Zoo School Project: Kids With Character!

As you know, our class is headed to the Edmonton Valley Zoo for AN ENTIRE WEEK in January! HOLY MOLY GUACAMOLE! To qualify for one of the highly sought-after weeks at the zoo, a year-long project must be submitted and selected. Drumroll, please!......Character education will drive OUR awesome year-long Zoo School project! 

Our Zoo Project

Character Education is when we intentionally teach our students about the traits that will help them become successful, caring individuals. We strive to encourage our children use their God-given gifts to be the hands of Jesus to others! 

Throughout the year, our project will focus on 6 key character traits; trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring & perseverance. We’ll read zoo animal stories that feature these character traits, and then students will deepen their understanding through journal prompts, reflections, activities, and Bible readings.

Perseverence

We began our project by reading the folktake Give Up, Gecko! When the animals find themselves thirsty and without water, they decide to dig. The large animals try, but give up. The medium animals try and give up, too! Even small animals try, but quit. Then an itty bitty little gecko tries and tries, and eventually finds water! He sure didn't give up!

This story highlights perseverance and promotes a "growth mindset", which is what we celebrate and encourage here at Holy Redeemer. We value hard work, persistence, & effort! Have a look!

http://big-change.org/growth-mindset/

After reading Give Up Gecko!, we focused on something tricky we wanted to learn that we promised not to give up on! 

I won't give up until I learn to build a robot.

I won't give up until I learn to do a handstand.

I won't give up until I learn to BBQ.

We will continue to read animals stories featuring perseverance! Isn't everything new a little tricky at first?

Psssst! Hang on! Stay tuned for part 2 of our Zoo School Project ... it's really exciting! (Hint: This second part of our zoo project is digital, eeeek!)

My blog posts from last year's phenomenal zoo school week can be found here, here, here, here and also here! Get excited!

Writing prompt courtesy of Deanna Jump can be found HERE. 

Our Village!

Our staff, regardless of the grade we teach or role we play, gets to know each and every student throughout the year. The beauty of our small school is that we are truly a family!

There are a few people your child will cross paths with a bit more than others. Introducing . . .  our "village"!

This is Miss. Dubuc. She is our spectacular secretary! Not only is she the friendliest face in Holy Redeemer, but she has recently done many renovations in her house ... all by herself! Amazing!

Miss Dubuc

This is Miss McMillian, our custodian. She loves walking her dogs and listening to audio books. If you attend 10:30 mass, you might even be lucky enough to hear her sing in the choir!

Miss McMillian

Meet Mrs. Hill! She is our Librarian and is here Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Hill loves reading Stephen King books in her pjs and especially loves spending time with her 7-year old son!

Mrs. Hill

This is Miss Akhtar. She is a world-traveller who loves fitness! Miss Akhtar is our Counsellor and she teaches our class Health every Wednesday. 

Miss Akhtar

This is Mrs. Chrystian, an Educational Assistant in our school! She is a dynamo in the kitchen, has an amazing green thumb, and loves to Ukrainian dance!

Mrs. Chrystian

This is Mr. Grudzinski! He eats, sleeps and breathes music! He has a recording studio in his house and he DJs events on the weekends! Mr. G is at our school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and will teach our class Music and one Phys Ed class each week. 

Mr. G

Across from our classroom, teaching Grade 3, is Mrs. Lefler. She was married this summer! She loves camping and country music. Mrs. Lefler will be teaching our class about Seasonal Changes (Science) once a week on Fridays. 

Mrs. Lefler
(fun fact... She was Mrs. Beliveau's
student teacher a few years ago!)

This is Mr. Dumont, our fearless principal! He loves Star Wars and Noodle Box (yum!). Our boys and girls love seeing which pair of funky socks he is wearing each day!

Mr. Dumont

It truly takes a village to educate our children! We are so blessed to have such an enthusiastic, caring staff! 

Reading & Rhyming!

Rhyme Bag

We are working hard in class to develop the necessary skills for reading, and rhyming is an important part of the reading process. Rhyming allows children to play with words and makes language fun and engaging. It encourages children to listen to language and notice its sounds. Rhyming also helps children discover word families (e.g. pot, hot, and spot are in the -ot family). Rhyming is such a rich language activity! 

We have a Rhyme Bag that students are taking turns bringing home. Only items that rhyme can be placed inside! This student had fun with us by only showing us her first item, a bat! We all enjoyed guessing what else might be inside (as well as what probably wouldn’t be inside). Look at the rhyming items that filled her bag!

bat, cat & hat

When your child brings the Rhyme Bag home, feel free to not only choose items to place inside, but illustrations, words, or images printed from your computer. All items will be returned. Happy rhyming!

Reading

Each morning the boys and girls are paired up and share their Home Reading books with each other! Then they exchange their book for one at the same level and quietly read the new book. I am able to read individually with 4 to 6 students in this short time, allowing progress to be assessed, feedback to be given, and book levels to be adjusted. What phenomenal readers we are becoming!

For the next few weeks, the books that come home will be basic pattern books. My goal is to build confidence, make the experience of reading enjoyable, and develop reading behaviours! 

Here are a few strategies to support your child as he or she reads:

• Finger-track: Ask your child to follow the words with their finger. Today we used googly-eyed reading buddies to remind us to track!

• Look at the Pictures: The pictures are loaded with information that our beginning readers rely upon. Please never cover the pictures. For example, we can see flowers painted on Froggy's picture!

• Check the First Letter: When stuck on a tricky word, ask your child to say the sound of the first letter. For example, in the picture below, when we check the first letter and see an "h", we know the word cannot be "chicken". Must be "hen"!

We have keen readers and rhymers in our class! 

Beep Beep! The Wheels on the Bus

Our first week together has wrapped up and it has been absolutely spectacular!

We all love a good book, but EVERYONE loves a book that you can sing along to! Well... maybe not everyone, but it is certainly true for 6 year olds (and their goof of a teacher). We enjoyed singing The Seals on the Bus together!

Then we practiced singing the song with our names! We focused on using the first letter in our names to make our own verses. 

This little lady's name begins with an L, so her bus says "lumpity lump"!

Participating in literacy-based centers!

Then we set to work making our own buses!

We added the first letter of our names and completed the Wheels on the Bus poem!

This project gave me an opportunity to get to know my students so much better! I was able to see how the children played with and manipulated sounds. I got a good peek at the children's ability to cut, print, colour, glue, and follow two-step directions, as well as several other work habits, including perseverance, time-management, sharing, and problem solving. Whew!

Pop by to enjoy our bulletin board! (Disclaimer: This tune can get stuck in your head!) 

Spectacular week, kids! You knocked my socks off with your hard work and kindness!


The Wheels on the Bus names activity is inspired by Deanna Jump's Names Unit: Literacy and Math Fun With Names.