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Yippee! Summer vacation has finally arrived. Boy am I ready for it. It has been a long year and I am looking forward to recharging my batteries and preparing for a new year. Today we spent time with our daughter and her family. We went to the new water park and had some fun playing in the water and then on the playground. I had planned on watching and keeping an eye on my grandson while the others enjoyed the water, but this didn't happen. I ended up taking my granddaughter into the water and getting totally soaked. It was fun, but I had to stay in my wet clothes because I didn't bring a change for me.
They are going to be staying for a few days after Mommy, Daddy, and baby Luka go back to Victoria. We will probably visit the water park again tomorrow as well as play and do some other things. On Monday, we will be celebrating Canada Day and doing lots of activities with the kids. Then the 2 older kids will go to the fireworks with me in the evening. It is going to be fabulous weather, so we are looking forward to having a great time. I am enjoying having some time to just play and relax. My brain has been going non-stop lately and it needs to rest before getting back to reading for book clubs and making products so that I can focus and enjoy doing them. I have lots of ideas, but I want to take a break for a couple of days while the kids are here. I will probably be posting what we have been up to instead. I hope you are enjoying your summer break. I am assuming that everyone is now on break. I know some are getting ready to go back. I look forward to reading about your start ups and all the great things that will be happening in the next few months as we begin a new year all recharged and full of excitement about the new ideas we have.
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Last Week of School Activities
School is almost done and this week has been a busy one. We got rained out today, so Beach Day didn't happen, but we had a Movie afternoon so the kids were happy.
This week I have been doing review in Language Arts and Math through games. My kids think they are in a new class. They can't believe that they get to "play" all day. I have so many games, that there were many they had never seen before, so they were excited to get their hands on them. Check out the pictures below.
We also had a couple of class movies, one on Friday, and one yesterday. The first one was Ramona and Beezus. My boys were not too happy because they thought of it as a girl's movie, but once they started watching it, they didn't want it to end.
The second one was more for the boys. it was Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The girls weren't impressed at first, but again they couldn't stop watching once it got started. Math Fun Today we did Math review of addition and subtraction, counting money, and telling time. I used the QR Codes Math Fun Bundle from Flapjack Educational Resources. I didn't get any pictures because my phone was being used for scanning the codes. I have never seem my kids work so fast. They wanted to get their hands on the scanners so they could check out their answers. People were surprised by how focused they were. Student Gift Bags
Last night I put together my year end gift bags for my class. I gave them each a book from Scholastic on Friday, but I made up a little goodie bag as well. Check it out below. It has some of the things they might need to be ready for Canada Day.
Here is a closer look at the items I used. I am sure my American friends could find something similar for your July 4th celebration.
Flags, pencils and eraser toppers, and a small harmonica
Here is another quick gift that is sure to add a smile to Dad's face.
Materials needed: citronella candle container to put candle in scrubber sponge feather clip bookmark butterfly stick paper bag label
After making the kit, decorate a paper bag and add a label to it. Then you are set to go. A simple Father's Day gift that is sure to make Dad smile.
What a busy week. Here are some highlights.
On Tuesday we had Aboriginal Day celebrations and crafts. Here is a picture of the dancers. Note that the youngest one is a preschooler. They start dancing at a young age.
Remember all the fundraising we did for a field trip? Well, we went on Wednesday. This was an expensive beach day, but it was definitely worth it. It will be a memory for my students and the students in Port Hardy for many years to come.
This trip was to meet up with 2 of the classes I met while I was in Port Hardy at Spring Break. I went to see how technology was being used in the school.there. My host teacher teaches Grade 2 and I spent a lot of time with her class. I also spent some time with the Grade 3 class because one of my students moved to Port Hardy at Christmas and she was in that class. I thought it would be fun to have the classes meet and perhaps set up a buddy class situation for the future. I also wanted my students to see what other parts of the island looked like. The teachers liked the idea, so we made plans, had a Skype call to introduce the classes and we were off. We started at 7:00 a.m. and took a 3 hour bus ride to the north of the island. This was the first time most of my students had been that far north. This was my second trip. We headed to a very popular beach called Storey's Beach where we met up with the 2 classes. This was very similar to a beach we have nearby called Miracle Beach. It has a great sandy area when the tide is out and it also has fields to play on. The tide was coming in, so we didn't have long on the sand bar, but the children enjoyed it anyways. The boys could hardly wait to get out on the sand bar and play soccer. We had 6 different activities to do after some fun on the beach. The children were mixed into 6 groups and they rotated through 4 of the activities. (We didn't have enough time for all six.)
Following the time on the beach, everyone jumped on the bus and we headed to Eagleview Elementary for lunch. After eating, the soccer games continued for some as others played on the playground.
We returned to Eagleview, said goodbye to the classes there, played some more on the fields, and then loaded up the bus and headed home. We arrived back at school at 7:00 p.m. and promptly headed home and crashed. (The parents too! Some even power napped on the bus!)
The trip was excellent. We hope to set up some buddy activities with our future classes as well. Perhaps blogging, writing penpal letters, doing some other field trips?
Here is a very popular Father's Day gift with my students. It is easy to make and the Dads really like receiving it.
To create these frames, I had my students create lists of words about Dad. They did them in their notebooks and underlined the most important ones. This is because I didn't have access to internet for everyone at the same time when doing it.
Later during other quiet work times, I called them over and put their words into the Wordle program. They got to choose the image they wanted. If you have limited colored ink available, you may have to specify that black backgrounds cannot be chosen. Once an image is selected, you can choose to print it. On my computer, this allows me to choose a pdf option. I save all the images as pdf and then I put them in a word processing document. I put 2 on each page and then cut them to size when they are printed. If you have access to a lab and are able to do all of them at the same time, this will speed up the process.
I am super excited to be a part of Booking Across Canada. This is such a great country and I love having a chance to share a part of it with others. Click on the button above to check out posts from different provinces and territories of this great land.
The book I would like to share is called S is for Spirit Bear. It is a book about British Columbia that is written in an alphabet format. It is part of a series from Sleeping Bear Press.
I was introduced to the series when my class received a gift from my cousins in Manitoba as part of our flat family project. They sent us G is for Golden Boy with a message in the cover for my class. I really liked the format and went on a search to see what other books were available. I found S is for Spirit Bear in the library and quickly signed it out for my class to see. It fit in perfectly with our study of Canada and the province we live in. I knew I had to have a copy of it for myself. I also got copies of the other provinces. There are now books available for all ten provinces. I hope that one day there will be books for the three territories as well.
The book format works well for young children who have just learned their alphabet. It helps them to see how different ideas or events match the letters of the alphabet. It has realistic illustrations that capture the attention of the readers and it has more detailed information along the sidebars for those who want to learn more about the people or events chosen. I shared this book with my five year old grandson and he told me what the next letter would be and he helped me to think about what activities would go well with different pages. Here are a few examples. Click on the activity images to download them.
This is just a small sampling of what this book has to offer. If you get a chance to look at it, you will also learn about some of the other important features and people of our province. Don't forget to check out the books on the other provinces as well. I just put the finishing touches on my activity booklet to go with each of the letters of the alphabet. It is now in my TpT store if you would like to get a copy. It will be on sale for 50% off for this week to allow those visiting the Booking Across Canada blogs a chance to get it for a reduced price. Click here to see it.
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About Me Charlene Sequeira
I am a wife, mother of 4, grandmother of 9, and a retired primary and music teacher. I love working with kids and continue to volunteer at school and teach ukulele. 
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