What a week!  The weather in southern Alberta has been gorgeous.  We've waited a long time for spring to arrive, but with the warm weather also comes squirmy kids and a hot classroom.  We did get a break on Wednesday when we relocated to the cooler basement to allow the painters to come in and do their thing.  The new paint colour makes the room bright and airy.  I won't be missing the Smurf blue that's for sure :)  I might go in on the weekend and put up a few posters ... maybe.

I love technology ... when it works!  I lost two Social Studies classes this week because we had computer glitches.  A couple months ago our school eliminated the computer lab and replaced it with laptops on a trolley.  So, if you want to use the computers, you just sign out the trolley, roll it down to your room, and away you go.  This worked really well for the first two months and then this week we had issues.  The students couldn't get onto the internet and that made my New France Webquest a huge disaster.  After two days of rescheduling, I was done with the idea of doing a webquest.  We went over the answers as a class and filled in the missing information.  The school days are running out and we're on a schedule.  We gotta move on!

This leads me to my last thing - Britain's Influence on Canada in the 1600 and 1700s!  Aren't you excited?  Probably not and I totally understand if you aren't.  Chances are the kids aren't either.  Well, that's what I figured when I planned my next section in Social Studies 5.  I decided to start with a Reader's Theatre script.  There are 5 speaking parts: Narrator, France, Britain, Acadians, and Cornwallis.  I tied a little art activity in and posted it on TpT.

You can check it out here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Britains-Influence-on-Canada-1600-1700s-Readers-Theatre-Activity

I wasn't planning to put it on TpT, but when I was searching Canadian History, I noticed there wasn't a lot there.  Maybe this will help someone out.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Top Priority Teaching

I Need To Get In The Habit!

I knew it had been awhile since I last posted, but I was SHOCKED to see how long it really was.  I have no excuses.  I need to get in the habit of posting.  I need to start with one night a week as my blog posting time.  If I start with one post a week and get really good at that, then I can move on and try two posts a week.  Be patient :)

Here's what my students have been up to:

Math 4 - We are finishing up multiplying 2 or 3-digit numbers by 1 digit.  Honestly, I was scared about teaching this.  I wanted to provide the kids with lots of strategies and I wanted them to be able to explain the math behind what they were doing, but I wanted to go slow enough so they didn't get overwhelmed and frustrated.  I found this great FREE resource and used it as my starting point.

http://bridges1.mathlearningcenter.org/resources/blog/201110/multi-digit-multiplication-strategy-posters

To help the kids stay organized I had them create a top tab foldable.  After we learned about each strategy, they did an example in their organizer.

The kids have done amazing with the strategies, but I'll find out for sure on Tuesday when they write their test.

Science 5 - We just started our section on clouds.  After introducing the topic with a RAN organizer activity and a short BrainPop video, we were ready to make our own cloud.  This was my first time making a Cloud in a Jar and my principal surprised me with an observation, so I had my fingers crossed that it would work.  Guess what?  It did work and the kids were engaged the whole time!  You gotta love that :)

Check out Laura Candler's website for a FREE PDF copy:

http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/science/CloudinaJarDemo.pdf

I can't wait for my kids to make the cool cloud viewfinders next week.  I'll post pictures, but until then you can check out the website:

http://www.windows2universe.org/teacher_resources/cloud_viewer_web.pdf

Top Priority Teaching