Friday, 30 October 2015

Orange and Black Day.

Our Spooky Skeletons

Our Dance Party Friday was the theme from Ghostbusters

We had some good moves this morning

Go go go!

Our Fall Bulletin Board so far

Our 100 Chart Activity

Spooky Pumpkin

Emma bought in fantastic cupcakes to share. Thanks Emma!

Pulling out the guts!

It's really slimey.

Lots of seeds in here to roast!

How many are there Emma?

Friday, 23 October 2015

This week we have started to work on our Daily Five in ELA class. Students have been given the opportunity to practice five different language strategies to help them work on the many skills required to become proficient readers and writers. The Two Sisters came up with this strategy a few years ago to help their own students when practicing skills needed in Language Arts. Over the years the five strategies have been changed and manipulated until they have become the way they are today. Students in ESI are now responsible for working at all five stations everyday.

Station 1 is called Read to Self. Students are given a levelled literacy book to read on their own using the three strategies of read the pictures, read the words, and use the clues on the cover to predict the topic.

Station 2 is Read with a Buddy. Students at this station will sit together with one other person and following the rhyme Elbow to elbow, knee to knee, I'll read to you and you read to me students will take turns reading a book of their choice. On certain days students will be working at the table with a guided or shared reading book to allow for success when reading more difficult material.

The third station is called Listen to Reading. Students at this station are given a choice of either a chrome book with Raz kids installed, an IPad with Epic books installed or a Play Away digital story reader to listen to a story being read to them. This is often a favourite station for students as they love to listen to stories. The rule here is that they must be listening and following the story as the words are highlighted and correct pronunciation is modelled.

The fourth station is called Writing. Students at this station are either given time to free write where the only rule is that they must be printing either letters, numbers or words before drawing a picture, or they are given a modelled writing strategy such as fancy letters, stamping words, sight word scramble, write the room etc..

Station 5 is called Word Work. Students at this station complete a variety of activities and games to encourage looking at words, their formation, the letters used and the sounds they make to encourage the pre-reading skills necessary for success.

So far students have been very excited to move around the room and try the different stations!

Book Fair and first Speech session

Our speech therapy ladies Ms. Anna and Ms. Amanda will be visiting us three Wednesday mornings out of the month and will be working this year on asking W questions, taking turns, and other strategies to practice speech and social skills in station based activities. Students were very excited to have the chance to practice this week looking at hidden pictures to find nouns, they interviewed each other to find out their favourite things and they worked on a Halloween themed board game taking turns. The students have so much fun while learning strategies to help them in social situations!

Thursday, 8 October 2015

Stone Soup!

Thanks to everyone in the class who helped to make our stone soup special. Students were invited to bring in a vegetable to add to the stone in the pot to make our soup extra special. It was a great TEAM ESI effort!

DLTK's Educational Activities: FablesStone Soup

A kindly, old stranger was walking through the land when he came upon a village. As he entered, the villagers moved towards their homes locking doors and windows.
The stranger smiled and asked, why are you all so frightened. I am a simple traveler, looking for a soft place to stay for the night and a warm place for a meal.
"There's not a bite to eat in the whole province," he was told. "We are weak and our children are starving. Better keep moving on."
"Oh, I have everything I need," he said. "In fact, I was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you." He pulled an iron cauldron from his cloak, filled it with water, and began to build a fire under it.
Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a silken bag and dropped it into the water.
By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come out of their homes or watched from their windows. As the stranger sniffed the "broth" and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their fear.
"Ahh," the stranger said to himself rather loudly, "I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with cabbage -- that's hard to beat."
Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a small cabbage he'd retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot.
"Wonderful!!" cried the stranger. "You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king."
The village butcher managed to find some salt beef . . . And so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for everyone in the village to share.
The villager elder offered the stranger a great deal of money for the magic stone, but he refused to sell it and traveled on the next day.
As he left, the stranger came upon a group of village children standing near the road. He gave the silken bag containing the stone to the youngest child, whispering to a group, "It was not the stone, but the villagers that had performed the magic."