Every June, our kindergarten to grade 4 students get to participate is a super, fun day. Usually in the past, it's had a western theme, but this year it was changed to a circus theme, called "Under the Big Top". Parents and grade 5 and 6 students run stations that we get to participate in. This year there was everything from carnival type games to circus equipment to use to facepainting to a clown show. We got to go the different stations and complete the activities. We got our special card punched for each station that we completed and when we completed 20 stations, we could enter a draw for a prize. The weather turned out beautiful for this event and everyone had a ton of fun. We even got to have a picnic in our field.
These pictures will show you some of us having fun with the stations!
Enjoying lunch together in the sun!
"Pitch Burst"
We threw bean bags at the target and if we hit it,
the water balloon was popped,
soaking a grade 6 student!
The face painting station was always very busy!
The circus equipment really challenged us!
We were wondering...
What special event days do you have at your school? (Or if you're an adult...what special event days do you remember from your school days?)
How do you celebrate the end of another school year?
For the past couple of weeks, our class has been practicing "Reptile News" -- a reader's theater script. This script fit in with our study of animal life cycles in science. We were broken into groups of 3 or 4 as there were 4 roles -- Reporter 1, Reporter 2, Mr. (Ms.) Turtle and Mr. (Ms.) Rattlesnake.
Then on Monday, every group performed for the class. Two of the groups were chosen to participate in our Skype presentations on Tuesday morning. We connected with Ms. Ariss', Ms. Holden's, Ms. Bettess', Ms. Brimacombe's and Ms. Dohn's classes to share our work. Our two groups presented first. Then we got to hear Ms. Holden's class do "Anansi the Spider", which is an African folktale. We also heard two of Ms. Dohn's groups. They did "Four Little Pigs" and "Click, Clack, Moo". We were excited about the "Click, Clack, Moo" performance because we had read that book earlier in the year and watched the video too!
Here are a couple of pictures of the Skype call...
After listening to the performances, we went to the computer lab so that we could blog about them. You can find our blog posts at Braybrook's Bloggers. We'd love if you commented on them!
We were wondering...
Have you done reader's theater performances before?
Have you worked with other classes through Skype?
We have learned about the land and water (the geography) of 4 different countries -- Peru, Ukraine, Tunisia and India. After our learning, we worked with a partner to go deeper into a specific geographic feature of one of the countries. We created a map of that country using clay. This is called a topographical map. We also did some more research and then worked collaboratively with our partner to write our paragraph using Google Drive.
Here are our final projects!
Peru -- Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest is found in Peru. The Amazon Rainforest stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the tree line of the Andes. The Amazon Rainforest is the and most varied biological reservoir. The Amazon Rainforest is the largest Rainforest in the world. It is also home to many animals like bats,jaguars,and piranhas. If you want to see wild nature you should visit Peru.
Ukraine Steppe region
The steppe region is found in Ukraine. Grassy plains instead of sandy plains with rich black soil. The forest steppe is margin to 300 mm. Has been completely modified. Fields and fields of wheat and corn fields. Dominant On the dry pastures of the southern. salinized soils following steppe or careless irrigation improper. Eat bread with every me. It is a amazing site to see.
Peru--Andes Mountain
The Andes Mountain are found in Peru. Mountain people make hats sweaters and gloves using wool from alpacas. People grow potatoes and vegetables.The Andes Mountains are very high.The land on the Mountains is not good for farming. It is a fun place.
Peru -- Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest is the world's largest tropical rain forest. East of the mountains is the Amazon RainForest. The world`s largest rainforest is the Amazon RainForest. There are many river`s by the rain forest. The rainforest has a lot of creatures and animals. Some people live in the rain forest.They have to know what they can eat and what they can`t eat. The people that live in the rainforest are not like other people.They dont have clothes like them.Or eat food like. They eat Leaves, meat,fruit. They sometimes have little family`s and big family`s. Peru is the best place you should visit.
India -- Thar Desert
2000.000 square km territory. 2,5 metamorphic rocks formed. The grass from the main natural resources. Cattle sheep camels. However water is a scarce. 2000.000 square km of territory of thar deserts.
Ukraine -- Crimea
Crimea is in Ukraine and is hot and cold. Crimea is right beside the black sea. Did you know that Russia and Ukraine are fighting over Crimea? The sea of Azov cover about 10,400 square miles.
Yalta served as the scene of a historic conference of allied leaders during world war II , 1939 -1945. Crimea food is tasty and very varied. The population of Crimea is 2,033,1700. It is a very nice place to visit.
India -- Himalayan Mountains
Some of the highest mountains in the world are located in the Himalayan. It has some of the ten highest peaks. Heavy snow falls in the winter. Summers are cool. Women want to protect their trees by hugging them. You should go there because there is beautiful sights.
Ukraine--Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains range measuring some 2061 m high. They are 5%of Ukraine. It is a wonderful habitat for animals and humans. The carpathian mountains Lakes and rivers. The carpathian mountains also have glaciers and waterfalls. We say its beautiful.
India -- Ganges River
The Ganges River is found in India. It is 1560 miles long. It starts at the Himalah and empties at the bay of bengal.
India -- Thar Desert
The Thar Desert is located in India. The Thar Desert is also known as the great Indian Desert. Few people lived there for there was very little water. 77,000 square miles thats how much room the Thar Desert takes up. The Thar Desert has power plants. The Thar Desert precious minerals. Some women in the Thar Desert have to walk for water and walk for miles. There they get 10 inches of rain annually. The Thar Desert does spread over four states. There are camels cool. There are sheep there are sheep. There are ancient stone buildings. India Thar desert is a relaxing place, hot place.
Peru-- Amazon Rainforest
It has the largest tropical rainforest in the world. Half is in Brazil. It has 10% of the animals. It has 40000 million plants. There are dangerous animals. It is a very nice place to visit.
India -- Himalayan Mountains
The Himalayan Mountains are found in India. They don't just go through India but also Nepal. The tallest mountain in the Himalayan Mountains is Mt. Everest, It is in Nepal. It is 8,848 m tall. The tallest mountain in the Himalayan Mountains in India is Mt .Kanchanjunga. It is 8,598 m tall.
The Himalayan Mountains have big forests. They are a really cool place to explore!
India Ganges River
India has the largest river. It is 1560 miles (2510)km. The Ganges starts at the Arabian Sea and ends at the Bay of Bengal. They welcome the rain in the monsoon season. The Ganges is very large.
We've been learning that our brain needs to take breaks in order to work it's best. Brain breaks can be many different things from moving, to turning and discussing something with a neighbor or even something as simple as breathing. If you want to learn more about what brain breaks are and why they are important, click here. Our teacher learned about a website with lots of different movement activities, called Go Noodle. Now, doing these brain break activities is our favourite part of the day!
One of the first things we had to do is choose our Classroom Champ. The choices are:
Then it was time to start moving! One of the choices is to do track and field events -- yes, in the classroom! In each event, an Olympic athlete tells us about the event and helps us warm up. Here's a video of us warming up for the high jump:
Then it's time to do the event! Here we are doing it with the Olympic athlete:
Another one of our favourite activities is to dance! We can choose different Zumba dances. Check this one out:
He leads us through stretching and yoga type exercises. Some of them are really hard!
After all of that movement, we need to settle and refocus. Airtime helps us do that. In this video, you can see us doing the breathing exercises with Airtime:
Probably the best part of all, is that with every activity, we earn minutes. Here you can see what our Classroom Champ looks like today:
When our minutes reach the top, our Classroom Champ has to go to the "Transmogrifier", where he transforms. It's so exciting to see how he changes! Once our Champ has gone through all 5 levels, we receive a certificate that our teacher prints off and puts up in our classroom. Here's our most recent certificate:
Some of the students in our class have even signed up for their own free account so they can do these activities at home on their own! There are so many awesome things about these brain breaks!
We were wondering...
Have you used Go Noodle before?
What types of other brain breaks do you use? (Adults--you need brain breaks too...what do you use?)
When we got back after spring break, we noticed a change in one of the bulletin boards in our classroom. This is what it looked like:
Later in the week, we learned that our teacher had signed us up to participate in a collaborative art project, using Van Gogh's "Starry Night". Before starting the project, we watched this video:
We found out that our class had been put into a group with 23 other classrooms from across North America. Each class got to color one section of "Starry Night" and then send one copy to every other class in our group. Our class was assigned section 1 to color. In these next pictures, you can see us hard at work coloring them.
Our teacher sent off our completed sections to the other classrooms. We were very excited to find out that we had been receiving quite a lot of mail -- sections that the other classes had been coloring! Our teacher put up the ones we have already received and now this is what our board looks like...
What's amazing is that these pieces have come from so many different places...like Florida, California, Texas and even Hamilton, Ontario! Our teacher has started a map showing us where each piece has come from.
We can't wait for the rest of the pieces of the picture to arrive so we can see the final product!
We were wondering...
Have you seen any of Van Gogh's artwork before?
Have you re-created any of Van Gogh's artwork?
Have you ever participated in a collaborative project like this before?
For any teachers out there...if you'd like more information about this project, visit Jen Wagner's Picture It 2014 website.
