Busy Little Bees!

Never a dull moment in the BASES room!  Here are a few of the things that have gone on in our room in the 10 days following Halloween:

• After a WONDERFUL group effort in the Halloween door decorating contest, cleanup was in order
• Student council delivered some bags of treats for a door decorating job well done (despite not winning the class pizza party)
• A group of students went shopping for our first group luncheon and applied their money skills in a real world setting
• Students participated in cooking Hawaiian Casserole (both meat and vegetarian versions).  A DELICIOUS meal was enjoyed by ALL the BASES students, Peer Tutors, SEAs, Teaching Staff and Administrators!  YUM!!
• We have completed our measurement and money units.  We are now beginning a unit on computation, focusing on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
• We are continuing of plant unit by measuring our bean plants.  October bar graphs have many bean plants measuring as taller than 20 cm!
• We have been writing a series of character analysis for 'Saved by the Bell'
• Each student has chosen their first novel to complete a novel study project
• As shown in the previous post, students were learning about remembrance day, leading up to the writing of postcards to soldiers.

A Spooktacular Week!

Lots of Halloween themed events going on this week! (and some not so Halloween themed)

1)  Carved our pumpkins.  Also toasted the seeds and had a yummy snack.

2) Painted our Halloween lanterns

3)  Decorated our classroom door (for the Student Council door decorating competition!  Hoping to win the class pizza party!)

4)  Continuing our study on money, collecting coins in our money bags (BASES market in November)

5)  Bean garden! Our plants are growing.  We've started painting the ceramic pots for our beans and are measuring heights and graphing our bean growth.

6)  We have been writing personal autobiographies (as seen on this website).  If you have the chance, please take the time to comment (you can use your name when you sign in, but don't need an account to do so).

7)  We have received more postcards - from Japan, Tuscany, Russia and Germany!  We love learning about the world through the postcard program.

8)  Cooking program is going to start next week!  More details to come soon.

Re-energized and GO GO GROW!!!

Re-energized from a long Thanksgiving weekend, students returned to a switch in block order and a 'WHIR' of activities!

In Science, our beans were given some TLC in the Fuller residence over the long weekend, as the students were concerned that 3 days would be too long without water.  One of our grade 8 students, Jeena, googled the scientific name for our bean and we made out NYB (name your bean) chart - aka Phaseolus Vulgaris.  GROW LITTLE BEANS!!!!

In preparation for our BASES MARKET, the students will be earning paper money that can be traded for plastic replicas of actual moey and then go SHOPPING for items from the treasure box.  We hung a money line in the classroom and the students made money bags and clothes-pinned them to the line.  We look forward to the grand opening of our BASES market, sometime in November.

Students are getting EXCITED for the upcoming trip to the pumpkin patch on October 20.  We will be visiting the Apple Barn in Abbotsford and learning about apples and pumpkins.  We will be returning with a pumpin each so they can carve them the following week.  We are in the initial stages of planning for Halloween in the BASES room.

And of course students have a multitude of projects and academic work on the go!  Learning about measurement, our daily fast 5, a continents quiz, current events, journaling (and posing for the camera) are all part of a hard days work in B104.  As per usual - BASES is BUZZING!

Postcards, Plants, Acronyms, Synonyms, Homonyms and other Goodies

We're well into October and have fun with fall in the BASES classroom.

We've started doing a FAST 5 - our quick brain awakener in the morning.  This keeps our Math facts 'sharp' with 5 quick measurement and money questions.  Keeping with our Postcards and geography unit, we are learning about the 7 continents, memorizing by using an acronym (the first letter of each continent name).  The students created the acronym 'After Auntie Ate Nuggets, Squirrels Arrived Elephants.'  In other words, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, South America, Asia, Europe.

And speaking our Postcards - our first two have arrived.  One from Germany and one from Finland!  We were excited to put these up and start our collection and learn about these exciting countries.  We've also sent off a few more - Melanie and Caitlin were kind enough to walk them out to the mailbox for us.

We are keeping a close eye on our beans - which are now planted in soil - and are starting to see green.

Did you know that we have been at school for 22 days already?  The students have decided that Mr. Hayes, Mr. Whitham's and Mr. Ranu's guestimation of where our number line will be at 100 days won't even be in the ballpark (Shhh....don't tell them).

We are also beginning a unit on 'Words are Wonderful.'  We have been learning about synonyms and homonyms.  Three of our students, Jasmine, Jeena and Janelle, delivered a coloful note to our vice-principal, Mr. Whitham, with a slew of synonms for his favorite word, 'STELLAR.'  These included outstanding, heavenly, fantastic, delightful, joyous, amazing and fabulous.

In keeping with our synonym theme, we collected words for our BLOG word - buzz - and came up with whir, hum, whiz, murmur and drone.  We also started "catch up" time on Fridays symbolized by the similar sounding "ketchup" bottle on the door!

Also, the students created a Thanksgiving Bulletin Board with typed copies of their journal writing about what they were thankful for.  Our peer tutor Jennelle also taught them how to make hand turkeys.

And as much as the BASES kids are thankful, we as the BASES teaching staff are thankful to - for our wonderful SEAs, supportive administration, collaborative colleagues and amazing kids with whom we work each and every day.

Wishing a HAPPY THANKSGIVING to ALL our BASES students, their families and to ALL our subscribes who follow our blog.

The ordinary(?) and the SPECIAL

I don't know if is possible to call anything "ordinary" in BASES.  We are continuing our Math unit on Measurement and Money.  We are doing an assignment called "Name Your Bean" for our Bean plants (NYB).  Sheila Lee is coming on Tuesday for a wonderful music program.  We are doing a school wide coin find (students from the whole school can find coins and add them to our bin by the classroom, and then at the end of the month "guess" the value for a chance to win!)  We are continuing our geography/postcard assignment.  Postcards have been received in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Michigan.  We have since sent a few more, including more to the Netherlands and Germany, as well as Japan and Brazil.  We also participated in the Terry Fox Run on Wednesday.  Now that I think about it, none of this is "ordinary."  Everything in our class is EXTRAORDINARY.

This week we had an extra SPECIAL event.  Our Principal and Vice-Principals came for a visit to the BASES room.  The students had the chance to share what they are learning.  This included having them plant their own beans, add their height to the class height chart (part of the math measurement unit), add their guess to the 100 days line, checking out iPads and sharing some cookies.  We are so much at Sullivan Heights, an in BASES to have such invested and supportive administrators!  The kids had a wonderful time and were so proud to share all they learned!

Fatima shows Mr. Hayes and Mr. Whitham how to plant their beans.  

Arman is excited to see the visitors in our classroom!

 Raheel and Mr. Hayes check out the BASES blog on the iPad!

 Hamza gives an iPad demonstration to Mr. Whitham and Mr. Ranu

 Hamza measures Mr. Hayes on the Height chart.  Apparently Mr. Whitham and Raheel are the same height.  We tried to verify this with a back to back challenge.  They are the same height, though Raheel's hair gives him a slight advantage.

 Students watch as Mr. Whitham get's measured.  Alisha follows up the height chart with a platter of cookies to share.

Highlights of the week...WITH PHOTOS!

It's been another great week in BASES.  We are excited to share more photos of the program AND finally some programs of the students!  Every day is busy and jam-packed, and full of excitement.

We have started a unit in Math on measurement, focusing on length, width and area.  We are using concrete group cooperative activites to measure the classroom.

Mr. Stroh and Ms. Becker are doing a unit on story lines and looking at characters and story arcs, while talking about common high school experiences.  They are doing this by working through the TV Series 'Saved by the Bell'.

We are continuing our support of the school-wide fruit and vegetable program by delivering fresh plums throughout the school, as well as fundraising for our cooking program by continuing with school-wide recycling.

Since the weather was nice early in the week we finally got outside to enjoy the fresh air!!

We have also started a contest - the 100 contest!  We are using straws to estimate where the number line will be when we reach day 100.  We've also been playing lots of game - learning about money management and strategy.


And that's not all!!

We have started a wall of talent in our classroom to show case student projects and passions.  You can see that we have some of Melanie's art (so colourful!) and a post/research project on Selene Gomez and the Scene from Jeena.

Our bean plants are starting to grow!  The first ones have started to sprout, and next week we will be putting them in soil.

And, lastly.  WE HAVE IPADS!  So many reading, learning, math, literature, and interact apps for students to learn from.

Have a great weekend!