Celebrating the Holiday Season

With only one day left before the break, all of our students are excited about the holidays.  One of our favourite traditions at our school is the Christmas carol sing.  Every morning during the last week of school, everyone gathers in the gym to sing a variety of Christmas carols...from the traditional "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" to the popular "Six White Boomers" and "I Want a Hippopotamus". 

Here you can see our class ready to sing this morning!

Each day 2 grades invite their parents and/or grandparents to join us for the carol sing and then share hot chocolate in our common area.  We are looking forward to our hot chocolate day being tomorrow!



Our special guests fill our bleachers!

It's always fun for students to sit with their parents and share the carol sing with them. 

Here are a couple of families that came in today.

Of course, some of our teachers and students can get a little crazy this time of year.  Here is our gym teacher with a grade 5 student having a little "dress up" fun!



 So...are you wondering what it sounds like to have over 600 kids singing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"?  Check out this video and see how great we sound!

When we returned to our classroom, we were curious what our class' favourite Christmas song that we sing was.  Mrs. Braybrook helped us do a quick survey and the results looked like this...

From this data, can you tell what our favourite Christmas song is?

We were wondering...
What is your favourite way to celebrate the holidays at your school (or in your classroom)?

From all of us in the Wolf Pack, we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Skip Counting Mania!

We have been working on skip counting for the past couple of weeks.  In our curriculum, we need to be able to skip count by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 10's, 25's and 100's.  The 3's and 4's seem to be the trickiest and so we've been trying to learn them in many different ways. 

One way we've practiced is by dancing and counting to hip hop music.  Mrs. Braybrook learned about this at a math workshop she went to by a teacher named Mary Jo Fulmer.  In this "skip count by 3" video,  you can see Ms. Fulmer working with some students (not our class) on skip counting by 3's.  We practiced this way in our class too!

Mrs. Braybrook also found a fun Youtube video to help us skip count by 3's.  You can check it out here.

We also did a bean bag tossing activity to help us skip count by 3's.  Everyone got a partner and a bean bag.  Then, one person tossed the bean bag from one hand to the other and then back.  While they did this, they whispered, "1, 2" and then on "3", tossed the bean bag to their partner.  The partner then tossed the bean bag from one hand to the other and whispered, "4, 5".  On "6", they tossed the bean bag back to their partner.  We continued on as high as we could!

Next, we practiced skip counting by 4's in different ways.  Here is a video of Mrs. Fulmer working with some students to dance and skip count by 4's.  We did this dance as well!
Of course, there was a great Youtube video for counting by 4's too...you can watch it here.

All that dancing and movement sure made us tired!  But it also helped us learn how to skip count!

We were wondering...

What fun ways have you used to practice skip counting?



Acting Locally

It was a busy week for us!  On Tuesday, we took a "mini-field trip" to our local Santa's Anonymous warehouse to see first hand how this program works.  Mrs. Gunderson, the coordinator, explained how it works while the many volunteers busily sorted donations that had come in. 

I think the highlight of the trip was when some of the volunteers, who were busy sorting donations, shared with the students why they volunteer their time.  Comments like "because it feels good" and "I want to help others" impacted the students.  Some of the students even asked how they and their families could help out.



Here you can see some of our students checking out the men's clothing and gifts area.

Then, on Wednesday, it was our turn to help.  For the last month, students at our school have been bringing food donations and piling them high in front of the office.  Our class checked expiry dates and sorted all of the food.  The biggest surprise was the number of donated items that had expired (2011 and earlier!).  They really got to see how "many hands make light work".  Overall, it was a rewarding experience for the students to take part in and we are all proud of them for giving back to their community.  

You can see some of the sorted piles of food in this class picture.

We were wondering...
How do you give back to your local community?
 

Our Elves Getting Ready for the Holiday Card Exchange!

Our class chose to participate in the Holiday Card Exchange this year.  After signing up, we were put into a group with 29 other classrooms from across North America.  Since this year's theme is "snowglobes", we created cards that incorporated them.

A few students stayed in one recess to help stuff the envelopes and seal them with a little Christmas cheer.
  
Finally they were ready to go to the post office!

And now we wait in anticipation for our first card to arrive!  Hopefully some will come in before the Open House so you can see them!