MULVEY SCHOOL

In connection to Arts and Social Studies, we built a “Good Village”! This is a community where everyone is being good, nice, helpful, and responsible.

We recycle/reuse our old toys and utilize it to create this friendly community!

Room 18

First of all I want to thank all of you that came out for student led conferences. It is a great time to see what your child is doing here in school and celebrate their accomplishments with them. For those of you that were not able to make it please call me at the school and we can arrange another time that works for you.

We have the results from Stop the Leak Week! After checking all the taps, water fountains, sinks and toilets in the school, we discovered two leaks. We calculated that as a result of those two leaks 36.2 L of water was being wasted everyday. The students spoke to our custodial team and we are happy to report that the leaks are being fixed!!! For participating in Stop the Leak week, each student received a Slow the Flow t-shirt and a water kit so that they can check for leaks in their own homes.

In math we have been working on creating division stories and also learning about fractions. The students have done many hands on activities, learned new games and even created pieces of art all using fractions. We will be moving onto measurement next and hopefully we will have nice enough weather to get outside and practice using some of the skills we are learning in the classroom!

As part of Mother’s Day celebration, the students made special cards and tulip origami flowers for their moms!

As we started working on the unit, “Human Body”, students began asking questions

on how the different parts of the body work as a system. We brainstormed, we did

word flash, and students worked in group with their K-W-L chart ( What we know,

What we want to know, and What we have learned). They enjoyed working in groups

as they gather information that will answer their questions.

 

In April, Room 19 did Career Fair, along with the other intermediate classrooms. We heard about other jobs, such as: philanthropy at Misericordia Hospital; aquatic biology; Manitoba Public Insurance; and school bus driving. The presenters came to our classrooms and told us about their jobs. Some things we learned include:
• Don’t text while you are driving;
• Don’t drink and drive;
• Lake sturgeon is an endangered fish, and can live up to 150 years. They never stop growing, live in fast-moving water, and have a sucker-like mouth. They do not begin laying eggs until they are at least 25 years old – they reproduce very slowly;
• The hospital is raising money for a rooftop ‘pizza garden’;
• We learned how many exits there are on a school bus (6!). School buses also stop at all railroad crossings, even if the tracks are disconnected!;
• Misericordia Hospital performs 24 000 eye procedures every year;
We worked on regular class activities such as division and multiplication in Math; handwriting, spelling, and The People of Sparks in ELA; materials and structures in Inquiry; and in Social Studies we are working on provinces and territories. And finally we worked on our portfolios for student-led conferences.
By the Students of Room 19

Room 7 was busy this past week getting their art work completed on their mother’s day projects. All of their hard work paid off and their finished products looked great! Take a look at the pictures of the students in action…

We are all hoping that Spring is really here and that we won’t see any more snow until November!  In anticipation of warmer weather, some students and adults from Room 6 will be going plant shopping in May. We will buy flowering plants to beautify the school grounds. This will be an ideal learning opportunity to talk about what plants need to grow, why we need plants and how plants help the environment. The students in Room 6 will also be responsible for watering and weeding the containers in front of the school. When it’s time for you to plant a garden at your house, you might have a willing helper who is excited about showing what he or she has learned.

The students all look forward to going swimming once a week at Cindy Klassen Recreation Complex. Some of the students were a bit nervous about being in the pool for the first few times, but now they are all very happy to paddle around using their arms and legs, put their faces into the water and jump into the shallow end of the pool. It’s great watching their happy smiles as they learn confidence and skills in the water.

We have been reading some traditional tales or fairy tales, starting with The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The students enjoy the repetitive parts of the stories, such as “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down” and they usually remember their favourite parts of the stories. We will draw pictures and use words to describe the main characters in the fairy tales to help remember the stories we have read.

In addition to literacy and communication activities, the students have been continuing to make progress in counting, patterning and addition, and self management skills. Turn taking and sharing are focused on daily, particularly while using the iPad.

Spring IEP meetings will be held in April. At your child’s IEP meeting we will discuss his or her progress and individual educational needs. Plans for the future, including for the next school year will also be discussed. I look forward to meeting with you.

 

Some students shared their thoughts about our class workshop and learning centers:

“Math Workshop has different activities like Beach Fun, telling time, making patterns, adding/subtracting numbers using flashcards and dice, and we can use DreamBox. It is fun!” – Student A

“I like The Daily Five Workshop because you can work with friends like reading books, writing sentences, and listening stories.” – Student M and Student C

“I like Raz-Kids because I will earn tokens for reading books and answering questions. I can play Raz-Rockets and it is fun!” – Student T

“Beach Fun Learning Station is fun because you will learn how to read basic sight words and you will add/subtract numbers. I like solving math problems!” – Student M and Student T

“I love computer center because you can work math lessons on DreamBox and read books on Raz-Kids.” – Student M

“Our reading center has many books! There are also many “free choice” books to read with our friends.” – Student R

The students are having quality time using the different learning centers. These areas allow the students to have easy access to a variety of learning materials in an interesting and productive manner. Learning centers are designed to offer a variety of materials, designs, and media through which students can work by themselves or with others to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom. Centers are designed to enhance the learning of concepts, skills, themes, or topics. Students will be assigned to work as a team and such team will share responsibility and assure that each member will have a sense of ownership in the center and will be more willing to engage in the activities.