Classmates Magazine from Little Red Schoolhouse

Today I am testing out a new product for you.

This project involves creating a magazine for an "All About Me" unit for the start of the year.

This project is called Classmates and it's from Little Red's Schoolhouse.

 

 

Here's how we did it in my room. 

First I showed the kids a few real magazines.  We went over what you see on the magazine.  Like the title of the magazine and the sidebar with all the little teasers about what you will find inside the magazine.  Then I explained how they were each going to make their own magazine about themselves.

 

 

Because I have a Grade 1 /2 split class I needed to make sure that both grades were able to complete this magazine at their own ability level, and produce something that all the children could read.  I'm planning to put these all in the reading nook of my classroom so that the children can read each other's magazines. 

          

 

 

First we made the cover.  I asked the children to colour their picture the way they look.  Many of them even copied what they were wearing that day.  Of course little Peter (above) didn't quite get the concept. I asked him if he had purple hair, and he told me that he "really wants" purple hair.  It's hard to argue with that!

 

Below are some photos of the kids working on their covers.

 

When they were done we glued them on to 12 X 18 black construction paper and laminated them to make a real magazine type cover.

 

 

I love this little unit.  It's really cute.  Below are a few examples of the pages inside. 

I told the kids that if they were going to colour over their writing they needed to use yellow, but some of them used other colours, so it's difficult to see what they wrote.

 

 

Here are some examples of the Grade Two work.

 

 

 

 

And the Grade One's.

I really felt that I wanted to make sure the Grade One's were not intimidated by the work of the Grade Two's so I helped them write if they were having difficulty.  I call this method

"Erase and Trace"

the idea being that I write over their misspelled words, they ERASE their pencil marks, and TRACE what I have written in pen.

 

 

This child likes to play Basketball at Recess.

 

 

Here's another example of a page from the Magazine.

Again, some kids didn't follow instructions about colouring over their writing.

There are examples from Grade One on the right and Grade Two on the left.

 

 

Anyway, I really, really, really enjoyed doing this mini-unit with my class.  I'm sure the kids will love reading each other's magazines when they are in the Reading Corner. 

 

Check out Little Red's Treehouse for more cool lessons.

 

I have just finished using their Terry Fox lessons and I'll post that up soon.

 

September Currently

 

Well it's been a busy, busy, busy summer. 

The weather in Vancouver has been fabulous most of the summer. 

Of course, the two periods of rain happened to fall during our two camping trips.

Well, we learned that the tent leaks, but if you're warm, you can sleep even if you're wet.

 

I start work again tomorrow.

I thought I'd give you a little photo recap of our summer.

 

We went to the beach a lot.  There's a cute little beach about 10 minutes from our house.

We sometimes met up with my girlfriend and her family, who have a canoe.

 

Just beautiful right???

 

 

I learned that my children can finally swim!!!!!

I mean across the pool without floaties or anything.

Here's Connor after Brad threw him in the air into the pool at my Sister-in-law's house.

 

Teagan can swim too!!!!

 

Next up was a family vacation to the Oakanagan - about 5 hour drive from Vancouver.

It was HOT, HOT, HOT.

And Brad doesn't do so well without air conditioning.

We stayed at a friend's cabin which was very RUSTIC.

 

We cooled down by doing a lot of swimming.

 

And the kids had fun playing with the water toys.

This is after sunset - around 8pm and it's still smoking hot outside.  Too hot to go to bed yet!

 

We spent Friday evenings in our neighbourhood square.

They have live music on Friday nights and the kids love to dance!!!!

 

Connor and Teagan went to lots of day camps, like Bike Camp, Soccer Camp, Hockey Camp...

 

These are their self portraits from Art Camp. 

 

Connor and I did some hiking.  This is about a 10 minute walk from our Front door.

See the suspension bridge on the left with all the crazy tourists on it??

We went to lots of waterparks. 

This one is the free waterslide at Granville Island! 

 

Sitting in the Lifeguard chair at the beach!!! 

 

My brother had his 10th anniversary party at the house that they got married in.

This photo doesn't do it justice - it's a beautiful house.

When you walked in the front door they had all these balloons.  Taped to each string was a photo.

The photos progressed in time over the past 10 years.

It's a really cool idea don't you think?

The first photos were of the wedding, then their travels, then baby #1, then baby #2, then baby #3...

 

We also saw some crazy accidents this summer.

This truck driver didn't lower his deck before he tried to leave the loading dock and took down the bridge over it.  The driver actually walked away from this accident unhurt. 

 

On our way camping, we got stuck in traffic for well over an hour as they tried to clear the highway from this accident.  I have no idea if the driver survived or not.

 

And finally, another shot of another trip to the waterslides. 

 

It was a fun summer!

 

Thanks for stopping by!!!