news is that the recounts are great. I believe that all children can write, regardless of their age and the proof is in the pudding. Hmm - maybe that should be our expression that we learn about next week.

Anyway, the recounts will come home before the holidays for your enjoyment. In the meanwhile, I thought I'd share this golden oldie from Sesame Street. Many children still use a lower case i when referring to themselves. Let's work on this at home and school!

All the best,

Erin Hawkins

Here's more vintage gold about "I." Go girl!

Water Dowsing

I've been gathering Y-shaped twigs so that our class can go dowsing for water in the school yard this week. As outlined in my previous post, we are looking at many aspects of water right now. I thought it would be interesting for the class to have a go at this ancient craft. I'm not entirely sure of the scientific principal behind it. My folks are pretty sensible, but they told me they used a water diviner (dowser) to locate the water source for our well at our cottage when I was growing up. Apparently it worked!

Watch and marvel!

This Week in Room 108

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink...

Hello there,

Thanks to all the awesome families who came out for interviews last week. I am as proud of your kids as you are.

This week, we're launching into our investigation of water. It will connect to both Grade 1 and Grade 2 Science as we look at the impact of water and sanitation in our lives, the lives of other people in different countries, as well as plants and animals. This will overlap into our Reading, Writing, and Social Studies.

Reading: We will carry on with our guided reading groups. As well, we will be reading poems about water, learn a song about the water cycle, and our read alouds will include Margaret Wise Brown's "The Little Island," and "The Water Witcher." I found an online version of this story set in the Australian outback. You'll find it below.

Writing: Last week, we began looking at examples of procedural writing. This week, we will begin sequencing existing texts into the correct order and begin planning our own procedural writing. We will connect procedural writing to water conservation e.g. how to brush your teeth without wasting water. At home, you can encourage your child to practice explaining how to do something sequentially, starting off with the materials or tools needed. More on this later. Several students still need to complete their written recounts. The journey is slow, but we're getting there. We will continue working on our printing skills and spelling.

Media Literacy: Students will continue working on their final drafts of our hand washing and germ posters.

Math: Measurement. We will continue working on linear measurement and hopefully begin capacity. We will go on a water walk at the end of the week to connect Science and Math to the social issue that many people in developing countries face: having to walk long distances for water.

Science: We will see how our pop bottle plant terrariums enable plants to survive without ever receiving additional water. We will focus on the words: evaporation and condensation. We will also attempt to do some water dowsing in the school yard.

Social Studies: Students have been learning about different designs of houses around the world, by creating booklets of houses they've drawn themselves. This week, they will focus on houses that are designed with water in mind.

Homework:

Grade 1s

• Borrow a book a day and record it in your Reading Log. Parents, please encourage your child to retell the story to you. Ask them if it is a fiction or non-fiction text. How do you know?
• Printing sheet.
• Measurement activity.
• Spelling words. This week, we're looking at word family - ay for the 1s.
• We're starting a book of expressions this week. I will be sending home a duotang with a sheet in it. Each week, they'll read over what the expression means with a parent and draw a cartoon with characters using the expression in a speech bubble. This week, we're starting off with our class favourite "You stole my thunder!" Students use this when they've put up their hand to answer a question and someone calls out the answer. Have fun with this.

Grade 2s

• Borrow a book a day and record it in your Reading Log. Parents, please encourage your child to retell the story to you. Ask them if it is a fiction or non-fiction text. How do you know?
• Measurement activity around the home and filling in the blanks on a hundreds chart.
• Spelling words. This week, we're looking at word family - ell for the 2s.
• We're starting a book of expressions this week. I will be sending home a duotang with a sheet in it. Each week, they'll read over what the expression means with a parent and draw a cartoon with characters using the expression in a speech bubble. This week, we're starting off with our class favourite "You stole my thunder!" Students use this when they've put up their hand to answer a question and someone calls out the answer. Have fun with this.

This Week in Room 108

Hello there,
This week will be a continuation of what we worked on last week, so please scoll down to see what we are doing.

Homework can all come in on Monday, since our four-day Canada's Food Guide graphing activity will run into Friday and there's no school that day.

Homework:

• Borrow a book a day and record it in your Reading Log


• Spelling words for Thursday


• Math measuring sheet (non-standard units and standard units)


• Canada's Food Guide activity.

Thanks,

Erin Hawkins

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone for parent interviews.

Have a great week.

Measuring Snakes

Your kids LOVE to measure. Today, we looked at a problem involving the lengths of three different snakes. How do you measure something that isn't straight?

Our "minds-on" activity on the carpet had the class figuring out how they can prove something is bigger than something else. Two different sized pieces of yarn acted as snakes. Using connecting cubes, Alishan and Faith told the class that the smaller snake was 18 connecting cubes, while the bigger one was 23 connecting cubes long. We counted the difference and discovered that the big one was 5 connecting cubes longer. See, we're still adding and subtracting!
Next, children were put into pairs and asked to show how they know three snakes had different lengths. Each group was given a length of yarn, scissors, and access to rulers and any concrete materials they wanted to use.

They got busy.

Students put yarn on the snakes and cut the yarn to the length before measuring the piece.


Some students used fingers and hands as non-standard units of measurement.

Others used rulers and meter sticks.

Afterwards, students reflected on what they learned in their math journals. Tomorrow, we will have a congress to share problem solving strategies. Awesome!