Where am I supposed to put all of this?

We are heading into the time of year when bags and bags full of children's work gets sent home and, as a parent, I know that it is impossible to keep it all. As much as we all want to. As proud of our kids as we are for their progress, it is just not feasible to end up with 13 years of saved school work (and that is not even accounting for preschool).

When my daughter was young, it was simple enough to choose 4 or 5 pieces of writing, math etc to put into her scrapbook ,which I must admit kind of stalled out at about grade 3 (she is now in grade 10) as scrapbooking is not my forte. As an artist myself, I was always most interested in her art work. So many wonderful images, such creativity, such growth. I have always felt that it is through a child's art that we really see who they are now and who they are becoming.

Over the years I have framed a few pieces like this one that she did in grade 2. It is a print made from a styrofoam plate carved with the design. She did it while attending the (then new) arts school for elementary students. I like the balance of it, the colour choices and her simple, yet effective, drawings. It makes me happy.

But, lets face it, there is not enough wall space in our house to accomodate all the fabulous things she has done over the years and still leave room for anything else (like the artwork we collect or my own pieces). And, while having it filed away neatly in a storage box, is one way to hold on to momentos it will not allow you to enjoy the creativity your child showed at each age. Plus, we run into the space issue again. We live in 750 square feet. Where to put her school stuff?

This morning I found this neat idea (on Pinterest of course!) and wanted to share it. There is an artist named Jan Eleni (images to the right from her website) who will take your child's artwork, scan it, shrink it, and then frame it (archival quality) in a fabulous grid. Very crisp. Very clean. And one frame can show a year or a number of years worth of work. Now why didn't I think of that? Sometimes it just takes one person to think outside the box (or, in this case, outside the size of the original artwork).

Seems to me that this idea could be achieved at home as a diy. I know that some of the pieces I have saved are too big for my scanner but I bet I could have them scanned and put on a flash drive for not too much money at somewhere like Kinko's. So, I am adding this idea to the 1,113 other decorating ideas I have on my decorating board on Pinterest. I kid you not. I have 1, 113 other ideas on that one board. On one board. I know that I will probably never see most of those ideas to fruition but, like dreaming about winning the lottery, it is fun to find cool ideas, pin them and think to myself "one day..."

  

STOP for a TED talk

If you have 21 or so minutes to spend (or, for that matter, even if you don't) stop and watch a TED talk. Any TED talk will do. You will learn something. I promise. 

Here are a few of my favourites. This one by Sir Ken Robinson. I was fortunate enough to get to hear him in person last year. He is charming, personable and speaks with conviction about his beliefs on creativity and education. His words resonate with me.

This one by Simon Sinek about leadership.

And this talk featuring Sugata Mitra about his Hole in the Wall project on self teaching.

And the amazing Sarah Kay, spoken word poet extraordinaire. Who says "I use poetry to help me work through what I don’t understand, but I show up to each new poem with a backpack full of everywhere else that I’ve been.”

And one of my all time favourites (and only 3 minutes long so you have no real excuse not to watch it!) by Talor Mali called What Teachers Make.

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope that all of you had a wonderful, relaxing, love filled day! I spent the day driving to Bellingham to look for a prom dress for my daughter. It was a fun time AND we found a dress. 5 malls, 30 stores and about 50 dresses before finding THE one. I bet you could hear my sigh of relief all the way from Bellis Fair!!!!

Plus, there were some fab sales on so I got a few things. I can hardly wait to wear them tomorrow. Especially my new shoes (which I actually got on Saturday during round 4 of the shopping drama that was looking for a prom dress!) from Toms. Love, love, love my new Toms!!!!



picture from their website. Click the link above to go there!

I have to send out a huge, gigantic thank you to the scrapbooking mama from our class (you know who you are!!!) who came to help the kids make cards for their moms. And who personally made 23 boxes and the beautiful flowers to attach to them. Gift wrapping has never been so easy! I have been spoiled having this mom in my class this year. Thank you!

I hope that all of you Moms out there enjoyed your present the kids made in class. It took a very long time for some of them to accomplish the weaving. We are talking hours in some cases. We started 3 weeks early since I knew it was going to be a major fine motor skills work out for some of the students. Hopefully, you found a moment to sit back, brew the tea and rest it on your new coaster.

Grade 1's on the Map

The grade 1's recently completed a Social Studies unit with Ms. O. They learned about their place in the world. They did this really cool project that came from pinterest (where else?) I told Ms. O. about pinterest about a month or so ago and am happy to say that another obsessed pinterest junkie has been born!

So, here is the inspiration:

from Finally in First

And here are a few of the amazing projects done by the grade 1's in my class...

And some close ups...

Aren't they awesome? They did such a good job! I especially love the skyscrapers with all the windows lit up on a moonlit night. And the one that put the mountains behind the city.

So, Social Studies is done for this school year. This was their last unit of study (for both grade 1's and 2's). For the rest of the year, we will be doing Science focusing on plants and insects. I, of course, have been scouring my files and pinterest for new ideas and inspirations. I found this cool idea for using file folders on Sunny Days in Second Grade to hold all the students' work. This one is for a project about rocks but you get the idea.



They are called lapbooks and are a fun way to keep all of the students scientific studies in one place AND reuse some of my file folders (that way I won't have to pack them to move to the new school! Aren't I devious?) I have been planning out one for plants and will do a second one (maybe) for insects. Haven't gotten that far yet...The file folders I have been using for Fairy Tales have worked really well, too, so I may do something more like that for insects. I like that they have a pocket to keep the incomplete work. Maybe I could glue an envelope on the back of the file folder to hold unfinished work. This will require more brainpower than I have at 10:34 on a Sunday evening. So, hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bed I go!!!! 

Hitting the Jackpot!!!!

Today there were 150 bloggers giving away free units from their Teachers Pay Teachers stores. April over at A Modern Teacher hosted the Pre-K to Grade 2 sites that were doing giveaways. There were 86 of them! WOWZER!!!!

I found so many cool ideas and, even better, I found some new to me, amazing blogs that I will go back to later for a closer look. I must have pinned about 50 new blogs to my all things school blogs pinboard on Pinterest. So much fun!

I do like me a good linky party and this one was wonderful! It is too late to get any of the freebies but I would highly recommend heading over to A Modern Teacher and checking out this post so that you can link up to all the other wonderful blogs participating and get your creative juices going!

Hey all! I am linking up with Oh' Boy Fourth Grade to do a currently page. I've been loving these ever since I started seeing them pop up here there and everywhere. Finally figured out how to do it. Yippee! Here is mine. Hop on over and join the Linky Party!

Class Catch Up

Each week I give the kids time for catch up so that they can get up to date on their work. Well, seems like I am the one needing a little of it today! Here are a few photos of creations done during Math Stations and Choosing Time over the last little while.

 a house for the stuffies

bunny wedding mural (still not finished and the crew that started it seems to have lost interest)

I really am not sure where the time has gone. For a little while it was positively dragging and now it is flying by so fast that it seems I never have enough of it! It seems crazy that Sports Day is only 3 weeks away!!!!

Last week was Earth Week at school. Each day we had a different theme. Things like working without the lights on, bringing a litterless lunch, walking or wheeling to school etc. Well, our class won the Sitting Lorax prize for having the most kids walk or wheel to school on the same day. The cheers when they called our name over the P.A. were deafening. In fact, some of the kids were so busy cheering that they didn't even know what we had won! Here he is in all his Lorax glory.

I was also very busy last week putting together report cards that reflect how students did in first and second term. We never wrote report cards because we were doing job action. Now we've been told we have to. I am not sure how it is helpful to parents to find out how their child was doing at school 2 or 4 months ago but on high dictated that they be written and written they were.  I am really hoping that parents will understand that a report card is a reflection of how a child is doing at that time. It may or may not be accurate a week or month later. 

It is that time of year when students start to take off. One student recently went up 2 reading levels in just under 2 weeks! Another who does not speak English at home just wrote 3 sentences by herself that I could read! Awesome and amazing things are happening each and every day. Change and growth are happening very quickly for some students now. So, hopefully, parents will not get caught up in the marks that are on the reports when they go home. More important is how their child is doing right now. As I said earlier in the year, no news is good news. If I had any MAJOR concerns about how a child is doing I would have had a meeting with the parents already.

To that end, I thought I would give a quick idea of where each grade should roughly be at this time of year.

In reading, grade 1's are aiming to be at a DRA level 16 by the end of June. This is a RAZ kids level I. They should be able to read the words (decode) and understand what they are reading about (comprehend). I would expect the average student (and remember that to have an average you have to have students who are higher and lower) to be reading at about a level 12 at this time (RAZ kids level G).


Grade 2's in reading...They are aiming for a DRA level 28 by June. This would be a RAZ kids level N to P. At this point I would expect the average grade 2 to be reading at a DRA 20 or 24 (RAZ kids level L or M). I find that what often happens is that students get better and better at the decoding of text (reading the words accurately, with expression and fluency etc) but as the texts get harder many students do not do as well with comprehension. There is, after all, more to remember! You can help your child at home by asking them to stop after a page and tell you in their own words what they just read (a Daily 5 method called Check for Understanding) or you can have them retell you a chapter or story from beginning through the middle to the end. Making them stop to think about their reading makes them better readers. 

In math we have been working a lot on basic addition and subtraction facts in grade 1. Addition has been covered extensively. Subtraction has been introduced and will be covered a lot in the next 6 weeks or so. I am finding that the concept of subtraction is very tricky for a lot of the grade 1's. We will be working with manipulatives and using different math strategies to fully understand this concept. That said, math fact practice at home is never a bad idea!

Grade 2's have been doing addition and subtraction without regrouping. i.e. 25
                          +32
                           
Again the addition comes pretty easily to all of them but some of them are getting stuck on the subtraction. In the case of the grade 2's, it is not because they do not understand the concept of subtraction but that they need to practice, practice, practice their subtraction math facts. We are moving into addition and subtraction with regrouping.
i.e. 49
    +37 

where they have to carry a 10 over to the tens column in order to solve the equation. This is a more complicated concept and having a solid base in math facts is super helpful. If a student has to spend all of their time figuring out what 9+7 equals then they often forget the next step to take to solve the equation.

We have also been learning about ordinal numbers, telling time and adding money. Though they keep telling me I need to take out all of the pennies in the worksheets! I suppose I will have to eventually but I am leaving them in this year.

May is looking crazy busy. We have Mother's Day coming up. The kids are working on a very cool gift so cover your eyes if you come into class! Sports Day is on the 17th and, fingers crossed, it won't rain! At the end of the month we are going on a much awaited for fieldtrip! Yes, I said fieldtrip!!!!! Details will be coming in the next few days. I am going to need a lot of parent helpers so I am counting on my class parents being as awesome as they have been all year.

Anywho, it is late. The Amazing Race is calling my name from the Living Room. Can't you hear it? The faint but steady sound of  "Olwyn, Olwyn, come watch me....come watch me..." Far be it for me to say no to one of my favourite shows. Catch you next time!

Ms. Hughes