Mrs. Sweezey

The Battle Begins March 11th, 2024

Now that the warm weather is here, we can now visit our forest space.  The kids love going into the woods.  We call it our “adventure time.”  Before we head out, we always take time to gather and review our “rules.”  In this short clip, I take the class through each rule and then we end by making a offering to Mother Earth for letting us play in her forest.

It’s simple and fun, and the kids are very respectful of the process ❤️

Posted: May 6, 2018

Recently the children have begun learning about the talking cirlce.  Mary-Dale introduced this ceremony one day to the children and they took to it so well, we've decided to make it a part of our daily routine.  It's still new, but there is so much that the children can learn from this simple ceremony.  Everyone gets a chance to speak, but no one is forced to participate if they don't want to.  Mary-Dale reminds them of the "rules" or protocols and encourages them to speak loud and proud, and share what is on their mind.

We always start our day with a morning meeting or circle, when the student's return from Mi'kmaq.  We gather on the rug, do a morning greeting and then complete our daily smudge.  In this clip, Mary-Dale leads the smudge and those who want to participate do and others can sit and watch if they don't.  It's a great practice and ritual to start our day on the right foot.

Posted: May 6, 2018

On this particular day, the weather was crazy beautiful, so we decided to bring out a blanket and a tub of books to enjoy under the sun.  Here is Mary-Dale reading a classroom classic, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

As we continue on learning more about dinosaurs, in this activity we talked about how big a T-rex's mouth can be and estimated how many teeth they had.  After the students made their guesses, they went on a dino teeth hunt and placed the teeth on our T-rex's mouth on the floor.  Can a teacher and her class fit in it's mouth?

Posted: May 6, 2018

In recent weeks we changed the classroom into Jurassic Park and the children have been exploring dinosaurs and becoming Paleontologists.  In this activity, after watching a short video on what Paleontologist do, we broke out our tools and practice what it would be like to dig for dinosaur bones by freeing the chocolate chips from a cookie.  It was both fun and tasty.

Posted: March 26, 2018

It has been a blast watching the kids play this winter.  When we broke out the slides a number of weeks ago, the learning curve was actually pretty steep for the kiddos.  Figuring out how to get the slide to the top of the hill, hold it in place, balance, and then safely fly down the hill, waiting ones turn, and moving out of the way for the next slider - took a lot of work and time.  The kids had their moments of tears and frustrations.  The slide often got away on them before they were able to hop on, but they persevered, and they are sliding superstars! 

In this video we see Weston finally, after a very long winter, take his first ride on the blue saucer.  Weston is a great observer and after watching his classmates navigate the snow hill and learn how to safely slide, he was ready to give it ago himself.  Watch as he positions the slide just right, using his upper body and core strength to hold it in place and balance at the top of the hill until he's ready to let go.  So much happening here and we are super proud of you buddy!

Posted: March 26, 2018

Posted: March 26, 2018

Pages

Image Galleries

Videos

Added: Mon, Feb 26 2024