One More Time!

We've had so much fun this past month, engaging in some creative photography, we thought we'd join in on the next challenge! #eduphotoadayjune is our newest hashtag on Instagram! If you're on, be sure to follow our account: @mrswatersclass (same as our Twitter name!)

The latest photo challenge! #eduphotoadayjune

Who would've thought that Mrs. Waters would have to be dealing with a bit of a 'tattle problem' in the last month of school? Here's a funny new sign to remind us that not everything needs to be reported... hopefully it will make us think twice before we go try to get someone in trouble.

If you haven't done so yet, please be sure to sign up for our 'Remind 101' account! Once you've texted the code to the provided phone number (they went home in agendas a few times), you'll begin receiving a text every now and then (either via cellphone or iMessenger on iPods/iPads) from Mrs. Waters.  Basically, any reminders or information we'd normally be sending home in agendas.  We are giving this a trial run right now to get some feedback from families, as Mrs. Waters is looking to use this in the new school year.  Instant messages reach cellphones way quicker and easier than via agendas, and it's way better for the environment (no more paper!)  If you need the code sent home again, just ask!  

Early feedback has been very positive!   

That's it for this week! Stay dry!

The Remote Control

Check out this silent movie, made by the Heritage Drama Club and Mr. B! It's hilarious, and it features some of Room 23's students (as well as a guest appearance by Mrs. Waters)!

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Well, the rain ruined our day. We were supposed to head over to Sturgeon Heights today to compete in a divisional track and field meet, but that's been postponed until next week. We also lost our recess time outside because it was pouring, so Mrs. Waters put on some 'Just Dance' videos! We had a lot of fun!

Thanks to Ms. Burland and Mrs. Lockhart for telling Mrs. Waters about that website! We love it!

Indoor Recess?

Time for a little dance party!

If you come for a walk in our hallway, you'll see our latest (and probably final) bulletin board. We've been studying Canada's Arctic, and we've been especially interested in Inukshuks and the Northern Lights. Mrs. Waters brought out some pastels and drawing paper, and let us create our own 'aurora borealis'. We added Inukshuks after, made out of black construction paper. We think they turned out great! Our bulletin board has an explanation what Inukshuks are and why they were created, and the science behind the Northern Lights.  We also wrote a pretty awesome poem about Inukshuks! Check it out!

Our latest bulletin board- Aurora Borealis & Inukshuks!

Mrs. Waters DOES NOT like the mess that pastels  make...

...but LOVED the final results!

Each piece of art is unique, just like real Inukshuks!
FUN FACT:
'NORTHERN LIGHTS' IN INUKTITUT IS 'ARSANIIT'

Our poem we wrote as a class about Inukshuks

Better Late Than Never!

Room 23 welcomed a new member today! Moyosore (we call him Moyo) has joined our class for the last month of our school year! His family comes from Nigeria originally, and by recess time this morning it was as if he'd been a part of our class all year!  We look forward to getting to know him better!

The Word is Getting Out!

Wow. When we sat down to write our song with Harmony a month ago, we never thought it would be noticed this much!  It just goes to show how powerful social media is these days! Upload to YouTube,a Tweet here, a Tweet there, and the song is being spread all over the place!

I'm not sure if your students are coming home and telling you about what has happened with our song, 'Residential Wreck', but here's the latest:

*it was played at 'Ke Na Now', which is the year end celebration for Indigenous students in St. James-Assiniboia School Division

*it is featured right now on the 'Project of Heart' website

*the Project of Heart organizers have invited our class, along with Mr. B's class and Harmony, to the unveiling of the tile installation on June 20th; they'll be sharing our song with the crowd

*Professors Frank Deere (University of Manitoba) and Kevin Lamoureux (University of Winnipeg) talked about it in their weekly podcast, 'The Frank and Kevin Show'!

Exciting stuff! Ultimately though, the message is reaching the survivors. Our friend Elaine loved the song, and has shared it with her entire family. 

Please feel free to share the YouTube link with your friends and family!

The Frank & Kevin Show - The 'Language' Episode (we're featured at about 30 min. mark of the podcast)

Project of Heart Website

Look at Him Grow!

He's baa-aack! Our little buddy, Ryder, came to visit with Room 23 this morning!  We saw a lot of changes this month- he's almost 9 months old now! Ryder can crawl all over the place and has learned how to clap his hands too! He kept us thoroughly entertained for our entire Roots of Empathy class!

His Mom shared that he goes to bed at 6:30pm and doesn't wake up until 8:30am! What lucky parents!

Ryder is always a happy little guy.  We have one more visit before our year ends. We hope we get to see a tooth or two before we finish!

Look out! He's on the move now!

Mr. Kerr takes Ryder around to say hi!

When Ryder smiles, his little tongue comes out of his mouth!

Doing some push-ups!

Ryder likes to go around the blanket to check out what we're doing.

Today in Pictures!

Morning sodoku! A great challenge to warm up our brains!

Our Word of the Week - a fitting word for Room 23!

Our Grade 4 students braved the next round of Hepatitis shots!

The aftermath!  No tears at all!

Creating our rhythms with Mr. B's class-  fun with fractions!

We moved our classroom outside for a bit this afternoon...

School work is way more fun when you work in the sunshine!

Our song 'Residential Wreck' was burned onto some DVDs by our friend Mr. McKiel!
(one of our school division's tech wizards!)
Thanks Mr. McKiel!

It's Here!

Hey everyone! This is Mrs. Waters speaking!  Room 23 would like to share our very first song with all of you. This is pretty special to us, as we've been on a journey for the past few months learning about the history of the Residential Schools in Canada.  We've learned a lot, and with the help of our new friend, local musician Harmony Parent, we have created a song to remember the victims and survivors of these schools.  We'd especially like to dedicate this to Elaine, who was brave enough to share her story with us.  Miigwetch! 

Please feel free to share this video link far and wide; this is a story that needs to be learned and always remembered...

Celebration and Hope

Today was a special day! Our classmates who attend the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy had their celebration day at the MTS Iceplex, and Mrs. Waters got to go with them!

It was a fun day- they played a game against Crestview School, toured the Winnipeg Jets dressing room, trained in the fitness center upstairs where the Jets work out, and had a delicious buffet lunch!

What a great way to cap off an exciting season with so much growth in skills!

The rest of the class gets to go watch them play their final game of the season tomorrow morning!

Our name is in lights! Go Heritage!

Opening face-off!

Being good sports & shaking hands!

Our students got medals for being such great student athletes.

Our fantastic goalie! She's a tough one!

So cool! We toured the Winnipeg Jets locker room!

Stick handling outside

We had our third and final class with Harmony today, and finished writing our song together. We have some very creative minds in our class, and our recent knowledge of poetry definitely helped us out! Harmony is taking the song to put to music now. We can't wait to hear the finished product!

Song writing with Harmony

Harmony playing our song

Here are our most recent #eduphotoadaymay pictures!

#rule The one rule that governs our class

#mom Mrs. Waters got flowers for Mother's Day because she's a Mom too!

#shoes  The many shoes in Room 23

Another Week Complete...

Whew! What an end to a week! Our hectic schedule continued today, with our first visit from Harmony Parent, a singer/songwriter who is working with our class to write a song about the Residential School experience.  We've completed the first two verses already, and already we get chills (and Mrs. Waters has tears!)  We can't wait to see how it turns out, and we will share it with the world!

June 11th is the Day of Reconciliation, and the day when our tiles will be revealed at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. We will meet with Harmony on Monday to keep working!

Today our class, along with our K.A.R.E. team, held a bake sale at both morning and afternoon recess to support our drive for Kickballs for Kids! We had a lot of generous bakers helping us out, and we did very well! Every little bit helps!

Our hallway during our bake sale at recess! Crazy!

DELICIOUS cookies created and donated by Mrs. Waters' Mom! Thank you!

Here's today's #eduphotoadaymay picture:

#book  Our current read-aloud is 'The Underneath' by Kathi Appelt! Highly recommended!

We listened to a presentation by some grade 8 students at Golden Gate Middle School about threat assessment.  We learned what a threat is, and how to deal with it. The main message was to make sure you tell an adult that you trust!

Presentation by some grade 8 students at Golden Gate School about threat assessment. It was interesting!

Finally, we wouldn't be very good kids if we didn't send a big 'Happy Mother's Day' message to all the moms out there! Enjoy this video from Kid President!  We love you Moms!

An Open Letter to Moms from Kid President

Storytelling

We were lucky enough to get the chance to attend a piece of the 8th Annual Winnipeg International Storytelling Festival this afternoon! The festival takes place at various places around the city, and one was almost in our own backyard! We walked with Mr. B's class over to the Living Prairie Museum to listen to Cree/Metis storyteller Duncan Mercredi, and Haida storyteller Roberta Kennedy (all the way from Haida Gwaii, B.C.).  They took turns telling us stories. Duncan told us a story about shape-shifters, and Roberta told us a story about Raven, the trickster.  Raven on the west coast sounds a lot like the Nanabosho stories that we know! 

It was a very fun little trip!  

Duncan Mercredi can sure tell a good story!

Roberta Kennedy wore her traditional regalia and even sang some songs for us!

This morning we caught up with our #eduphotoadaymay pictures...

#polka dots  We like reading this picture book!

#play  We went to go see this play at Bruce Middle School yesterday!

#lost and found  We are always losing pencils in Room 23! It drives Mrs. Waters crazy!

We also had some fun today with the Kindergartens in Room 1! They have a pretty neat pizza restaurant in their classroom right now as a center activity, so we sent them a pizza order (and sent the bill to Mr. Moffatt!)  The pizzas were delivered to our classroom this afternoon.  We wrote a restaurant review for them.  Both classes had lots of fun! (thanks to Mr. Moffatt for paying our tab!)

Meet the Bannock Lady!

Althea Guiboche, also known as 'The Bannock Lady', joined us in our classroom this morning!

She has been helping Winnipeg's homeless for a while now, making food for them and bringing them warm clothing in the winter.  Althea explained to us how she got started, and how her small beginning has grown into feeding over 300 people every Thursday!  That's pretty amazing!

She also spoke about her interest in writing; 

she has been published in ten different anthologies / collections!

She left us with a powerful message: always have a kind heart and never look down at people.

Our class wants to help Althea, because feeding that many people every week can be expensive.  We made a list of items that she uses a lot, and we plan on bringing some in to help her out!

We need:

-flour

-oil

-baking powder

-salt

-canned goods (especially beans for chili!)

-dried pasta noodles

-bottled water

-any kind of paper or styrofoam plates/bowls/plastic utensils/napkins (all for serving)

Any donations would be greatly appreciated, and Mrs. Waters will be delivering everything we collect to Althea.

Althea talking about 'Got Bannock' and also about her writing

Here are our last three photos from our #eduphotoadaymay challenge!

#sunshine (taken from Mrs. Waters' deck!)

#upsidedown Our class mascot, Mr. Bananas, is upside down!

#eye We've got our eyes on you! Guess whose eyes these are!

Today was 'Music Monday'! Commander Chris Hadfield sang his song with schools across Canada, live from the International Space Station! We were very excited to take part!

We sang along with the rest of Canada & Commander Hadfield at lunch for Music Monday!