Developing Empathy, Art and adventures.

Developing Empathy
Many small issues that arise in a primary classroom are due to students needing to further develop their understanding of 'how others may feel' or 'identifying their own anxious feelings'.We have been learning about 'Empathy' through the new series out by Class Dojo. We have watched series one and two and look forward to the final chapter next week. We are all wondering how the character 'Mojo' will solve the problem of being in the 'Maze' (or how will he handle his frustrations with his friends and still keep his friends?).
Here is the link if you would like to view it with your child at home.

Empathy series Class Dojo 


Eventually we will be using Class Dojo as a communication tool between school and home. I had great success with using it last year and look forward to refining the process this year. I will not be using the point system individually but will be using them collectively (e.g., I will not be taking points away instead we work towards a class goal). Don't worry, it is a lot of fun for the students and highly motivating if used properly. 
More information to follow :) 

Fall Art and the Open House
Here are some pictures of our work and activities.

A well attended Open House! Our turkeys graced many Thanksgiving tables and the students told me the cider was the best part. Thank you for attending :)

Getting ready for the Terry Fox run. If you look at the wall you will see Grade 8 students. These are our FM ambassadors. They led us through a warm up activity and then we were off and running (or in my case walking). The students did a great job and thank you for sending in a Toonie for Terry. 

Learning how to shade and create a composition. These were supposed to just be fall pumpkins and the next thing I knew Jack-O-Lanterns were popping up everywhere. 

Investigating nature on one of our 'Walk and Talks'. We discovered a pile of rabbit poop, a dragonfly that followed us our whole walk, Sumac trees and of course so many grasshoppers. We discovered that grasshoppers eat grass...hence the name. We also decided that if birds don't eat sumac berries then probably they are poisonous and that nature has a great way of figuring things out. We will be doing some art with some of the finds we discovered in the outdoors behind our school.

Quick overview
Mr Cann the science man, is starting his 'Liquids, Solids and Gas' unit. We are learning about 'Recount' writing during Writer's workshop. In math we are developing better answers when we interpret and compare graphs. Our next unit will be developing addition strategies for number sense. 



Please check the Homework section for weekly updates. Have a great week!