Aboriginal Groups Diorama Projects

Students have been busy researching their Aboriginal cultural groups for their diorama projects. Each pair of students chose a Aboriginal group to study and have learned about how these groups lived, long, long ago. Now it's the fun part! Students have started putting their dioramas together, and they are doing a great job. A couple more classes and they should have their dioramas completed!

Making a Difference

Discussions about Winnipeg's homeless population, as well as other social justice issues, has prompted students in Room 10 to try and make a difference.

Room 10 students are collecting gently used men's and women's hoodies and jeans, in support of  Siloam Mission. There is currently a high need for these particular clothing items, and we’d like to ask for your help. We will happily except your donations until November 17th.  If you are unable to donate clothing but have personal hygiene items (soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes, and toothpaste) you wish to donate, we will collect those too! 

Siloam Mission serves hundreds of people every day, lending a helping hand to those who need it.

You can help make a difference. 

Cultural Connections

In Social Studies, we have been learning about the the First Nations cultural groups that lived in the land we know as Canada, long before people started to arrive from Europe. We learned that the geographic regions where these groups settled, influenced their way of life. Back then, people lived off the land and had to work together to survive. In all First Nations, children and young people learned the skills and knowledge they needed by working with older family members.

During our conversations about the types of things First Nations people made, several students made connections to their culture. Sheena and Hunter, who are both Cree, brought in beautiful hand-made, beaded leather mitts to share with the class. Hunter also brought in a dream catcher he made. Demetrius, who is Metis, brought in a number of items from his culture, including a Metis sash and beaded moccasins.

It was great to see the cultural connections to our study of First Nations people, from a time long ago.

Demetrius displays the handmade items from his Metis culture.

T.I.A. with Dimitry Komar

Hi!

Our class is doing T.I.A. (T.I.A. stands for The Integrated Arts) with Dimitry Komar, a mosaic artist. All the classes in the school are doing T.I.A. with Dimitry because we are creating a large mosaic for Athlone School's 50th Anniversary! So far we've just done our sketches of what we want on the mosaic. Dimitry is going to take all the sketches from all the classes and make them into one big sketch. The sketch will be up on the wall near the school entrance on October 13. Each class will work on a different part of the mosaic design. We will work in groups of 2-4 people. We are going to pick the tiles that we want and make them part of the design! We will first cut the tiles and place them within the design. Dimitry will lay masking tape over our design to hold the tiles in place. We have to label our piece of the mosaic with numbers, and Dimitry will put all the pieces of the mosaic together.  The anniversary mosaic will hang on the wall forever!

By Korbin, Jillian, and Zachary

Reading Buddies

Our reading buddy class is room 22. Their teacher is Mrs.Whitely. Reading buddies is a time when older students read to younger students, make friends and connect with each other. The older students, like us, have to set an example for the younger students, so when they become the older students they will also set a good example. We are working on a project with our buddies. This is how we did the project: First our buddies wrote their names on a line that said "my name." Next, we wrote our names on a line that said, "my buddy's name." Lastly, we wrote a word about how we felt together while we were reading. One of the examples was, "we are fantasticly awesmazing together." All the pages we made will have a photo of us reading with our buddies and will be made into book that can be shared with families.

We had a very fun time with our buddies!                

By:
Rowan and Emma B.

Fun and Games!

There was a great turnout for the Parent Council Barbecue on September 18! Thankfully, the weather cooperated and families and staff were able to come out and enjoy all the games and food organized and prepared by Parent Council. A big thank you to them for putting together this wonderful event and also to the leadership students who helped manage the games. Below are a few photos from the event.

Back to School

The first few days back to school have been exciting, informative, and fun. We have been spending time getting to know each other and learning about multiple intelligences. We learned there are many ways to be smart, and that we are all smart in different ways. If we share our talents with other students we can strengthen and support our classroom community. Here are the ways kids in Room 10 are smart.

We also worked on creating a class Belief Statement. These are the expectations (rules) we will live and learn by in room 10, and within our school community. 

Below, are photos of students collaborating on ideas for our classroom Belief Statement.

Welcome

Hello! Welcome to our class blog. I'm Dawn Schmitt and I teach grade 5 in Room 10 at Athlone School in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I taught Grade 4/5 at Athlone during the 2012-2013 school year and it was a great experience. I really enjoyed working with the students, families, and staff and was thrilled when I found out I would be returning. I look forward to working and learning with everyone once again!

This is my first attempt at blogging so please be patient. I hope to involve the entire class in our blog by having them contribute posts about what we are learning in class and what events are going on around school. As well, I hope to have students post pictures and videos of the work we do so families can view and comment about the learning taking place in Room 10.

It's going to be an exciting year so please stay tuned.

Meet the Teacher

A big thank you to all the students and families who came out for the "Meet the Teacher" triad conferences on Wednesday and Thursday. I really enjoyed meeting and chatting with you. As well, I would like to thank families for promptly completing and returning all the back-to-school paperwork that went home during the conferences.