The Trouble Maker by Lauren Castillo

This week we read The Trouble Maker by Lauren Castillo as part of the Global Read Aloud. Children from around the world read the same book as us.

After we read the book Ms. Lirenman gave us a challenge inspired by The Trouble Maker. We were encouraged to create an item that would keep Ms. Lirenman's jewelry safe from any other trouble maker who may come into our class. She also introduced us to the supplies we have in our class maker space.  We could work on our own or in groups but our goal was to create something that would keep Ms. Lirenman's jewelry safe.

Working together to create the ideal hiding spot.
These ladies created a special die that had a place to hide jewlery.

At first we talked in our groups and made a plan on paper.  Some of us are still learning to listen to one another and to share our ideas respectfully.  This was tough for many of us but most of us were able to come up with a plan.

Working together to create something to protect Ms. L's jewelry.

Then we got to work.

Our final creations.
Ask your child to show you and explain theirs to you.

Once our creations were made Ms. Lirenman set up a video conference call with Mrs. DeGroot's class in Iowa. They did a similar activity and so we shared our ideas with them.

While this was only our second video conference of the year so far, it certain is a way that we will continue to learn.

Adopting a Tree

This past Wednesday we spent time in our  school forest adopting trees. Each of us selected our own tree to adopt and name. We then spent some time looking closely at our tree paying close attention to the details the tree has to offer.  Here are some photos of us looking at and sketching our trees.

At first many of just drew the simple structure of our trees but as we spent more time looking we noticed more details.  Ms. Lirenman is excited to see what we learn from our trees.

In future weeks we will take notice of how our tree is changing. We will try to learn the story of our tree (or perhaps make one up for our tree). We will share our trees with each other. We have a lot to learn from our trees.

Co Creating Classroom Criteria Charts

This week we spent some time creating criteria charts for different activities we do in our classroom.  Ms. Lirenman knows we are pretty intelligent so she let us come up with what should be on the charts. Here's what we came up with...

in

Now we can help support each other during these activities.  Do you make charts that help your classmates do their best too?

Writing from Images

Today we talked about how creating images can help us with our writing.  We started with a simple image and a simple sentence and then we slowly added more details to our image and in turn more details to our writing.  Here are a few photos of us creating images to inspire our writing.

Playing with Patterns

Last week we spent a bit of time playing with patterns.  We found some, created some, and even noticed some in nature.  Here are a few things we explored.

Skyping with Mrs. Cassidy

This week we had our first video conference call with Mrs. Cassidy's class.  They are grade one students in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan two provinces east of us.  We found out that they are one hour ahead of us right now.

Here are some photos from our video conference call.

It's Almost Go Time!

Ms. Lirenman has been busy this past week setting up the classroom for the 2016/2017 school year.  She's super excited to meet everyone.  In the meantime here is a quick sneak peek of the room. For those of you who were with Ms. Lirenman last year, how many differences can you spot?