The students of room 6 are extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to grow and learn from the Roots of Empathy program with Baby Elisa, Mrs. Romero and Ms. Bourassa. We reflected on the program and created a Wordle to represent what “stuck” the most.
The primary classes were entertained by the Carousel Players today as they performed Peg and the Yeti. Ask your child to retell the play and name her/his favourite parts and characters. What can we learn from the Peg and the Yeti?
A big thank you to Mrs. Moulton for sharing this video from Khan Academy. Enjoy!
Applying what we learned: make a plan, listen to each other, share the work, include others, stay positive, don’t give up. 
Find out more about International Dot Day here.
We have been reading, talking, drawing and writing about the true story of Owen and Mzee. This story is about a remarkable friendship. Ask your child to retell the story. Below are some links to find out more about the famous hippo and tortoise. What can we learn from the story of Owen and Mzee?
Owen and Mzee website
Unlikely Animal Friends National Geographic Video
DOGO News – Kid friendly news article with pictures and video
Enjoy this animoto video!
Our day started out with a science reading activity using our Nelson texts. The grade 2’s read about inclined planes in our world and the the grade 3’s read a story about a family who crosses a stream by making a bridge. I asked students to think about questions they had while they read as a way to guide them toward creating an experiment to further their learning. We will continue our discussion tomorrow.
Next room 6 had a short period in the computer lab to practise skills using Prodigy and to finish up math activities from Tuesday.
Following that I introduced students to the O.R.E.O. Project which is a global math project linked to data management. Students were excited from the start because, as the name suggests, it involves Oreo cookies. For a second time today I decided to give up some ownership. After we read the rules of the project, I could have organized the students, given them photocopied sheets, and explained how the task would proceed. Instead we invited the grade 3’s from room 9 to join us and made 2 large groups of students. Each group was responsible for working together to figure out their own plan of how they would fulfill the requirements of the O.R.E.O. Project. This was a difficult but enlightening task. I interrupted the class a few times to discuss the challenges the groups were having. We also reflected on the process at the end of the period. What was discovered included that it’s really hard to not talk when we have an idea and it’s not our turn, it’s really hard to listen to everyone’s ideas, it’s really hard to compromise and it doesn’t feel good to be left out or not heard. Students also found out that they can persevere and overcome challenges to be successful. I am so very proud of them! The groups still have more work to do tomorrow but they did come up with a strategy to figure out who gets to go 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. One group decided to use reverse alphabetical order by first name and the other group organized their turns by height: tallest to smallest.
After break, students were introduced to a novel we will be reading as part of Global Read Aloud 2013 titled Marty McGuire. Some predictions were made before students ended the day with D.P.A. and Music.
