Together We Make a Difference!

I was really excited when the school theme that I proposed this year, "Together we make a difference" was accepted. I wanted to work on something different with my grade 6 students for their end of year project. I chose to do a photography project and was hopeful that they would be able to catch the feeling in pictures. I was not disappointed!

All year, groups of students were assigned to take pictures in the school of people making a difference by working together. They took over 1300 pictures! I met with each of the groups and we selected the pictures that met the criteria and that weren't blurry.

The students painted the black strips on the board and painted each of the wooden letters. I printed the pictures and used modge podge to adhere them to the board before attaching the wooden letters with two way tape.

This beautiful art now hangs in our hallway, depicting positive actions of our students. It is fun to see the students pass by it and try to find a picture of themselves in the art.

How to Be ... From A to Z

I'm always looking for interesting ways to teach about kindness, respect, honesty, and having good values, so I decided I would use the letters of the alphabet to spell words to help teach these values. It's all about positive thinking, and having the words visible and colourful helps send that message every day.

The first step was to have my room painted!

My dull looking room before the project.

A little colour brightens it up!

Once I purchased the wooden letters (I found them on Etsy), I met with my grade 6 students and explained the project to them. They randomly selected a letter and had to come up with a motivational word for that letter. Once they chose their word, they had to submit a design for their letter. I made sure that the designs were not similar in pattern or colour so that the finished project would have the desired effect.

Sample letters in progress ...

"Y" for yourself.

"S" for studious.

Each letter was protected with varathane.

Once the students were finished painting their letter, they had to come up with two ways on how to be the word that they chose. These suggestions were printed on a poster which I hung next to their words.

The poster not only shows ways on being the word,
but also gives credit to the artists of each letter.

I traced and cut the letters out of newspaper flyers then attempted to place the letters on my wall so they would fit. Once the design was set, I projected the words onto the wall and used a template to help maintain an even spacing and size for the words. The words were painted on with paint pens.

My attempt at finding the best layout.

Using a template made the job that much easier to paint the words.

Once all of the letters were painted and protected with varathane and the remaining letters in the word were painted on the wall, I attached the wooden letters in their place using two way tape.

I get to look at this beautiful wall everyday!

Students are often caught reading the words, using them to check their spelling, or checking out the ways to be marvelous or kind.

Bottle Cap Mural

The completed hot air balloon bottle cap mural.

(I'm finally posting a project that I did with my grade 6 students 2 years ago! I really have find a way to be more efficient at posting.) We had a school theme on Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, and I wanted to incorporate that theme into my annual grade 6 project. I decided that a bottle cap mural would be interesting, and so the collection of bottle caps began.

I introduced the project to the students in January, and asked the entire school community to help contribute to the collection of plastic bottle caps. I placed 3 boxes outside of my room so that people (parents, staff, and students) could easily deposit their caps. I initially collected them with 2 or 3 colours per box. 

This is how I initially collected and sorted the caps.

I had students further sort them by individual colour. Once the collection was complete, I took all of the caps home and washed them by hand in my bathtub! Each night I had hundreds of bottle caps on my bathroom floor airing out on towels. My family was very understanding!!!

Two different designs were created based on the colours of caps that were collected. I decided that I was going to attach the caps to a 4x8 sheet of Plywood, so I taped out that area on my basement floor. My daughter (thank goodness for her help) and I then mapped out the different designs with the caps on the floor.  I presented these designs to the students who then voted for their preference.

With the design chosen, I prepared the Plywood by painting it white. (I had the hardware store cut the sheet into 2x4 sheets to make it more manageable). Then, I traced out the design onto each piece before transporting it to school. It was now ready to be worked on by the students.

I scheduled a time with each of the graduates to take turns in painting the design. Once that was complete and dry, it was time to begin placing the bottle caps on it.

The painting process begins!

These students are painting the finer details.

Two of the boards are painted and ready for the caps.

Again, each of the students took turns placing the correct colour of cap on the board and either screwed or stapled it on. The more rigid caps required a screw as they either shattered when stapled or would not allow a staple to penetrate it. My husband (I owe him thanks too!) used a drill press to drill a hole in all of the caps that required a screw. 

The caps for the rays of the sun were all screwed on.

I purchased a pneumatic nail gun that accepts staples because a regular staple gun wasn't strong enough. The students loved using the nail gun and didn't resist when I insisted that they wear protective goggles!

Every student was very eager to use the nail gun! It also made the work so much easier.

I overlapped the caps on the cracks to hide the fact that I cut
 the board into 4 pieces. It's starting to come together nicely!

Over 2,300 caps were collected to complete this project. The graduates were very excited with their work and were proud to leave their mark at the elementary school that they attended. We now have a daily reminder of them and an attractive piece of art decorating our halls!

I placed two plaques at the bottom, one to describe the project
and the second lists all of the graduates that worked on it. 

"Hero" Theme

Initially I was not very excited about the theme that was chosen for this school year - Heroes. I felt that everyone would focus on super heroes and not on the everyday heroes like policemen, firemen, or, for that matter, total strangers! Even our own students can be and are heroes; they often just aren't recognized as a hero because they fail to have a cape and/or have a t.v. show or movie as their stage.

Since I am very involved in school spirit, I felt it was my job to ensure that students recognized the different heroes that they don't usually speak of, including themselves. Given that I also have regular contact with the students throughout the school, where they come to me when in conflict or other difficulties, I decided to make my room the "headquarters" for this theme. I also used an acronym for the word HERO - Helpful, Enthusiastic, Respectful, and Organized, messages that I'm constantly reminding them of.

Bristol boards were used to create the city.

The acronym for HERO is very visible for the kids to see!

The completion! I've had many compliments on the design and educational message.

I'm hoping that the students use the message and not only recognize the many heroes that are in our school, but the hero that is within each of them!

Random Acts of Kindness

Every year, I like to focus on performing random acts of kindness involving everyone in the school, and this year was no exception. I decided that we would perform these acts on a grander scale and choose an entire class to surprise.

I visited each of the classes and explained the purpose of the project and what a random act of kindness was. They then had to draw another class's name from a hat and had exactly one month to perform whatever act of kindness that they as a class decided. Each class also had to keep it a surprise as to who their receiving class was going to be until the act was performed.

I placed a heart with the name of each teacher to keep track of which classes had already performed their act. Once that class completed their act of kindness, the good deed was written on a smaller heart for everyone to see.

The smaller hearts show the names of the teachers whose class has not performed their act of kindness yet. The larger pink hearts have been completed to show that Mrs. X's class did a RAK for Mr. Y's class and a brief description of the act follows.

I hung this sign next to the heart to explain to the parents that pick
their children up from daycare about our secret RAK mission. 

On the last day of the month the last class completed their RAK!

There was quite a variety of kind acts and it was great seeing how everyone got involved. I also loved how none of the students would reveal who their class had selected. Some cleaned the other classroom while they were in gym class. One class baked a special treat to bring to the students. Another class read stories and made a craft together, while another made bookmarks for their selected class. One class even prepared a scavenger hunt for a younger class. Everyone seemed to have fun focusing on the act of giving rather than receiving. Mission accomplished!

Hot Air Balloon Art

This was a simple art lesson that was used to complement studying different countries. I gave each of the students a hot air balloon outline. Their task was to decorate it using the colours and elements that were found in their assigned country's flag. They could not use stars if their flag did not have stars in it. Likewise, if their flag had a circle or the colour green, it was essential that they use it in their design.

Slovakia, Canada, and Australia were very easy to spot.

I like how the student used the elements in the flag from China on the right.

Kazakhstan's flag is recreated in the hot air balloon on the top right.

Can you tell which hot air balloon represents Croatia and which one is for Serbia?

The kids had a lot of fun with this art and their designs were very accurate. It was fun for other students in the school to try and match the country's flag to the hot air balloon.

Character Traits

Last fall, I challenged my colleagues to create a decoration on their classroom door that followed certain character traits as I'm always trying to find ways to demonstrate a positive attitude in our school. For Kindergarten and Cycle 1 (Grades 1 and 2), the trait was Caring. Respect was for Cycle 2 (Grades 3 and 4) and Responsibility was the trait for Cycle 3 (Grades 5 and 6). Of course I couldn't expect my colleagues to take on this task without setting an example.

I chose to create street signs with traits that I want our students to embrace. The yellow sign is for my room, which we call OASIS.

I created a friendly competition within the cycles with a prize for the winners. The door on the left was the winning door from Grade 1, while the one on the right was a runner-up from Grade 2.

This was the winning door from Cycle 3. The students created mini posters showing how they are responsible in a variety of settings. (I may have to remind them that they depicted "submitting their homework on time" as a personal responsibility the next time they have an excuse for not handing it in.)

The Character Traits on my door.

These character traits door decorations were on display for all to see during our fall interviews. Some even left them up for the duration of the term.