Thank You Randerson Parents - You are the Best!

 

The staff appreciation lunch was truly appreciated! Randerson parents you spoil us. 

Thanks for all your hard work and support in making Randerson the great school it is.

Gr3's Reflect on Their Writing

Students in Mrs. MacDonald's class share their retell story;

Blogging Reflections
 

1. Mrs. MacDonald read the book The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsch.

2. We wrote our ideas for beginning, middle and end to help us with our writing.

3. We wrote our draft.

4. Mrs. MacDonald read our drafts and helped us become stronger writers.

5. We then wrote our good copies of the retell. 

 Rylan's writing reflection:

I learnt how to use quotations when a person is talking.

I learnt how to create notes in columns to help my writing.

I felt confident with my writing.

Brynn's writing reflection:

I learnt how to use punctuation properly like quotation marks, question marks and exclamation marks!

I learnt how important it is to make the important letters uppercase like in the title the word Sandcastle and Contest but not words like and or it.

I learnt how to print my letters really neatly.

I felt  happy. I love writing. I felt comfortable and thought I knew the book really well.

Mrs. MacDonald's Gr. 3 class is our Feature Class of the Week

Mrs. MacDonald's Gr. 3 class is currently learning through the MindUp program.  The following poems came out of their experiences of mindful seeing.

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is pinky white and ruffled like a ballerina’s tutu.

 It is as beautiful as a blossom.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of a sunset.

 I like my shell because the inside is smooth and it reminds me of a fan.

 

By:  Celina

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is smooth and purple like an eggplant.

 It is as pretty as a snowflake.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of a beetle.

 I like my shell because it is gorgeous and special.

 

By: Brooke

 

 

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is green and shiny like a new leaf.

 It is as lovely as a daisy.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of an island.

 I like my shell because it is so smooth and perfect. It is so colourful.

 

By:  Payton

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is hard and bumpy like a road.

 It is as cool as a crystal.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of Hawaii.

 I like my shell because it is unique and rare.

 

By: Peyten

 

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is cone-shaped and chocolate striped like an ice-cream cone.

 It is as striped as a zebra.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of a small tornado.

 I like my shell because it has colour like caramel, chocolate and vanilla ice-cream.

 

By:  Carter

 

 

 

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is smooth and shiny like a golden apple.

 It is as pretty as a flower.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of pearls.

 I like my shell because it is shiny, smooth and delicate as a star.

 

By:  Brooklyn

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is stripy and colourful like a rainbow.

 It is as hard as a stone.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of pearls.

 I like my shell because it is really shiny and inspiring.

 

By:  Mia

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is spotted and brown like a cheetah.

 It is as smooth as a pearl.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of shark’s teeth.

 I like my shell because it looks cool and is awesome.

 

By: Anureet 

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is striped and rough like a tiger.

 It is as twirly as a top.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of my vacation in Mexico.

 I like my shell because I see at the bottom there is a hole and I see a trail of an insect.  That is really special for me

 

By:  Keanu

My Simile Poem

 

My shell is smooth and spirally like a traffic cone.

 It is as striped as a zebra.

When I look at my shell, it reminds me of a tornado.

I like my shell because it fits my hand very well and it is smooth.

 

By:  Samuel

Book Club @ Randerson



Students gathered, food was eaten, great books were discussed, laughter occurred...what more could one ask for in a book club?  Today's book club, discussing Carl Hiaasen's book Hoot, was a great success. The discussion flowed from characters, to events, to setting.  It was non-stop!  The detail and POV from students was tremendous, including Courtney empathising with Roy for moving so often.


Book Club enjoying snacks before discussion

It took no time at all to dive into the story and discuss what we really liked about the book and what might have been a bit of a stretch. 

Stephanie loved how empowering the story was for young people. If three teenagers can save the owls against a conglomerate than we could do something like that too.  Mercedes liked the book but felt Roy's ability to 'take off' for hours at a time without his parents knowing where he was ....was a bit unrealistic. Austin really liked the character development, especially Roy, Mullet Fingers and the teacher who cared enough to bring his whole class to the opening to help. Cassidy enjoyed the book but felt Roy's parents weren't realistic in that they didn't seem as upset as she thought they should have been when he went missing.  Max was intrigued by Mullet Fingers and his ability to live in the Everglades and

catch the very fast mullet fish. Grace has read the book 3x and seen the movie.  She loved the book! 

Everyone had read the book and seen the movie and felt the movie was a close actualization of the book. Hannah felt the movie accurately portrayed the characters and the story and though the teacher role played by Jimmy Buffett, was a little more developed I the movie.  Annika enjoyed both the book and the movie, especially Beatrice the Bear, a strong female character.  Austin thought is was very cool that Beatrice took on and beat, the school bully Dana. 

We had so much fun discussing Hoot that we jumped into talking about other books we are currently reading or have read and loved.  Titles include; Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass, Sisters 8 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted,  Dear Jo by Christina Kilbourne (all the kids that had read this one...loved it!), Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Long Haul, Fault in our Stars (some loved it, while others thought it was way too sad) and Spirit Animals. 

Our next book club book is A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.  You have 7 weeks to read up.  All students in Gr. 5-7 are welcome.  Your only ticket in the door is that you have read the book.  See you in March. 

Mrs. Noesgaard's K's know what they like!

Today we looked at two books Me Hungry by Jeremy Tankard and Art's Supplies by Chris Tougas. 
After reading each book, the students shared their favourite parts of the story.  We wrote everyone's ideas down on our chart. 

Our kindergarten students were excellent detectives, picking out great details in each book.

 

 

 

After a lively discussion on what they liked about each book...and boy did they like each book... we took an opinion poll. 

 

Our first poll/survey asked :Did you like Me Hungry?  14 students voted yes

                                             Did you like Art's Supplies? 16 students voted yes

 

From our first poll we were able to determine that the majority of the class liked both books :)

 

Our second poll/survey asked:  Did you like Me Hungry best?  8 students said yes

                                                   Did you like Art's Supplies best?  12 students said yes

 

Students learned about liking a book vs choosing the best book of the two



 

We talked about how strong and powerful it is to have an opinion and that there are no wrong answers in an opinion poll.  We talked about how an opinion is even stronger when supported by evidence, in this case their reasons for liking the book.  Students were excited to vote and offer their opinion.  As expected many students rushed to take out both books.  They also were keen to offer their opinion on many other books in our library.  

 

Thank you Mrs. Noesgaard's kindergarten class for your wonderful opinions and enthusiastic discussion.  You made my day!

 

P.S.

Mrs. Martineau was introduced to Pinterest this past weekend. My 13 and 15 year-old daughters love this site and thought I might like it too.  Although I had signed up for it more than a year ago, I had never taken the time to learn how to optimize its usage. Actually, I had never taken the time to use it in any way.  Thankfully my girls can teach me a lot about cool tools. 

We began by setting up boards and adding pins.  It was fun and a great way to spend time with my daughters.  I started with looking up ideas for snacks for our upcoming book club and this led to looking up fun, curriculum based ideas to do with books and young students.  The above lesson is one I found on pinterest courtesy of
 teachingace.com.  Thank you teachingace it was a great lesson!
Thank you Paige and Delaney for showing me this cool tool. I love to learn new things. <3

 

 



 

Randerson Staff Learn more about Lexia

PLC (professional learning community) this week:


Randerson staff took part in a Lexia webcast.  Lexia Core 5 reading is a student driven, independent reading program that is being introduced to numerous schools in our district.

Week at a Glance

Randerson was busy this week with guests, concerts and workshops. 

Parents of our grade 1 students took part in a workshop on helping their child with their home reading program.  More than a dozen parents attended as we focused on Strong Reader Tools (copyright Terri Mack - Strong Nations), IPICK strategies used in our Daily 5 and the power of prediction, connections and questioning when learning to read. 

A highlight of the week was a concert by Dover's Senior concert band.  Band teacher Mr. Iriving and his students performed many of the latest pop hits and showcased instruments within the band. A fun time was had by all.  Thanks Dover!



Several school trustees visited Randerson as part of their tour of schools in our district. Mr. Mazzei led the group, highlighting Randerson's students, parents, staff and strong sense of community.  Thank you for visiting our school.



School Trustees visit Randerson Picture by Dale Burgos



       

Happy New Year 2015!

What a great week we have had at Randerson library.  Books, books and more books came back from students after a heavy dose of holiday reading :)   We shared book talks, shelfies and great books 'we' got for Christmas.  From K-7 there were non-stop discussions on books, connections, enjoyment and recommendations. There were students sharing books with friends, others recommending series, others speaking of their trips to the public library over the break.  Remember if you want to see a book in our library that we don't have, stop by and write it on the "recommended books" list.  I will be putting an order in next week. :)  Yeah to the power of FREE READING!!!

Some of the top reviewed books included;
Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Long Haul
Smile & Sisters
Cherub (the series is hugely popular with our Gr. 7 boys)