It's been a long time...

... since I've blogged. In fact I'm not sure I even remember how :)

Life changed quite considerably for our family in May this year when my husband was, out of the blue and with no symptoms other than a few weird bruises, diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia. We got air ambulanced to Boston and he became an inmate of Brigham and Women's hospital for three and a half weeks where he lived in a "pod" with a whole crew of amazingly fabulous nurses and doctors looking after him.
He has been considerably blessed in that he has responded well to treatment and does not, at this time, need a stem cell transplant. Instead we have embarked on a 2-year long treatment plan that involves multiple rounds of chemo and some radiation therapy as an outpatient at Dana Farber. He'll be in Boston probably until the end of September before being allowed home for a few weeks and then will return for another 6 weeks of treatment before starting an 18-month long maintenance program.
I had 6 weeks off school to be with him through all the changes - and the roller coaster ride that is leukemia - and now, am spending the summer holidays in Boston as we enter phase 2. It is such a blessing having school holidays!!
My class were tremendous while I was away and we used our class blog to stay in touch. The girls wrote me the nicest letters (sadly many were totally unpunctuated!) and kept me up to date on all the projects. I also wrote my reports in Boston, surrounded by all their assessment papers, which my sister brought up when she came to visit. Thankfully I had done most of their "big test" review before I left and they all did me proud!! Great exam marks this year, which was a relief :) I love that blog!!! It was such a great way to talk to my kiddies!!
I trotted home for the last week of school when my son arrived to look after his dad - met my new class, said goodbye to the current class and cleaned my classroom from top to bottom for the new teacher who will take over my grade 3 class in September. I'm moving to Grade 5. This seemed like a really good idea in January but...  I'm sure it will be fine - I'm going to spend the summer preparing stuff while my hubby naps :)
So... it's a whole new world now. Priorities change when this sort of thing happens - and the old adage "one day at a time" is very, very true!! We've already made it through a massive E. coli infection with the attendant 30 pounds of fluid gain and loss, 20 pounds of muscle loss, hair loss and a truly spectacular allergic reaction to a chemo drug - I'm sure there are many more such adventures coming our way. It won't be an easy ride all the way but we are very secure in our faith, know that God has this - and us - and it will work out according to His will.
We've had tremendous support from family and friends and church and our jobs and we've had a lot of very grateful, tearful moments as a result. I've written a zillion emails - and have discovered that writing is extremely therapeutic :) So this blog may wander off topic sometimes - be warned :)
Actually, I may just use it as a personal journal because I'm not at all sure that many people read what I write :) It's kind of fun to have an empty space in front of me... and kind of nice to be back in the blogosphere :)
I can't seem to find any decent photos of us but here's a quick glimpse of our family - the men are in Boston and the girls are at home :) Gotta love technology - and the silly hats the men are wearing!!!

Narrative Writing 101

I don't know what it is about children and narrative writing! Give my students a descriptive piece and they're awesome; they can compare and contrast quite capably; they're not too bad at persuasive writing - but narrative?

What's that? None of your business. Yes it is. No it isn't. You're a this, you're a that....

"Who's speaking?" I wail in despair, as I stare at three pages of endless dialogue with no punctuation. "Where are the setting details? What does this character look like? Who IS this character? Where, oh WHERE, is your punctuation?!!"

Then there's the student's burning need to fill three lines of the page with... RRRRRIIIIIIIIPPPPPP, or YYYYYAAAAAAAYYYYYYY or something similar.

They forget to indent paragraphs - heck, they forget to USE paragraphs completely!
Spelling is a foreign concept.
And cursive handwriting goes out the window.

I believe this is a universal phenomenon!  :)

Recently we spent some time practicing our writing skills and wrote about The Surprise Package that nine-year old Kim received in the post.

I loved the way this lesson turned out. It took some time - and quite a lot of work on my part - but it was SO beneficial and so informative that it was totally worth it!

We started by discussing all the writing goals that we were going to do our very BEST to complete. We're focusing on embedding setting and character details into a plot right now so our Creating Text objectives were to develop setting, character and plot. We concentrated on organizing the writing into 4 indented paragraphs and we planned to use adjectives and adverbs to add detail to sentences and connectives to make them more complex.

We practiced embedding in a short classroom brainstorm session. "Sarah flicked her long, brown hair over her shoulder, smoothed her pink t-shirt over her jeans and sauntered along the long corridor toward the kitchen. The smell of burning toast and the rattle of a frying pan greeted her as she entered the bright, sunlit room..... " etc. etc.

We briefly reviewed the main idea of the story and discussed how to plan (again, reviewing everything we've been talking about all year) using our plot chart.

And then we started. The kids had to make notes about setting (using their own houses for details - I'm trying to enforce the idea of "write what you know") and character so that they could then use that information when they began to write. They were only allowed two characters.

Each paragraph had guiding questions, which, along with their plot chart, would keep them on track.

When they finished the first paragraph they came to me and we discussed it, checking to see that they had met the writing goals, punctuated properly etc. etc. Then, after making necessary changes, they went off to finish their rough draft.

Self-editing was next. Each student color coded their writing to check that they had met the writing goals. All references to setting were highlighted in yellow; character references were pink; adjectives and adverbs were blue... This way each student could see where elements were missing and could go back and add details as necessary.

The colors look a little different here. She
did color code correctly :)

Next up: self-reflection. Have I met the goals? Most students thought they had. A couple decided they hadn't and went back for more editing. A couple decided they hadn't - and didn't want to! Sigh. Teacher enforcement required!

With the highlighted, edited drafts in front of them, students wrote their neat copies

and then, in pairs, assessed a friend's writing. Using the writing goals again they found two things their friend did well and one thing that could be better. We used the Two Stars and a Wish method. :)

We may have to work on how to word comments. The paper below had an accurate assessment but perhaps it wasn't worded as diplomatically as it could be. :)

 

And then it was my turn. I took all the packs home and marked them on our rubric, giving each piece of writing a level (we level our work on a 1 - 5 system using the Ros Wilson rubrics).

I handed back the marked stories and my students read all the comments - teacher and peer alike - and then reflected on their writing. As part of their reflection they wrote goals for their next piece of writing.

This whole project took nearly two weeks from start to finish but I think it was VERY worthwhile. Not only did it give me a lot of information (which will help me differentiate my teaching) but it forced my students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Our next piece of writing will be a guided assessment - with time allowed for making setting and character notes and plot planning with guiding questions. We'll follow that with a completely independent assessment (with a short period of time allowed for planning). This method worked very well with our descriptive writing last term so I'm hopeful that it will be equally successful with narrative.

We shall see. :)

For more great lesson ideas head back to The Teacher Studio and check out more links!

Irish fun - better late than never :)

I meant to blog about this ages ago but hey, time flies :)

So here are some St Paddy day activities a little late.

We started the day with a grammar hunt - those mischievous leprechauns hid our test AGAIN! (But they also left gold chocolate coins on all our desks so we forgave them :) )

Find it HERE

After recess we did our annual Leprechaun math project - creating a party for the leprechauns.

We shopped at the Rainbow shopping mall, bought supplies, stayed within a budget...

... added up the cost of our party...

... colored our supplies and decorations...

... and decorated the Great Hall for the party!

We finished the day by making fraction fruit loop necklaces. The students had to work out fractions of a group in order to thread their fruit loops onto the string in order. 

So there you are - some Irish fun. A little late :)

The Joys of Spring Break!

Beautiful weather - sunshine and cool breezes;

Spring flowers and happy dogs;

A very productive day in the kitchen - in the hopes of keeping my husband satisfied for a few days!!

Veggie pot pie :)

Spinach and potato curry going into the freezer for
husbandly snack attacks when I go back to school.

Staple food :)

And finally... the FIRST HOT CROSS BUNS of the season!! Woot! Woot!

Time for some tea and a snack in the sunshine :)

Easter/Spring Productivity

I LOVE the holidays! I love it when it's sunny but cool with a nice breeze so I can go walking and still feel comfortable; I love it that my mom is visiting for a month and I can spend a lot of quality time with her; I love it that I have been super productive and have made 4 ( I mean, FOUR!!) resources this week.

Must be the Spring air - I am normally not this productive.

Anyway, I am very pleased with my new resources so I thought that I would shamelessly showcase them today in case anyone is looking for some seasonal math stuff for the next two weeks :)

See HERE

See HERE

These two little packs have 24 themed word problems covering a range of operations (both one and multiple-step) and come in three different formats (color task cards, b & w task cards and printables)

I've also made a summer set which will go with the winter set that I already did a while back. Just autumn to go to have a whole year of POTD packs for my kiddies.

And for those people who, like me, love open-ended projects here's a fun critical thinking resource for the season.

See HERE

This was FUN to make!! And my kiddies, who are now experts on open-ended projects, will love it.

Roll on Easter! I am ready for my hot cross buns, fish cakes and kite-flying!!!

Fraction Fruit Drinks

I have been horribly remiss in keeping up with my poor little blog lately - put it down to reports, end of term frenzy, piles of unending administration stuff...

...but no more!

I am now on holiday for two long blissful weeks and can share some fun projects that we have been doing over the past couple of weeks in school.

Our topic this term was Rainforests and we had an amazing International Primary Curriculum unit that we used. I absolutely loved it - and am thrilled that we'll be adopting the IPC officially next year. I've already been scoping out all the awesome units that are available and thinking about what to do!!

One of the fun projects we had to do this term was have the students create their own fruit drink recipe using rainforest products. We tied it into our Math lessons and had them create Fraction Fruit Drinks!!

First we assembled all our products:

mango, pineapple, papaya, bananas, oranges, vanilla yoghurt, pineapple juice, papaya juice, cinnamon and ginger - plus bowls and measuring cups. Oh, and a blender and jugs!

The kids were given instructions: They had to have 1/2 cup of vanilla yoghurt, 1 cup of liquid and 2 cups of fruit in their recipe. The fruit had to be divided into 1 cup of quarters and 1 cup of thirds.

They were able to decide what amounts they wanted to have of each fruit and we practiced some addition of fractions before we started so they all knew exactly what to do.

e.g. They could choose 1/4 cup of mango, 2/4 cup pineapple, 1/4 cup of papaya for one of their cups. Or they could choose 2/4 and 2/4 or 1/4 and 3/4 etc. 

They could only use each fruit once but didn't have to use all of them if they didn't want to. Everyone had to have the yoghurt and the liquid though. :)

Once each team of four students had designed their drink they measured it out.

Then we blended. They added their yoghurt, liquid and any spices during the blending process.

As each drink was blended I scurried down to the staffroom and poured the drink into a labeled jug. The kids couldn't see which drink went into each jug. :)

When all the recipes were concocted we did a blind taste test of each drink and rated them according to what we thought. The choices were Excellent, Okay and Disgusting. (There were a few Disgustings, I'm sorry to say :) but for the most part the kids liked their concoctions)

With the voting concluded we tallied our results and then I told my class which mystery drink was their group's.

As you can see, Drink B or Gold Swirling Passion was our winner! 

One of my students was absolutely outraged that she had voted her "very own drink" as being Disgusting - which just proves that our blind taste test worked. :)

We graphed our results and the winning drink was served to the parents at our Rainforest Cafe at the end of term. 

Of course the parents had to do a little work too - they had to guess the ingredients and the proportions of the mystery drink. Sadly, no-one got it all right but my generous kiddies awarded their parents with housemarks anyway. :)

This was such a fun project and I think it helped my class see a practical application to Math.

Rainforest Expo

We're starting to wind down our Rainforest unit now and are getting ready for our parent open house - a Rainforest Cafe - next week. This week we brought in a whole pile of rainforest products for a "taste, touch and smell" expo.

With displays of spices - allspice, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and nutmeg - food stuffs like chocolate and minty gum, tangerine slices, pau d'arco tea and ginger tea as well as banana plants and allspice branches, my room smelled divine all day! Add a few coffee beans and it was the place to be in the afternoon. I'm seriously considering hanging some cinnamon sticks around the room permanently!

Pau d'arco tea

The best rainforest product of all!

The kids touched and smelled and tasted - and wrote notes and drew pictures. Some of them drank four cups of ginger tea but no-one wanted seconds of the pau d'arco. (Can't blame them - it's pretty disgusting! I only had it because my husband, for some weird reason, really likes it!)

The gold and diamond display was quite popular - I retrieved my diamond ring twice from a little girl's finger - and all of us loved the orchids that another teacher leant us for the morning.

A most successful morning - we're looking forward to our Cafe for the parents. :)