Blackout by John Rocco

I have created an "EQAO"-type booklet for the students to work on based on this wonderfully simple, but easy-to-relate-to story.

Instead of a Practice Page on Thursday night, the boys and girls are asked to complete the Venn Diagram page of the booklet. 

I promised the kids that I would post a video of me reading the story to assist them with this task. 

The video can be found here.

Aloud vs Allowed

I think the boys and girls have the whole aloud vs allowed rule down pat, but we had one more go at it today to be sure!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Update: Apparently the video has been taken down from youtube. I'm so glad we got watch it. I'll keep up the link/post just in case the video is restored. 

The boys and girls are very interested in our discussions about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement.

The boys and girls are enjoying reading the books in our
class library about the Civil Rights Movement.

To provide them with an age-appropriate look at the life and influence of Dr. King, we watched a very special video this morning. 
I promised students that I would share it on the blog so that they could watch it again. 

Hello Pioneers!

We began the next phase of our Social Studies unit today. We've moved from talking about the First Nations people and their contribution to our Nation's history to the arrival of the Early Settlers.  Recently, we've talked about: 

• the Loyalists 
• the Monarchy
• the Irish Potato Famine
• the American Revolution 

Today's mini-lesson was jam packed full of all kinds of interesting stories. Many children had lots of follow-up questions too. We had some really rich conversations!  

Before the lesson even got started, I had them fill in the first part of this graphic organizer. I thought it would be fun to revisit them in a week or so, and have the boys and girls add their new learning so they can see firsthand just how much more they know.