Vintage newspapers …

Today in class we had a chance to look at some old newspapers, much like the one pictured above. These are part of a collection owned by a local history buff. It was great of him to share them with us. It was neat to look at the old headlines, ads, comics etc. We also did a short reading/comprehension questions. And, hopefully you all were able to get your cards made. See you tomorrow … Friday.

Christmas in the Trenches…

I am a bit late getting this out today … under the weather.  I will have a sub in tomorrow so I expect you will be cooperative. Wednesday,of course, will be a day off school but a day to remember all those who have fought in wars on our behalf. Try to attend a ceremony.

Today we worked with a very neat story… Christmas in the Trenches. It is a true story of how British and German soldiers declared a truce on Christmas Day in 1914. (WWI) Before Reading we discussed what we would miss about Christmas if we couldn’t spend it at home with friends and family. That helped us imagine how these soldiers might have felt so far from home. Good discussion today … you got me in the mood for Christmas!!

Twins …

Happy Friday. Today we worked on a couple of exercises. One dealt with redundancy … where we give information in a sentence that repeats itself/is not needed. Like saying a “free gift” (did you ever pay for a gift??!!) or “6am in the morning” (isn’t am always in the morning??) Be careful of this type of thing. Some of us did other word exercises and some started the article about the WW2 experiments carried out by the Nazi regime. We read about testing done on twins,testing that involved giving people only salt water to drink or exposing them to extreme cold to see how their bodies reacted. Nasty.

Have a good weekend … stay healthy.

The gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp …

… no vacation resort, that’s for sure! Not many survived camps such as these but we did work with an article today that contained an interview with a Holocaust survivor. Before Reading, you came up with lots of things you knew about such camps. (once we got going) Thanks for helping me with the reading today as one of you volunteered to read the interview questions. After Reading we did some comprehension questions to be sure we got the main ideas. Good work. Tomorrow is Friday!!!

Please make sure your parents see the note below about H1N1. Thanks.

In response to a new directive from Public Health, we are required to return the vaccination consent forms to the students. Although it states that the bottom section (Screening by Nurse) is to be completed b In response to a new directive from Public Health, we are required to return the vaccination consent forms to the students. Although it states that the bottom section (Screening by Nurse) is to be completed by the nurse prior to vaccination, we have been instructed to have parents/guardians complete the last three questions. The Public Health nurse is responsible for only the first question: “Are you/your dependent sick or do you have a fever today?” Please complete this and return the consent as soon as possible. Without authorized written consent, the student will not be vaccinated. Please ensure your student’s health card information is completed in the upper right hand corner of the form. y the nurse prior to vaccination, we have been instructed to have parents/guardians complete the last three questions. The Public Health nurse is responsible for only the first question: “Are you/your dependent sick or do you have a fever today?” Please complete this and return the consent as soon as possible. Without authorized written consent, the student will not be vaccinated. Please ensure your student’s health card information is completed in the upper right hand corner of the form.

What would 6 million paperclips look like?

That is a good question. It would look like a lot. We were working with an article this morning about the holocaust of WW2. 6 million Jews were killed during this war. That is a hard number for us to imagine because it is so huge. One school decided to collect 6 million of something to give them a visual picture of just how many 6 milllion is; they decided on paperclips. We will continue with this tomorrow. We woke up our brains this morning with a small story about a crime. We were supposed to answer 11 questions about the information given. The moral of the story here was that we add a lot of information to what we read from our own thinking. When we looked at the actual information given us in the story, we realized we couldn’t give true many facts about what we read at all. Interesting 

Happy Halloween

Hopefully you all had a good night at the dance. We took a break today and enjoyed treats and a movie to celebrate Halloween. Have fun this weekend … stay safe!!

The kind of Vampire Bats I like …

Over the past few days we explored the world of blood sucking vampires; today we explored the world of blood sucking animals. You mentioned mosquitoes and fleas but today we read about vampire bats that actually feed off the blood of other animals. We read an article about them first. Then I asked you to go back and find facts about these creatures and sort your information into categories (appearance, behaviour, location …) It helps to use a highlighter so you can see the information you have already used. Great job. You all worked well. Have fun tonight. Keep your toes covered up … just in case. 

Dracula Land…

First of all, it is good to note that some of you are very good at keeping up with the news. You often have a piece of news to share in the morning so you must be paying attention to tv, radio, internet news broadcasts. After reading period this morning we read an article about plans in Romania to build a theme park called  Dracula Land. Why not? We have been discussing haunted houses so I decided to get you to come up with 10 activities/things  that could be found in Dracula Land.   Everything from garlic flavoured ice cream to sleeping in a coffin in your hotel. This required some creativity. Maybe we’ll check in on any new ideas tomorrow.

Transylvania … home of Count Dracula!!

We had a good reading period this morning … glad some of you have found new and interesting things to read. Today we did a BEFORE READING activity on the topic of vampires. You brainstormed all you knew about them. You even knew how garlic will protect you against vampire attacks! Next we read an article about how the story of  Dracula came about; maybe you didn’t know it was based on a real person – a real mean guy too. AFTER READING we did a comprehension quiz to check our understanding. A couple of you also finished your 3 minute reading check with Barb.

Wolverine : X Men origins …

Welcome back. This should be a good week at school as there are some fun activities happening (dance, pep rally). Schools across PEI are celebrating reading today with the Million Minute Challenge so we focused on extra reading today. After our 15 minute reading period we did a reader’s theatre play based on the movie Wolverine. It is important to practice your part/lines before the actual reading.