Ancient Egypt Royalty

We hope you enjoy our Egyptian Royalty portraits. There are even some secret messages in hieroglyphics. These kings and queens look fabulous! Great job, room 8! 

MB Museum

We had an awesome time at the MB Museum! Students got to dress up like mummies, write in hieroglyphics, check out some cool artifacts, and mummify a carrot. Yes, mummify a carrot! Our beloved carrots are drying out at school and will hopefully live forever. The mummification process should be complete in two weeks. 

TIA Fun

Thank you, Mr. Mikita, for helping us with our song about Ancient Egypt. We especially loved the beatboxing! 

Nature Poems

These grade 3 poets brought in some beloved objects from nature. They were asked to make several sketches and notice the smallest details. We talked about observation as an essential tool of poets and scientists, and I shared with them Karla Kuskin's wise advice to poets: "One aspect of a poet's life is really seeing.... If you are going to draw, you have to look at that leaf and see the way the lines come down. You have to see the way the leaf is shaped and the way each plant grows differently. When you're drawing, you're drawing details, that's what you're writing about, too." Most students were amazed at how much the drawing helped them become better observers. The results were amazing! 

Watercolour Fun

Responding to Music through Art: 

8 songs, 8 paintings, and lots of chair dancing! 

Happy Spring Break!

We had a lovely morning painting iguanas in our pajamas! 

Have a fun and relaxing Spring break. See you in April! 

Authors' Brunch in Room 8

Last week, we had our first Authors' Brunch in Room 8. The theme of our celebration was "Pets We Know and Love". These young writers have become very skilled at "painting pictures" in the reader's mind. Students loved hearing about everyone's pets and getting feedback on their piece. We also shared a special snack and made an apple juice toast. We look forward to our next brunch in April and more fantastic writing from the authors in Room 8! 

Book Reviews

If you are looking for a book to read, head to the Athlone library and check out our book reviews. You will love these recommendations! 

Reading Takes Flight

Fingers crossed. We are hoping to hear good news today! 

Happy Holidays

Season's greetings from Room 8. We wish you all the best in 2016. 

Be sure to curl up with some good books over the holidays. 

Enjoy the break! 

Mrs. Andrews & Mrs. Carter

Snowmen at Night

Check out our snowmen, inspired by Caralyn Buehner's book Snowmen at Night. What lovely artists we have in Room 8!

Picasso Faces

Here are a few of our "Three Faces" portraits, inspired by Picasso. Such creativity in Room 8! 

How To Make a Sandwich

We are looking at the genre of procedural writing and writing our own "how-to" texts. Yesterday, the kids gave me directions for making a ham and cheese sandwich. I did EXACTLY what they told me to do! The results were not pretty, but we had a lot of laughs! Students realized just how challenging it is to write clear and specific directions. 

Top 10 Reasons We Love Mr. Van Aert

In honour of National Library Day last week, we composed a top ten list. It is no secret that our class loves the library! We like to keep Mr. V very busy. We've been doing lots of shared writing in Room 8, but we're a little behind on our posts. At least we got a good picture at the Halloween parade! 

Top 10 Reasons We Love Mr. Van Aert

10. He keeps the library neat and tidy and rearranges furniture. 

  9. He works hard at his job. 

  8. He has interesting bulletin boards. 

  7. He lets us take out 3 books and even lets us renew. 

  6. He has great hair. 

  5. He is always buying new books for our school. 

  4. He knows all the best authors. 

  3. He reads to us and has great expression.

  2. He lets our class sign out as many books as we want. 

  1. He is the best librarian ever! 

Meet Mr. Baker

We were discussing leadership in SS and decided it would be fun to interview Mr. Baker about his leadership role at Athlone School. We brainstormed questions ahead of time and listened carefully to his answers. A few of us even took notes. Then we took the information, organized our ideas, and wrote the following piece as a class. Thank you, Mr. Baker, for letting us interview you! 

Meet the Principal

By Room 8

     Mr. Baker is our principal, the leader of Athlone School. This is his fifth year being principal. He's worked in lots of other schools as a teacher and vice principal, but we're pretty sure Athlone is his favourite. 

     Mr. Baker has a ton of responsibilities at Athlone. His job is to keep everyone safe and make sure students are doing their jobs. He also makes sure teachers are prepared and ready to teach. He runs meetings, does guided reading with students, buys things for the school (like our comfy bean bag chairs) and communicates with parents. Mrs. Morris is sort of like his VP. They split up jobs and share responsibilities. And if there is a problem you can't solve, Mr. Baker is your guy! 

     What Mr. Baker likes best about his job is being in classrooms- either helping or watching. He loves coming to work every day and seeing all of us. Mr. Baker said that the most rewarding part of his job is seeing students grow and learn. The most challenging thing about being a principal is dealing with problems that arise. Sometimes he even has to make tough decisions. 

      What we love most about Mr. Baker is that he has a heart for kids. He gives second chances and helps students to fix problems for themselves. If you were to walk by his office, you might see him playing a board game with kids or helping them with their math. He is also a really good listener. We know we can talk to him about anything. 

     Mr. Baker is patient, kind, responsible, and sometimes even silly (see photo above). He is our principal, the leader of our school. And he cares about Athlone a lot! 

We are Bucket Fillers

Our bucket slips are exploding like crazy! We fill each other's buckets by being kind, sweet, and helpful. In Room 8, we are great! When you step into our classroom, you will see the kindness. Maybe you'll start being a bucket filler too! 

By Brooklyn and Lamar

What Do Good Writers Do?

We have been busy collecting "seeds" in our writer's notebook and doing lots of quick-writes. Today, we talked about what good writers do. It was awesome to see students making the connection between reading and writing!

The Marathon of Hope Continues

Today we read Terry Fox: A Story of Hope. He ran 3339 miles in just 143 days to raise money for cancer research. His dream was to run across Canada but he only made it to Thunder Bay. He never gave up. We think he is a true Canadian hero. We hope that one day someone will cure cancer. If cancer was gone, life would be easier. Tomorrow at Athlone, the marathon of hope continues. Please donate a loonie or a toonie for cancer research and remember the story of Terry Fox.

By Elly and Neveah

Happy 50th Anniversary Athlone School!

Here is a little poem our class wrote to celebrate Athlone's 50th Anniversary:

What A Wonderful School

We see kids laughing
and having fun,
We see smiling faces
As bright as the sun,
And we think to ourselves,
"What a wonderful school!"
We hear pencils moving
And pages turning,
We hear kids being kind
And everyone learning,
And we think to ourselves,
"What a wonderful school!"
We're ready to learn
And we're ready to grow,
Our brains are exploding
With all that we know!
We feel proud of ourselves,
We're the best we can be,
At Athlone, we're leaders,
Come on in and see!
And we think to ourselves,
"What a wonderful school!"
Yes, we think to ourselves,
"What a wonderful school!"

We hope to see you all at the barbecue!

Welcome to Room 8!

Mrs. Carter and I are very excited about the upcoming school year. It will be a busy month learning classroom routines and getting to know each other. Please contact us if you have any questions at all. We look forward to working with you and your child this year.

It was so great to see so many bright, smiling faces on the first day of school. What a lovely group of learners! We are off to a great start already! 

Today, we launched our Reading Workshop with "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers. We talked about being "voracious" readers and practiced reading quietly so we could all do our best thinking. 

Be sure to check out our Shelfari bookshelf to see what books we're reading in Room 8.

Mrs. Andrews