May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch on your door, and 
happiness be guided to your home by the candle of Christmas.

December 15

Math Videos made by kids - http://studentmathmovies.wikispaces.com/Estimation

Giraffe's Can't Dance
A book about diversity and finding the music that you love.

Leslieville School: Featured in the Healthy Schools newsletter winter 2011
Putting Fitness Back Into the Spotlight!
By Angela Handbury
Increasing fitness levels is the name of the game at Leslieville School, a Gr. K-7 school in Central Alberta. Showcased at the HASS event in Red Deer, “Fitness Class” leads students of all ages through various stations where they are able to improve their fitness levels.
The Roots
Decreasing fitness levels and the need for creative time-tabling are two reasons why Stanton Swain, principal of Leslieville School, took on the task of providing “Fitness Class” to each grade twice a week in addition to their regularly scheduled Phys. Ed. classes. “By doubling up our classes for this activity, it has given us the ability to provide more student intervention time with other staff members,” says Swain.
How it Works
Approximately fifteen different stations are set up throughout the gym; each station has the needed equipment, as well as an instruction card on how to complete the activity. Students are put into groups of two or three and cycle through each of the circuits together. It is each group mem-ber’s job to encourage his/her part-ner(s), as well as provide feedback on technique. “It’s their responsi-bility to work on and improve their fitness levels,” comments Swain. It’s all about encouraging healthy habits.”
Examples of Stations
With over 40 stations already in his repertoire, Swain changes the stations every few weeks. Some of the stations include:
Sports related skills
√ Cardio bowling
√ Sit-ups
√ Over/under passes
√ Skipping
√ Push-ups
√ Lunges
√ Running
√ Bean bag shuffle
√ Noodle Tag
Challenges
Initially, there was some concern of adding the extra fitness classes because of the time being taken from other subject areas. However, once the fitness classes began, it was noticed that students were better focused and more enthusiastic to-wards their classroom learning. One other concern was how
students would react to the classes. Swain spent time encouraging the students to take ownership over their fitness levels and to work on improving their own personal bests. Swain noted that some students work even harder in Fitness Class than in their regular Phys. Ed. classes, which goes to show that students are taking it seriously. “They’re learning that as their fitness levels improve, they will need to push themselves even further than before.”
Successes
Fitness Class has proven to be an initiative worth keeping. The successes are many, including:
√ Student motivation towards fitness and self-improvement
√ Improvements in fitness levels
√ Students are settled on classroom tasks after return-ing from Fitness Class
√ Optional Fitness Classes are sometimes offered at lunch recess and the numbers of students is increas-ing
√ Increased time for other staff members to work one-on-one with other students
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to the rest of this school year, Swain is con-fident that Fitness Class will be a lasting program in the school. “It’s healthy to get your heart beating. It’s healthy to be tired ... and we need our kids healthy.”

Don't Be Like Us - Be Different

"The Argument [for Visible Teachng and Visible Learning]," Hattie writes: "The teacher needs to provide direction and re-direction in terms of the content being understood and thus maximize the power of feedback ... It [visible learning] also requires a commitment to seeking further challenges (for the teacher and the student)—and herein lies a major link between challenge and feedback, two of the essential ingredients of learning. The greater the challenge, the higher the probability that one seeks and needs feedback ..."

Visible Learning: John Hattie and Student-Directed Projects

MATH
A math blog for you.http://samuelsonmathxp.posterous.com/
Trevor Calkins worked with grade 4,5,and 6 teachers this week.
This is a link for a blog that Kim Wedman's grade 5 class has on "Power of Ten"
"We had an exciting opportunity to have Trevor Calkins out to our school and to learn with him as a class.  He taught us many fabulous ideas about math facts, problem solving, decimals, fractions, and percentages.  Mr. Calkins was very engaging and we were able to create some very interesting math problems.  Thank you Mr. Calkins for the great day!  We will continue to work on these skills throughout the year.   Below are some pictures and math problems.  How many can you solve?  Stay tuned for more math problems in the future!
http://5mw.weebly.com/blog.html


The importance of collaboration in our practice as teachers
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-johnson
l

ASSESSMENT
"Student learning is the result of a dynamic interaction between assessment and instruction. Effective teachers use assessment to inform the design and use of classroom lessons. This interaction reminds me of assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle: I know what the final picture looks like but there are many, many pieces that have to fit together. I have to know each piece—its unique characteristics and how it might fit with the others."

 Carmen says.......
For those of you who have not already discovered this....Discovery Streaming has a video called  "Atlas Canada Interactive Map"  It allows you to discover each province in Canada and has multiple videos for each province.  Check it out on  www.discoveryeducation.com

INCLUSION - What does it mean to you?  Here is a clip from a movie called Including Samuel.

Building relationships with students - so very important.......
He said, 'You make sure you call that teacher.'”
Neurosurgeon Lee Buono and his eighth grade science teacher, Al Siedlecki, remember reconnecting after more than 15 years. Read more…

Great Science tricks to engage students with:
The Kid Should See This.thekidshouldseethis.com/


What's missing in a mark...http://aakune.blogspot.com/2011/10/whats-missing-in-mark.html

Ten Skills for "Doing" School
"There are teachers and educators that are trying to change the system; they are trying to create a system that places more emphasis on student learning and education and less emphasis on schooling.  It is important that we start hearing the success stories of these educators – teachers that are spending less time on rewards, grades, memorization, tests, and control and more time on student engagement and learning."
http://chriswejr.com/2010/04/02/10-skills-for-doing-school/