Gertrude and Bullying

A couple of weeks ago was Anti-Bullying week. As an activity, a few people cut out a paper girl, her name was Gertrude. Then, the instructions were to insult her in ways and everytime we insulted her, we would have to either rip or crumple the paper girl. And after, we did that, we, as a class, had to put Gertrude back together. And then, we talked about not insulting people and how it can get out of control. The way that Gertrude looked afterwards with all the taped pieces and crumples might look how you feel inside and when you are bullied, you will never be the same again. The pieces of tape represent compliments after you're bullied.

Our class learned a lot of things you shouldn't do from doing this.

-written by Fiona

Advent Calendar - Day 6

Today is December 6th, 2011. There are 19 more days left until Christmas.

Today, in the Advent Calendar, I got to open procedural writing sheets to do with our Reading Buddies. Using our procedural writing sheets, we made a symmetry tree that we called a SymmeTREE! And we got to decorate it with paper decorations. Our trees are now on the windowsill in a "forest".

Our class is looking so Christmassy, we're getting in the spirit!

-written by Fiona

Advent Calendar - December 5th

Yesterday was December 5th. There were 20 days left until Christmas.

I got to open a little house that had a bag that looked Santa's bag and we Reverse Santa'd the room with it. Reverse Santa means, Santa puts stuff, but this Santa is a Grinch Santa, but we still call it Santa. Every day, Reverse Santa (aka Grinch) Reverse Santas the room by taking all the things that mess up the room and then we weigh it. We put it on paper and we write how much it is and then add it up with all the time we have for Friday Free Time that we lost from some of the week.

Then I openend an envelope that had Sudoku pages for everyone and they were Christmas Sudoku pages for everyone.

-written by Melodee

Room 305 Fashion!

Advent Calendar - December 4th

I opened Sunday's gift because we were not going to be here on Sunday. The whole class didn't know what Sunday's gift was going to be. When I opened the gift, the whole was class was so surprised that it was a Christmas book. When Shauna read us the book, everyone enjoyed the book. The book is called "The Great Reindeer Rebellion". My favourite part of the book was at the end because the reindeer fly Santa's sleigh again.

It's fun to have an advent calendar in your class.

-written by Jalila

Advent Calendar - December 3rd

Because December 3rd is the weekend, I got to open the present on Friday, December 2nd. From the Advent Calendar, we got Christmas melty sponges and everybody went crazy about them! You put them in warm water and the packages dissolve in the water. Some were: Santa, an ornament, a gingerbread man, and more. Some people used them to hang up on their mini Christmas Trees.

-written by Millie

Advent Calendar - December 2nd

Today was my birthday. I got to open the Advent present. It was little Christmas trees. It was nice. We got seven of them and we have seven tables and we each have one on our tables. People are putting decorations on them too. It makes the class look more Christmassy!

-written by Logan Co.

Day One Advent Calendar

Our class is starting an advent calendar! Shauna and her mom, Laurie bought 25 gifts, and printed some Christmas games and every gift has a tag with which day it should be opened on and a symbol!

Yesterday, December 1st, I opened the first gift! There were 2 gifts! The 1st gift was a game where you had to use the word Christmas tree to make as many words as you can! The 2nd gift was the head of a snowman and a strip of felt for the body which has little slots to put a candy cane in to show how many days until Christmas!

-written by Sarah C.

Note from Shauna: All of the students in room 305 celebrate Christmas in December. We will learn about other winter holidays in class as well!

Skating!

Today, December 2, we, Shauna and Dana's class, went skating! It was very fun. In fact, very few of us got hurt. Shauna was timing many of us. Owen even skated a lap backwards! There was many, many of us in pictures, I, Pat, got in many of them. Well, I can't think of anything else, so, see ya!

-written by Pat

We are inspired by...

Right now, in Room 305, we are inspired by Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. In two short videos, the filmmakers have created a very memorable, distinctive character. Shortly, we will be creating our own characters (based on some of our Specimens To Go from the Museum of Nature) and writing letters in character.

See Marcel the Shell with Shoes On in action:





Soon we will be getting a copy of the Book "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Things About Me" in the class. I wonder who will be able to imitate Marcel's voice!

Birds and Dance

Today, Tiiu hosted students from the Junior division in her room and showed two dances that had to do with birds.

Some students watched them and others stayed in room 305 to work on Science (this was their choice!).

The students who missed the dances asked me to post them so they could watch.

Enjoy...



Humans imitating the movements of a bird and flower



Real birds (starlings) "dancing" in a murmuration

Happy Hallowe'en from the Zombie Squirrels!

Charlotte's uncle James, who is a professional balloon artist and juggler, came to visit and entertain us. What an amazing way to start out a super Hallowe'en!

We were amazed when he put all the balloons together into a cute caterpillar who will now live in Room 305. We used a little bit of magic to help inflate his antennas!

Here we are in character for Hallowe'en. Check out the brand new "Armaanster" in the top left of the picture. Thanks to Trent for putting that together!

Zombie Squirrels at Parliament

MP Bob Zimmer brought us right onto the floor of the House of Commons.

Here we are after our "Press Conference".

We got to meet a second MP, Laurin Liu! She's only 20 and she's already an MP.

Sitting on the steps of Parliament. What an amazing day!

Supermodels!

Watch out - the Zombie Squirrels are here!

Our Trip to Parliament

Trent points out the "Members Only" sign!

Sarah T plays the part of an MP and we watch her as members of the press. Shauna's husband's cousin got us exclusive access. Thanks, Lesley!

We had a very exciting trip with all the three classes that make up Room 920 to the Parliament Buildings last week. We got to meet two MPs, sit in on Question Period (which was surprisingly interesting), go through two different security checks, learn about turning a Bill into a Law, visit the House of Commons, the Senate and the Peace Tower. We also got to go into a a Members Only Press Room.

A Gaga-licious Send-Off for Armaan

We were VERY excited to surprise Armaan!

We REALLY surprised Armaan.

Pat wrote a poem for Armaan's departure and many students told him the things they'd miss most about Armaan when he moves to his new home and school in Kitchener/Waterloo.

We had a fantastic, energetic Lady Gaga dance party.

Melodee and Owen showed off some awesome moves.

Our last full class photo! We'll miss you, Armaan!

Crazy faces

The whole crew, super excited!

Memories of Our First Day!

Now that we're almost a month into the school year, it feels like that first day when we all felt so nervous and unsure was a LONG time ago.

Before we were even Zombie Squirrels or Thumbalicious, we were a class meeting for the first time.

Remember this?

Mosquito Tone

We have a high-pitched tone that we can hear constantly in our classroom. We have asked Doug (our custodian) to look into it. The interesting thing is, Doug can't hear it.

Today we talked about how, as people get older, they can lose their ability to hear really high pitched tones. We talked about a particular high pitched tone called the "Mosquito Tone" that is really annoying to young people, but older people cannot hear it.

We tested the students and all of them could hear the tones up to 17 000 hertz. Many of them could also hear the 18 000 hertz tone.

Shauna could barely hear the 17 000 hertz tone, Andrew could only hear upto 14 00 hertz and Tiiu only up to 16 000 hertz.

Test yourself and your family!

Our New Specimen!

We have a new specimen from the Museum of Nature in our classroom. We have a super adorable little Columbian Ground Squirrel.

When this new friend arrived, I knew I recognized him.

When I went to California with my husband, Matt, two summers ago, we went to see wild elephant seals and all over the parking lot were super friendly ground squirrels.

This is my husband, Matt and a Columbian Ground Squirrel in California. I like that they're both doing the same pose. They made Matt a little nervous!

To see photos of them in action, check out my flickr album!

We Stood Up for Girls

 On September 22nd, the International Day of the Girl, Room 305 talked about the right for every child to have an education and the inequality that exists in some parts of the world today.

The students had many insightful things to say and wrote amazing acrostic poems, letters to world leaders, pledges and made beautiful illustrations asking for all kids to have equal opportunities.

We Are Awesome At...

One of the first things we worked on in Room 305 was talking about our strengths and areas of need.

Each Zombie Squirrel made a poster listing something they do really well and something they are still working on.

I have noticed that the members of 305 are awesome at reading...

I have never had a class who LOVES to read and can focus so hard on DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time in the very first week of school.

This should help us, because we are still really working on...

...using our basic writing skills to write good sentences and paragraphs;

...completing our very best work every day; and

...communicating through the written word.

Every night, students should spend at least 20 minutes reading a great book. Since we are already awesome readers, I think that each student should also spend 10-15 minutes writing.

Stand Up For Girls Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the International Day of the Girl.

In some parts of the world, only one girl in ten will complete primary school. Tomorrow at noon in room 305, we will stand up for girls at noon and talk about the fact that two thirds of all the illiterate people in the world are female. This will give us a chance to think about how lucky we are and how we have a responsibility to help out people less fortunate than us.

Wherever you are, take a quick 10 seconds at noon tomorrow and stand up for girls all over the world.

Room 305 is OBSESSED with squirrels

The "Zombie Squirrels", the lovely grade 4/5 students in room 305, have discovered a common interest - squirrels. From the first day of school, students have expressed their interest in the tiny mammal common to Ottawa.

We have created a squirrel-based class name, written a squirrel theme song, compared and contrasted two types of squirrels (of which we have specimen samples from the Museum of Nature in our classroom) and observed a photo of an albino squirrel in order to infer which species it is.

For more squirrel information, talk to a student in room 305, or visit one of the following sites: The Trinity-Bellwoods Albino Squirrel, The American Red Squirrel, and Grey Squirrels.