Visualization as a Reading strategy, Giving Thanks

Class Trip to Safety Village
The Grade Two students enjoyed their visit to Safety Village. We enjoyed a beautiful autumn day. The students listened to a presentation about traffic signs and their meaning. They learned about Railway crossings and how the colour and shape of safety signs all have meaning. Officer Lawrence then took us out to the Safety village where students took turns driving the jeeps through the village. It took some student time to master driving on the right side of the road. As well, some students learned you must keep both hands on the wheel while driving. Hard to wave at your teacher and still drive safely :)


Reading Strategy of the Week
Each week we focus on a different reading strategy based on the book 'Reading with Meaning' by Debbie Miller. This week Mrs. Homewood our learning resource teacher, introduced us to a new story book called 'Imagine a Day' by Sarah L. Thomson. Students listened to the story without looking at the pictures. Instead, they had to visualize what the words meant, by painting a picture in their minds. To conceptualize their thoughts we integrated this reading strategy with our art. Using a new type of artistic media (watercolour paper and watercolour pencil crayons) we painted a picture based on the sentence we were given from the book. The ultimate goal is to create a class book, inspired by Thomson's book 'Imagine a Day' that we can put in our own classroom library. Books created by our class are always a popular read by students!

Here is the book that inspired the art:

Here are some of our artworks taking shape!

After our art was finished, we looked at what the illustrator of the book drew. Often, the students had more creative ideas or similar ones to the artist. They found their creativity was affirmed and are beginning to use 'visualization' as a strategy when they listen to my 'read aloud'  chapter books. 

Canadian Thanksgiving
Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. I enjoyed having the family over at my home for a great dinner. So many things to be thankful for this year. The students were really creative making their coffee filter turkeys for the window. They do make me smile...