Going Out With a Bang!

Wow! Spring Break is finally upon us! Friday was a crazy busy day for our class! The day flew by with all kinds of fun activities! Here's what we did:

1.) Continued on our Project of Heart with Mr. B's class. Today our activity was writing letters to survivors of the Residential School system.

We also created tiles for the survivors, which will be sent with our letters.

 The finished product, which will be added to a mosaic at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Beautiful! What an incredible learning experience for our class! 

2.) We had a 'Mystery Skype' date with Ms. Bettess' grade 3 class in Thompson, Manitoba! We had lots of fun meeting the students in the class, and learning about the city of Thompson.  We are planning on talking to them again after Spring Break, and hearing about some of the social activism projects they are taking on.

3.) Our favourite baby, Ryder, came for a visit to our Roots of Empathy class! He is now 7 months old and doing all kinds of entertaining things- rolling back and forth, eating some new foods, and figuring out what kinds of noises he can make (we discovered that he REALLY likes to scream!)  He was cute as always!

We finished up our day with a fun movie, snacks, and a thorough cleaning of the classroom!  Enjoy the week off everyone! See you on April Fool's!  :)

Rock On!

Today was Rock 'n Roll Day at Heritage. Lots of people came to school dressed like rock stars! (See Mrs. Waters & Mr. B below!) It was a lot of fun!
This morning we had some special guests in music class. Mrs. Johnson, the band teacher from Bruce Middle School, brought some students and instruments with her to our class. We got to see instruments up close, and talked about the different instruments we could play when we take band in middle school. It is a decision our grade 5 students have to make soon!
Tomorrow we will have Hawaii Day! It will be fun to pretend we are on the beach when we are still having indoor recess in March!

Trip to the Symphony

Today we went on a field trip to see the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. We went with Mr. B and Mrs. Shabaga's class. We heard music by Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and Greig. The concert was called 'Bach to the Future'. There were dancers, an acrobat, and kids playing the violin and recorders. We saw a piece of art done by Darrylynn up on the big screen! The concert ended with the Star Wars theme song! Thanks to Ms. Neufeld for planning such a fun field trip for us!
-Blogged by Room 23 on the bus!

Hockey Day at Heritage

Hockey Day at Heritage

Today we had our first day of Spirit Week! It was Hockey Day at Heritage. Some people came to school dressed as hockey players, in their jerseys and other hockey gear. In the afternoon we had a tabloid.  All the activities were based on hockey. Some of the activities were a skills competition in the gym, making a hockey stick craft, creating our own special goalie masks, and 'Jet-Pardy' (hockey trivia) on the Smart Board.  We had a great time even though the weather was awful today! It was super-duper fun, especially for a Monday!

-Shared Writing by Room 23

Spirit Week!

Just a little reminder, this week coming up is Spirit Week! We have some fun activities lined up at Heritage School!

Monday - Hockey Day at Heritage! Wear your favourite hockey gear!
Tuesday - Blue & Gold Day
Wednesday - Rock n' Roll Day
Thursday - Hawaii Day
Friday - Lazy Day! Wear your PJ's to school!

Also, don't forget we're heading on a field trip to the Winnipeg Symphony on Tuesday afternoon!
One week until Spring Break!

Project of Heart

Our class (along with Mr. B's room) is taking part in something very special called Project of Heart.  It's a project that involves classrooms from across Canada, learning about the history of the Residential Schools. The kids have watched some videos, listened to stories, and investigated on the internet what happened during this sad time in Canada's history. They were shocked to learn that over 150 000 children were placed in Residential Schools, and that a large part of them never came home. As part of the project, we will be studying Norway House Residential School specifically. We also hope to have a survivor come to our classroom to share their story. At the end of the project, we will be decorating 90 wooden tiles that will be installed this June at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights at the Forks.  Each tile represents a child that died in a school. It's been a very powerful and moving experience for us. Very tough for me to teach as well!

The tiles

Researching...

Renaissance!

Alright, here it is folks! I've been inspired by my incredible colleagues to kick it up a notch and revamp my old classroom blog! Stay tuned for regular updates from the gang in Room 23!