Here are the video segments. Enjoy!
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Happy Spring Break!
Hello everyone. To commence, I would like to thank all of the students and families in Divisions 1 and 2 for making our Student-Led Conferences such a great success! The children showed a lot of leadership and were genuinely proud of their accomplishments this term. Parents, thank you for being so engaged and involved with your children's learning.
I would also like to welcome Karen Armstrong to our Blog this week. She is an instructor from the Education Department at UBC and she will taking a look at Multiliteracies in our classrooms. Welcome!
As we all start to relax and get into Spring Break mode, we would like to highlight some of the activities we did over the past couple of weeks.
On Thursday, March 7th, all of the primary classes met in the gym to dance, dance and dance some more! This was our annual school fundraiser called The Dance A Thon. We went through our extensive repertoire of dance moves to songs like The Bunny Hop, The Twist, The Cuban Shuffle, The Mexican Hat Dance and of course, The YMCA!
Multiliteracies in the Classroom:
We continued our exploration of music by listening to two separate compositions then responding to them in a variety of ways.
First, we listened to Camille Saint Saens' "Aquarium". You all had the opportunity to see the finished products of this project during the Gallery Walk at our Conferences. Here is a brief history of the process involved in creating these masterpieces!
1) What is this music about? Listening with eyes closed, the students formed an image in their mind.
2) Sketching and outlining their image:
Painting:
Enjoying the moment:
Thinking, creating, and developing the Cinquaine Poem to accompany their painting:
Painting the background of the poem:
Voila! In case you missed the Gallery Walk, here are some video clips.
On Thursday Sarah and Olivia, our UBC teacher candidates, read the students another entertaining Mo Willems book entitled, "Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs".
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The students discussed what they thought were the beginning, middle and end parts of the story.
Then they illustrated and wrote about these three parts of the book.
Taking this concept of beginning, middle and end in a story, we listened to another piece of music by Sergei Prokofiev entitled "The Dance of the Knights". We gave no infomation about this piece so the children could form their own perceptions and images. We discussed that not only do books tell stories but music does as well. Listening to the music a few times, the children were able to recognize changes in the music and then identified the beginning, middle and end parts. Then they met in groups and talked about images and storylines.
After a lot of collaboration, the students created their story and illustrated the beginning, middle and end parts.
Next was preparing to present their stories. Within their groups, the children decided who would talk about the following items:
1) Introduction & Conclusion
2) Beginning
3) Middle
4) End
Each student had one job.
On Friday, we met with our big Buddies who are seasoned professionals when it comes to speaking and presenting in front of audiences! Using two big Buddies per group of four, our students were mentored and coached. Our Buddies offered amazing guidance and feedback. Thank you!
When we finally presented our stories on Monday, we were truly amazed at the clarity and volume of speech, the organization of each group, and the overall comfort and confidence our students showed through this entire process. Furthermore, we had quite a few students away sick so some people had to take on other speaking parts without any rehearsal. As many of us know, speaking in front of large groups can be a daunting experience but these guys made it look easy!
As we look ahead to term three, Sarah and Olivia will be commencing their extended practica with us. They have many exciting and engaging events in store for us so stay tuned!
In the mean time, we hope you all have a relaxing and very sunny (oh, please) break. We will see you on Tuesday, April 4th.
Thanks for visiting :)
I would also like to welcome Karen Armstrong to our Blog this week. She is an instructor from the Education Department at UBC and she will taking a look at Multiliteracies in our classrooms. Welcome!
As we all start to relax and get into Spring Break mode, we would like to highlight some of the activities we did over the past couple of weeks.
On Thursday, March 7th, all of the primary classes met in the gym to dance, dance and dance some more! This was our annual school fundraiser called The Dance A Thon. We went through our extensive repertoire of dance moves to songs like The Bunny Hop, The Twist, The Cuban Shuffle, The Mexican Hat Dance and of course, The YMCA!
Multiliteracies in the Classroom:
We continued our exploration of music by listening to two separate compositions then responding to them in a variety of ways.
First, we listened to Camille Saint Saens' "Aquarium". You all had the opportunity to see the finished products of this project during the Gallery Walk at our Conferences. Here is a brief history of the process involved in creating these masterpieces!
1) What is this music about? Listening with eyes closed, the students formed an image in their mind.
2) Sketching and outlining their image:
Painting:
Enjoying the moment:
Thinking, creating, and developing the Cinquaine Poem to accompany their painting:
Painting the background of the poem:
Voila! In case you missed the Gallery Walk, here are some video clips.
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On Thursday Sarah and Olivia, our UBC teacher candidates, read the students another entertaining Mo Willems book entitled, "Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs".
.JPG)
The students discussed what they thought were the beginning, middle and end parts of the story.
Then they illustrated and wrote about these three parts of the book.
Taking this concept of beginning, middle and end in a story, we listened to another piece of music by Sergei Prokofiev entitled "The Dance of the Knights". We gave no infomation about this piece so the children could form their own perceptions and images. We discussed that not only do books tell stories but music does as well. Listening to the music a few times, the children were able to recognize changes in the music and then identified the beginning, middle and end parts. Then they met in groups and talked about images and storylines.
After a lot of collaboration, the students created their story and illustrated the beginning, middle and end parts.
Next was preparing to present their stories. Within their groups, the children decided who would talk about the following items:
1) Introduction & Conclusion
2) Beginning
3) Middle
4) End
Each student had one job.
On Friday, we met with our big Buddies who are seasoned professionals when it comes to speaking and presenting in front of audiences! Using two big Buddies per group of four, our students were mentored and coached. Our Buddies offered amazing guidance and feedback. Thank you!
When we finally presented our stories on Monday, we were truly amazed at the clarity and volume of speech, the organization of each group, and the overall comfort and confidence our students showed through this entire process. Furthermore, we had quite a few students away sick so some people had to take on other speaking parts without any rehearsal. As many of us know, speaking in front of large groups can be a daunting experience but these guys made it look easy!
As we look ahead to term three, Sarah and Olivia will be commencing their extended practica with us. They have many exciting and engaging events in store for us so stay tuned!
In the mean time, we hope you all have a relaxing and very sunny (oh, please) break. We will see you on Tuesday, April 4th.
Thanks for visiting :)
Saturday, 2 March 2013
A Week of Music and a big welcome to Elana in Div 2!
Before we look back on our week, we would like to welcome Elana into Division 2. She will be Karen's job share partner for the duration of Jen's medical leave. For those of you who were not with us last year, Elana was our student teacher from UBC. She was such a great fit for our team that we had to have her back!
This week we continued our learning about Beethoven. Did you know that Beethoven was deaf by the time he was 50 years old? In order to continue composing his music, he removed the legs from his piano so he could feel the sound vibrations through the floor. The children have become quite fascinated with Beethoven and have especially enjoyed his beautiful music.
One of our Choosing activities involved exploration with sound. The children shook small containers and listened to the sound produced by the contents inside. The challenge was to find another container that had the matching sound!
More dancing was in store for us as well. Racquel came to Dickens to lead us through some dances in preparation for our Dance-A-Thon. We are learning a variety of dances such as The Electric Slide and Sha-La-La.
On Thursday, all of the primary students went to the Orpheum Theatre to see and hear a real symphony! Many of the students wore fancy clothes for the occasion. We travelled by school bus and arrived in rainy downtown. It was grey and wet and cold.
But then we entered the Orpheum and we suddenly forgot about the inclement weather. Wow!
The students kept talking about the gold and how fancy the theatre was. Noah said, "This is just as fancy as in my dreams!"
The show was very entertaining. The conductor and some of the musicians acted out a skit and really connected with the audience by talking about and demonstrating their instruments. They were also very funny! The finale was Ode to Joy and at one point, the entire audience became the choir and sang along with the orchestra. It was amazing!
In Math this week, students in Karen and Elana's group explored Place Value up to 100 using base ten blocks. This is a great way to develop an understanding of tens and ones in a concrete way.
Wendy and Jenny's Math group worked on making doubles. This is such an important skill to have and involves memorizing doubles facts. We decided to put things to music to make it a bit easier and a lot more fun! Then, we performed our song for the other Math group.
News Flash!!
Rahel and Ethan's baby girl arrived yesterday at 6:53 last night. Her name is Milani Love Hildebrand and she is beautiful and healthy! Everyone is doing well.
We will hopefully have pictures to follow next week.
Reminders:
-Dance-A-Thon this Thursday from 9:00 until recess.
-Purdy's Chocolate orders due to Wendy by March 7th.
Thanks for visiting :)
This week we continued our learning about Beethoven. Did you know that Beethoven was deaf by the time he was 50 years old? In order to continue composing his music, he removed the legs from his piano so he could feel the sound vibrations through the floor. The children have become quite fascinated with Beethoven and have especially enjoyed his beautiful music.
One of our Choosing activities involved exploration with sound. The children shook small containers and listened to the sound produced by the contents inside. The challenge was to find another container that had the matching sound!
More dancing was in store for us as well. Racquel came to Dickens to lead us through some dances in preparation for our Dance-A-Thon. We are learning a variety of dances such as The Electric Slide and Sha-La-La.
On Thursday, all of the primary students went to the Orpheum Theatre to see and hear a real symphony! Many of the students wore fancy clothes for the occasion. We travelled by school bus and arrived in rainy downtown. It was grey and wet and cold.
But then we entered the Orpheum and we suddenly forgot about the inclement weather. Wow!
The students kept talking about the gold and how fancy the theatre was. Noah said, "This is just as fancy as in my dreams!"
The show was very entertaining. The conductor and some of the musicians acted out a skit and really connected with the audience by talking about and demonstrating their instruments. They were also very funny! The finale was Ode to Joy and at one point, the entire audience became the choir and sang along with the orchestra. It was amazing!
In Math this week, students in Karen and Elana's group explored Place Value up to 100 using base ten blocks. This is a great way to develop an understanding of tens and ones in a concrete way.
Wendy and Jenny's Math group worked on making doubles. This is such an important skill to have and involves memorizing doubles facts. We decided to put things to music to make it a bit easier and a lot more fun! Then, we performed our song for the other Math group.
News Flash!!
Rahel and Ethan's baby girl arrived yesterday at 6:53 last night. Her name is Milani Love Hildebrand and she is beautiful and healthy! Everyone is doing well.
We will hopefully have pictures to follow next week.
Reminders:
-Dance-A-Thon this Thursday from 9:00 until recess.
-Purdy's Chocolate orders due to Wendy by March 7th.
Thanks for visiting :)
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Hip Hoppin' Through the Week
Happy weekend Dickens families!
Once again, our week was filled with many eventful activities and experiences.
On Monday, Divisions 1 and 2 celebrated our 100th day at school. Thanks to all for bringing in 100 items for counting.
100 day activities included:
1) Drawing their items,
2) Sorting 100 items into different sized groups such as 50, 25 and 10,
3) Predicting how they will look at the age of 100 (this one's a keepsake!).
During the afternoon, we had the pleasure of meeting some nursing students and a strange creature named Bugsby. They talked to us about the importance of washing our hands properly and thoroughly.
Here's Bugsby!
We practiced washing our hands then examined them under a magical, germ detecting light! Yick!
On thursday, we listened to Beethoven's Symphony Number 5. The children discussed the types of instruments they heard in the piece.They also talked about how the first movement of this symphony made them feel. Words such as happy, sad, worried, panicked, and startled came up.
Then we had a great discussion about the person who composed this music. Who do you think this person is? What do you think this person looks like? What type of person do you think he or she is?
Next, the children set off to create a portrait of this unknown person.
Finally Ludwig Van Beethoven was revealed and the students talked about how their impression of the unknown composer matched the real Beethoven.
As you know, we will be going to the Orpheum to listen to works from Beethoven. We are learning Ode to Joy so that we can sing along with the symphony on Thursday. Olivia brought her violin to play for students and just happened to have Ode to Joy in her repertoire!
Finally the big day of Hip Hop arrived! During the morning, all classes had the opportunity to enjoy a full performance by everyone as well as a professional hip hop group, their hip hop instructors and even the teachers!
Here are a couple of clips of Div 1 & 2's dance routine.
So much fun!!
Reminders for next week:
-Field trip to the Orpheum this Thursday morning. Students will be travelling by bus.
-Dress for the symphony on Thursday!
-Bring a pocket snack for Thursday's field trip.
Once again, our week was filled with many eventful activities and experiences.
On Monday, Divisions 1 and 2 celebrated our 100th day at school. Thanks to all for bringing in 100 items for counting.
100 day activities included:
1) Drawing their items,
2) Sorting 100 items into different sized groups such as 50, 25 and 10,
3) Predicting how they will look at the age of 100 (this one's a keepsake!).
During the afternoon, we had the pleasure of meeting some nursing students and a strange creature named Bugsby. They talked to us about the importance of washing our hands properly and thoroughly.
Here's Bugsby!
We practiced washing our hands then examined them under a magical, germ detecting light! Yick!
On thursday, we listened to Beethoven's Symphony Number 5. The children discussed the types of instruments they heard in the piece.They also talked about how the first movement of this symphony made them feel. Words such as happy, sad, worried, panicked, and startled came up.
Then we had a great discussion about the person who composed this music. Who do you think this person is? What do you think this person looks like? What type of person do you think he or she is?
Next, the children set off to create a portrait of this unknown person.
Finally Ludwig Van Beethoven was revealed and the students talked about how their impression of the unknown composer matched the real Beethoven.
As you know, we will be going to the Orpheum to listen to works from Beethoven. We are learning Ode to Joy so that we can sing along with the symphony on Thursday. Olivia brought her violin to play for students and just happened to have Ode to Joy in her repertoire!
Finally the big day of Hip Hop arrived! During the morning, all classes had the opportunity to enjoy a full performance by everyone as well as a professional hip hop group, their hip hop instructors and even the teachers!
Here are a couple of clips of Div 1 & 2's dance routine.
So much fun!!
Reminders for next week:
-Field trip to the Orpheum this Thursday morning. Students will be travelling by bus.
-Dress for the symphony on Thursday!
-Bring a pocket snack for Thursday's field trip.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Love is in the Air!
Happy Belated Valentine's Day to all Div 1 and 2 families. This week there was a definite buzz in the classrooms as Valentine's Day was fast approaching!
The week began with our assembly. Due to the popularity of the Chinese Lunar New Year dance from last Thursday, our teacher candidate, Olivia, briefly excused herself from her UBC class and popped by Dickens to help the children put on an encore performance of their dance. The dance was a hit and the children were really proud of themselves!
Focus quickly shifted to Valentine's as the children decorated special mail bags and hung them in the classrooms.
On Tuesday, the children began to create extra large Valentine's for a neighbourhood activity aimed at spreading love and happiness. In other words, a bucket-filling project! If you are unfamiliar with the term "bucket-filling" please ask your child and he/she can explain.
Finally on Thursday, the day had arrived! Sage exclaimed, "This is the best day of the year!". Soon it was time to peek into our Valentine's bags and to read the cards that were delivered by fellow classmates. The students were allowed to eat one treat from their bag and then take the rest home. Sorry parents! hee hee
Actually, the "hee hee" was on us because we had a big celebration with lots and lots of Valentine's food! Thanks to parents who brought these delectable morsels. Wow.
Towards the end of the day, we teamed up with Sheila and Cathy's class and set out to deliver our extra large Valentines to the doors of neighbouring homes. We feel so fortunate to be in this neighbourhood and community so we thought we would let people know how we felt.
Here are Cathy and Sheila's classes.
Here we are on the other side of Dickens.
A neighbour emerged to say thank you after hearing the pitter pattering of feet coming up her stairs.
Way to go Divisions 1,2,3 and 4. You warmed people's hearts today.
Another exciting event took place this week - Hip Hop! For the past few years, Mike has come into Dickens for two weeks. He works with each team and somehow pulls us all together for a performance at the end of the second week. It's astounding!
"Raising the Roof" move.
Our performance will take place this Friday right after lunch. All families are welcome to come!
Upcoming events and reminders:
-Do Bugs Need Drugs? Visits from nursing students to all primary classes on Monday afternoon.
-Hip Hop Performance at 1:00 this Friday.
-VSO Field Trip on Thursday, Feb. 28th. Please bring in $5 plus the permission form.
Thanks for visiting :)
The week began with our assembly. Due to the popularity of the Chinese Lunar New Year dance from last Thursday, our teacher candidate, Olivia, briefly excused herself from her UBC class and popped by Dickens to help the children put on an encore performance of their dance. The dance was a hit and the children were really proud of themselves!
Focus quickly shifted to Valentine's as the children decorated special mail bags and hung them in the classrooms.
On Tuesday, the children began to create extra large Valentine's for a neighbourhood activity aimed at spreading love and happiness. In other words, a bucket-filling project! If you are unfamiliar with the term "bucket-filling" please ask your child and he/she can explain.
Finally on Thursday, the day had arrived! Sage exclaimed, "This is the best day of the year!". Soon it was time to peek into our Valentine's bags and to read the cards that were delivered by fellow classmates. The students were allowed to eat one treat from their bag and then take the rest home. Sorry parents! hee hee
Actually, the "hee hee" was on us because we had a big celebration with lots and lots of Valentine's food! Thanks to parents who brought these delectable morsels. Wow.
Towards the end of the day, we teamed up with Sheila and Cathy's class and set out to deliver our extra large Valentines to the doors of neighbouring homes. We feel so fortunate to be in this neighbourhood and community so we thought we would let people know how we felt.
Here are Cathy and Sheila's classes.
Here we are on the other side of Dickens.
A neighbour emerged to say thank you after hearing the pitter pattering of feet coming up her stairs.
Way to go Divisions 1,2,3 and 4. You warmed people's hearts today.
Another exciting event took place this week - Hip Hop! For the past few years, Mike has come into Dickens for two weeks. He works with each team and somehow pulls us all together for a performance at the end of the second week. It's astounding!
"Raising the Roof" move.
Our performance will take place this Friday right after lunch. All families are welcome to come!
Upcoming events and reminders:
-Do Bugs Need Drugs? Visits from nursing students to all primary classes on Monday afternoon.
-Hip Hop Performance at 1:00 this Friday.
-VSO Field Trip on Thursday, Feb. 28th. Please bring in $5 plus the permission form.
Thanks for visiting :)
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