Brilliant excited eyes ...

My grade 4 and 5 students could hardly contain their excitement and thrill today when I started to explain to them that they were starting a new writing/arts project !

You see, they had been eyeing with longing the grade 6 students' book (B.O.M.) project since January 5th and some of them had asked me last week if they would do a book like it in my class. I had answered that they would do some of those projects next year. But their longing and pleading eyes and voices kept ringing in my mind and this morning, upon waking up, I decided that they too would start such a writing project. The thing is that they come only twice a week in my class (as opposed to the grade 6 students who come 3 times a week in English and one art period), and often, with school days off always being either on Mondays and Fridays, they don't even come twice a week. It's a challenge to keep a project going when one doesn't see their students often enough. Nevertheless, I decided to do the writing project with them and one thing I know for sure is that they will enormously benefit from it. I have been teaching long enough (22 years) to know that an exciting project makes the biggest difference in their motivation and even the most recalcitrant student will be involved 110% in such a writing-art project.

So I had 2 classes of 25 pairs of brilliant, excited eyes on me today as I was showing them some of the grade 6 students' books (finished and unfinished)as a starting point for them. To give them ideas on how to write, decorate, embellish, etc. They could hardly contain their anticipation and excitement as I showed them some of the tools that they will be able to use, such as some Martha Stewart fabulous border punches, the Bind-It-All, etc.

And like for my grade 6 students, I offered them the possibility to come in my classroom during lunch and recess time to work on their book if they so wish. Many hands were raised for that proposition ! You can bet that they were hard at work on wording their sentences to start on their book ! Many of them just started to learn to write in English, so there is a lot of struggling with how to write words or how to say this and that in English, but oh boy, was the energy and willingness at the highest point ! I am also very thrilled and excited ! Writing/arts projects is what I love best in teaching and even though I've been doing it for the past hum ... 20 years (taught music the 2 other years), I'm forever excited each and every time !

The questionnaire they are using for their B.O.M. is taken from the ones that were proposed as monthly challenges on the scrapbooking site of Scrapbook Centrale last year :

http://www.scrapbookcentrale.ca/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7189

I'll have photos of their books as they go along.

In the meantime, I'm leaving you with a photo of my son's favorite snack, honeydew melon, which he had just cut and sliced for himself :



Thanks for stopping by !