Student Blogging

I have been blogging with my students for 10 years now and actually started with a Kindergarten Class!  I love Edublogs for my students. It's incredible how quickly they can learn to navigate and create!.  Click HERE for a link to our Blog. One of our lessons is about writing Quality Comments when visiting blogs. I've made an anchor chart for my students to teach them about this writing process. Grab a copy HERE.

Oreos and Math

The Oreo Cookie Project is a great way to collect primary data and review mental math strategies. Students collect 2 sets of data, their first attempt and second attempt at stacking a tower of OREO cookies. I place my students in small groups where they collect the data on a chart. Grab a copy of the chart HERE.  Then as a class we combine the data and then discuss mean and mode. Back in their small groups my students calculate the average for the group first and second attempts. We chart that data for the entire class and then make graphs that compare the data of the groups. They can be pictographs, double bar graphs etc.

We also do some math about the boxes of cookies.  I buy the bulk boxes that have 3 trays, with 3 rows of 9 cookies in each.  It makes for some great problem solving.  Grab the sheet HERE.

Finally I use the structure of the OREO cookie as a tool to help students work through problem solving steps. The top and bottom hold all the good stuff (the proof) together! This Anchor Chart goes in the front of their math books.  The R.I.S.E. (read, identify, solve, explain) is to encourage students to have the "grit" to not give up when problem solving, to rise to the challenge.  For self assessment students glue a small Oreo template in their math books and check off the steps as they work through problems.  Grab your copy of the self assessment sheet HERE.

International Dot Day

September 15th is the date when Peter Reynolds published his book called The Dot. It is the story of a little girl called Vashti and her journey towards creativity.

Since 2009 more and more teachers have been using this date to celebrate International Dot Day. Classes around the world are using this day to explore the themes of bravery, creativity and self-expression as Vashti did in the story of her dots. Look here to see who has been creating Celebridots!



The Bouncing Dot Official Music Video for The Dot Song from FableVision Learning on Vimeo.as well as this video of The Making of a Dot from Renee Kurilla on Vimeo.will definitely provide even more motivation for my students to get creating.


Let's Make Our Mark On Sept. 15th! I would love to hear your comments about what your students create on International Dot Day!
We made our own marks....

Patterns and Pentominoes

There are so many solutions to the Pentominoes Puzzles.  Puzzler provides some help with solutions.

Here is an activity to try with your students!
Divide your students into teams of 2 or more.  Distribute a set of Printable Pentominoes to each group and have them work together to find a solution of fitting all the pieces together.  Teams should keep track of each step they take to get to their solution.  The team will then create written instructions to guide another team to solve the puzzle similarily.  Instructions should be as descriptive as possible using math vocabulary such as direction, colours, position, etc.  Finally teams swap instructions to solve a new puzzle.

Connections Comparing Contrasting

Call me crazy but I've got two classroom pets this year and two great books to inspire my students to think about what it means to be part of a "family" and to be thankful for what we have.  I am going to post the activities that my class does with the two books here as we go.  As we are working on developing the reading strategy of Making Connections our first whole group activity will be using a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast with a focus on making text to text connections.  Grab your copy of the Venn Diagram Foldable HERE.

The Day The Crayons Quit

The Day the Crayons Quit by Oliver Jeffers is the theme book for our school this year.  It will be our first read aloud in the classroom too!  When my students arrive tomorrow they will find their name tag placed on a desk (strategically placed ;) with a new box of crayons.  We will talk about using all the colours as creatively as possible, and letting our true colours shine brightly this year!