Skating Christmas Party

As a tradition we always go skating the last day of school. Because it is too nice out this year we went to The Arena and did not use our neighborhood rink. Here are just of few snapshots of the morning

Garrett, Leesha and friend Shyla spend the morning helping their mom (the Principal) supervise as she cannot skate. Thanks for tieing skates too.

Great pose CJ

Horns on a helmet?

The crazy train.

Smiles for all.

Why Clean Water is Important?

During our MI day, we explored the question ,Why is Clean water important? Every teacher developed a lesson that incorporated the multi- intellegence focus of our school as well as deBono's six hats. We used our Instructional Intellegence to gather and explore the question.  Students were divided into multi- graded groups of about 13 students. Every teacher started the day with the same video to get the students thinking about the importance of clean water. Teachers also used their TRIBES training to remind students of what is needed for successful group work and the reflection at the end of the day.
Lessons:
Mr. Frey used the word smarts and our red hat to explore a story about a villiage that had two endings- one happy and the results of clean water and the other that was a sad ending with dirty water. Students used concept attainment to put the feeling into groups and then brainstormed some ideas as to how to change the outcome of the story.
Ms. Klaudt used a video and turned it into a moving PWIM- gathering words and phrases. Students then wrote them into good research questions. We used these questions to guide our reflection at the end of the day.
Ms. Ewert's station used our critical thinking hat. We only had so much water and how would we divide that water- personal use, agriculture, industrial. Students had to travel through the school to gather the water and then ration it.
Ms. Nicoll used the physical MI to explore how hard it was to pump water and then carry it long distances.
Ms. Hendricks used our white hat, green hat, black hat and red hat. That means facts, creative thinking, negative thinking and emotional thinking. We divided a page into cause, effect and solution. We brainstormed what causes water to become polluted or dirty. After that we did a visual- we created our world- a baggy of dirt, some water, some animal figures, a house, a manufacturing center, agriculture and then took the causes of the dirty water and poured things into the bucket to represent all the causes. Then we came up with the effects after seeing some of the results in our test. At the end we used our green hats to come up with some solutions. It was interesting when we looked at the solutions from the first group to the last group and how focused and creative we became.

Really, can't we just use the tap?

How much water can a grade one carry?

Yuk is about all we can say

Are we going to have to drink this too?

Kick off to the Christmas Season- Turkey Lunch

Kendall and Unique

Mackenizie

Ewan

Parent Servers- Kristine and Tammy with the district staff.

Every year at Riverside School parent council sponsors a free turkey dinner for all the students. This event is a huge success. Parents and students enjoy the turkey and the conversation.  As a school we ask the employees from the district to join us. This event shows the community/family feel that Riverside School is known for. Merry Christmas

The Legend of Las Posadas

The story takes place in a small vilage in Mexico. Every year there is a christmas celebration. Family's travel from different parts of mexico but as they travel they search for a shelter a posada. They are turned away at the first two homes but welcomed into the third were the family pretends to be inkeepers. As for the christmas celebration everybody walks to the plaza and places a gift beneath the tree. Some people takes plants, baskets of food and even little toys that people have made.  Our concert is trying to say that it wont matter what gift you have as long as you give it from your heart. In our christmas concert there is a little girl, Alicia. She doesnt have a gift to bring but then as they are walking she finds a starange plant on the side of the street but then she realises that the plant is a poinseta. A verry rare plant that you can only get in the christmas season. So come along and watch our show. Thankyou

Mailing letters to Santa

The Kindergarten Class walked over to the post office to mail their letters to Santa. "It was not too cold because we were in our ski pants" announced Kloe.
When we got back we had a surprise vist from Santa. "He even remembered our names "Jada announced to her mom.

Grade 1- Use Canada Post to Mail Santa Letters

Grade 1 took a walk to the mail box to mail their letters to Sanata.
Yes Santa receives his letters the "old fashion way" as well as by email.

Staff Spirit

We may be small in number but when the call came out to find our Ugly Christmas sweaters we responded.
Don't the ladies look just wonderful? They are so happy to show off their sense of fashion.

Before and After School Students show that they care; as told by Garrett

Every after school in December we made treats for the animals at the shelter.We made dog biscuts out of hot water, backing soda, flour, dry milk amd somthing that would make the dogs like it. (like gravy powder) We patted the flour out and then rolled the dough out and used bone shaped cutters to cut them out. We then baked them. For the cats we made the mice stuffed with cat nipp. We had to sew the peices together  by hand and then stuff them with the cat nipp.
We had fun giving the toys to the animals. I got to feed one of the dogs. There were a lot of animals there. I am pretty sure there were 80 cats and 80 dogs; there were so many.
We care about the animals because they do not have any homes and it is Christmas time and everyone should have someone to care for them.

Grade ones blog about making groups of ten

Kate and Zoe explain their math class today. This class happened after we spent a lot of time playing the power of ten games.
The question that Ms. Nicoll gave was- What makes ten? The rules were, that we could add or minus. We could use our fingers, our count in our heads.
We used a web to show our work.
some examples of our work are:
5+5=10
20-10=10
200-190=10
two groups of five = ten
one group of ten= ten
10+0= 10
0+10=10
3+7=10
11-1=10
6+4=10
we can have the same numbers but added in a different order still makes ten
Math is fun!

Jumper and the lost butterfly net- Andrew, Taylar, Matthew

This was a puppet play that we performed for the grade 1 students. Our purpose was to teach the students the importance of attentive listening.
We learned our agreement rhyme. Ours was attentive listening- "I will always do my part and listen with my eyes and ears and heart".
Then we found a story book that would fit this rhyme. We choose - Seven Habits of Happy Kids
We had to figure out how we were going to get this book to fit the rhyme. We then developed our roles. We picked our roles by figuring out who wanted the roles and then made sure we had clear and loud voices.
We made our puppets out of popsicle sticks and cartoon characters that the grade ones would know.
We then wrote our script. We had to make sure that our play had the attentive listening rhyme and that it showed why it was important to listen. We made sure everyone was comfortable with the script and their roles before we performed them.
We learned that sometimes you listen with your heart and your eyes not just your ears.
Working with our group we learned that when you listen to each other it makes you more trustworthy and a better person. Group work can bring your friendships closer if we treat each other with respect while we are working.

Shayleen, Willy, Toryn and Matayah share their Lengend in an Hour project

Our Legend was called The Rumour. This legend takes place in India in a Jungle. In this project our group was number one so we got the first part of the legend. Then everyone else got either the second, third, fourth or fifth part of the legend. Our group read our part of the legend and then decided what roles we had. We choose our parts by what we are good at as well as hints from the story. There was a girl rabbit and a boy rabbit, a tree and a narrator. Shayleen likes to  read so she choose the narrator. Matayah likes to act and there was a part for a girl bunny so she choose that. Toryn and Willy both wanted the role of the male bunny so they did rock paper scissors to see who had that part. We underlined our parts so we knew what we needed to say.
We practiced our play, came up with some props that would help with the story.
Each group had to perform their part of the legend. By the time every group was done we knew what the whole story was about.
The story in an hour project was fun but it was a challenge because we did not know the story but we did by the time we were done.Because we got to play a part we really got to understand the story- everything related to us.

Mackenzie and Kinley showing their Art Smarts

First Ms. Klaudt showed us some northern lights on the computer. She wanted us to look at the brightness and the fact that they were not straight lines but wavey lines. Then we picked a design from  one of her pictures, using chalk we picked our colors. We drew on the paper making sure that the design moved our eyes across the page. We used our fingers to smudge the lines to create the shadowy affect. We then drew our birds. She reminded us that when we put on a beak the bird will look different, so make sure you pick a beak that fits your bird. We looked at books to make sure that the birds looked realistic.We then cut out our birds, then a strip of paper that looks like a wire (powerlines). We put the lines and the birds on the paper- made sure they were where we wanted them and then glued them on. (we were to make sure that we did not put our birds all in one spot, spread them out so our eyes would move across the page)
The part we liked the best was the chalk. We liked to smudge our lines to make whatever design we wanted.

What is a molecule?

Luca in grade 2 started a science experiment today about molecules.
First Ms. Klaudt turned on the kettle and got it just about boiling. Then we got to go up and see that the molecules were jumping. They were jumping around because they were hot. Ms. Klaudt had a plate  of ice that she put over the kettle. The steam went around it and the then over it. The steam stuck to the bottom of the plate of ice- started with tiny spots but then got bigger. Then she turned the kettle off and we saw that there was only a tiny bit of steam. That meant that the water was getting colder and the molecules stopped jumping.

After that we went to our groups and did a place mat about what we saw. We could use words or draw pictures of our ideas.

Biodegradability??

Biodegradable is the topic- grade 3/4- By Tessa Mckenzie
What we did is- we collect a coffee filter, a string,an apple core,bread,plastic bag, metal foil . We put them in a bucket of dirt and made sure they were covered.We check up on them once a month to see if they are decompossing. We were put into groups and brainstormed (think pair shared)what would decompose. My groups prediction was that the apple core would decompose
So far the only ones that are changing (decompossing) are bread and the apple core. I do not think that anything else is decomposing because it did not change so far. Because we narrowed down the bread and the apple core those are the two finalists.

We will check in later to see the final results.

Recycled Pens

Today Andrew in grade 5 made recycled pens. The first step was to put the spring on the cartridge then put the cartridge and the springer into the body of the pen. Then we put the silver ring on the body which holds the cartridge. then we screw the upper body of the pen onto the bottom.  The body is made out of recycled plastic the spring is made out of recyled metal. This fits into our business unit. We made these as an assembly line. The assembly line gets more work done and it is quicker to get stuff out for production. This kind of work is easier than working by yourself because you only need to know one thing at a time.

Grade 5/6 water color - Art Smart

Tanisha from Grade 6.
 I created this picture without looking at the page. Ms. Klaudt put a plastic flower in front of us and we had draw it and then paint it with water colors. The hardest part was drawing it because you could not look at the paper just at the flower. I liked this project  because it was water color.  I like to paint and this is painting.

The Learning that Nolan is most proud of today

Nolan from Grade 1 says that he his most proud of the work he did today- Hay Diddle Diddle. We got to show a thumbs up if we liked the story and I got to draw the character that I liked. The character was the cat.I liked him because he sounded funny. I liked our guest teacher- Ms. McDowell because she tells me that I can do the work because she knows I can do it.

Student Led Conferences

Deneille from grade two says that she like Student Led Conferences because I am going to show mommy how to get onto the weather on the computer, a fishbone about rain and about doubles in math. I am going to show mommy how many drops of water can fit on a penny.

Things I didn't know before today.

We are just trying the blog out.