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Showing posts from February, 2014

Feeling Safe

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Celebrating one hundred days of school can be an opportunity to have fun with big numbers. A colleague mentioned in the staff room that in a couple of years, she would like to bring her ninety eight year old grandma to school. My reaction was, "Why wait? Would she be able to come this year?"  (Understanding a century is a math expectation for grade four students.) It began last week with the writing down of our wonderings e.g "Were you one of the Pioneers?" "Did you have computers?..... restaurants?.....medical service?" We soon had a full range of questions for this special lady to answer when she came to visit our classroom. I have not seen my students so engaged and quiet, listening intently as she responded to their wonderings, needing her granddaughter sitting beside her because she doesn't like hearing aids. We heard about her experience in a tornado, about her amazement riding in a car for the first time, about pumping water into the kitc