Welcome! Come on in!

Whether you're new to my class or an old friend, come on in for a tour of the only classroom around with two family rooms! 😃

Back to School Shopping!

So are you having a great summer? We all hope you've enjoyed yours as much as we have. It's nice to get caught up on all kinds of different projects, visit with friends and enjoy some down time isn't it?  

If some of that down time includes shopping, then perhaps you're thinking about what's needed for September.  No matter how old you are, it's hard to resist the temptation to buy new goodies this time of year!  The Grade Three teachers think kids of ALL ages (wink, wink) should get themselves a brand new pack of markers and spend the last few weeks sitting on a patio, with some iced-tea, some good music and just doodle away. Doesn't that sound like fun?  

If you are going into Grade Three at our wonderful school this year, then here are the things your teachers would like you to have so you are well prepared and ready for success:

First, let’s start with the stuff you’ll need:

• a good set of pencil crayons (Crayolas/Rose-art are inexpensive, but they're not very good quality and tend break a lot, so we recommend you avoid those).
• a set of good quality markers (in this case, Crayolas are great)
• a good pencil sharpener with it's own case so you can sharpen your pencils at your desk and not make a mess
• a good water bottle and be sure to label it!
• indoor shoes that will stay at school in your locker -you need these for the first day of school
• 2 rolls of paper towels
• 2 boxes of Kleenex
• one container of liquid soap
• a good quality glue stick

Now for the items are not required and we ask that students not bring them to school:

• binders (please don't bring them)
• crayons (we no longer use crayons to colour in Grade 3)
• notebooks, duotangs, folders
• permanent markers such as "Sharpies"
• a math set
• a calculator
• a lock for a locker

What's provided by your teachers and school:

• duotangs
• notebooks
• pencils
• ruler
• eraser
• paper

We hope you enjoy the rest of your summer and we can't wait to meet our new group of Grade Three students in September!

See you soon!

A wonderful Wednesday in room 208!

Coordinated entirely by a talented classmate herself,  we had a little family talent show on Wednesday and it was beyond special! We moved the desk and created our own little stage, so to speak and off we went! We had so many wonderful acts in our show, that it took an hour in the morning and another 30 minutes in the afternoon! There are even children who changed their mind and decided they DO indeed want to perform and it's my hope they'll share their talent on Thursday. 

Since each child was invited to share a talent of any kind. We had dancers, comedy and musical acts, along with drawing demonstrations. And when there were technical difficulties with my laptop, we had our lovely hostess and coordinator, Chloe, to step in with her charm and great sense of humor!  

Thank you to Chloe, who came to me back in May with her idea and flyers for the Talent Show. She coordinated the show front start to finish!  In fact, when I asked her last week if we could start organizing the order of presentations, she told me she had already done that! We love you Chloe, and we love how you brought the entire class family together one more time in this most special and touching way. 

This experience, just us, as a little class family is truly one of my favorite memories of the year.  
Thank you to all the boys and girls and their families for a truly memorable school year! My 20th year of teaching was certainly a year I'll never forget! 

Have a safe and happy summer everyone! 
Love Mrs. M 

A little 208 update!

We've had one very busy week! Our Focus on Faith theme is community and the common good and let me tell you, the boys and girls in room 208 sure do contribute to making our room a very special place to be!  

Last week, as part of our look at the Text of the Week, we talked about the difference between optional and necessary. I loved the responses the kids came up with! The poem was all about a very unfocused soccer team and we discussed things in life that we "must do" and those that we "can choose to do". 

After arriving at school every morning for a week and finding that two or three sets of brag tags had fallen from their hooks on the bulletin board, I realized it was time for an alternative way to display them. I bought these magnetic hooks a while back from Amazon and they say they'll hold 12 pounds, but at the rate my students earn tags, I'm not so sure they'll do the trick!  

We've also had some fun learning about probability and patterning.  Probability was one of those math units we looked at all year long. It started in September when we would talk about the weather forecast as part of our Morning Message. By the time we got to May, we were talking about things like fair and unfair spinners, along with the odds of an outcome.  This part of the unit is always lots of fun! 

Let's see...what else have we been up to? 

On Tuesday we had a very good talk about Canada's First Nations people and how the name of our country is the result of a kind of misunderstanding between the Iroquois and Jacques Cartier.  From there, our conversation evolved into the living conditions in Attawapiskat and how just a few hours from Toronto, children and families are living in appalling conditions. We discussed ways in which other children across Ontario have tried to help by holding fundraisers at their schools and donating their gently used books, toys and clothes.  Again, our Focus on Faith theme was central to our conversation.  

And that brings us to today: Wednesday, where we had some time to learn how to draw this great bird picture! It's called "There's always one guy"  and we used some transformational geometry vocabulary (rotate your paper to draw the upside down fella) and also used our symmetrical drawing skills.  

As you can see many children added their own flair to their birds. After that, I taught the kids how to use a simple body to create a cat, pig and poochie!  

We've even had time for time! We reviewed our skills with a little Bingo game in the afternoon earlier this week! 

It's definitely been a busy week or so in room 208 and there's still lots more to come as our school year comes to a close!