Blair's Chocolate Lily Picture Book Award Winner!

After weeks of reading and discussing the Chocolate Lily Picture Book Award nominees with all the primary classes, we did our big vote this week and the overwhelming winner at Blair was Fred and Pete at the Beach by Cynthia Nugent.

The second place winner was Stanley's Beauty Contest followed by Viva Zapata.

We'll be sending in our nomination for the big Chocolate Lily gala this spring along with some of our iPad drawings of Fred and Pete!


Ms Novakowski

Pi Day in the Blair Library

On Monday at lunch hour, we celebrated Pi Day (3.14) in the Blair Library. We had about 20 students attend this event and they participated in some math tasks and then enjoyed some Chocolate Pi Cupcakes or Cherry or Strawberry Pi.
The students measured the diameter of hula hoops and plates and then cut their pieces of yarn and saw about how many times around the circumference of their hoop or plate was, in relation to the diameter. For the younger students in particular, this was a real connection to the concept of what Pi is.

We had a little "contest" to see how many digits of Pi the students could remember. We have some students with AMAZING memories here at Blair. Victor, a grade 1 student from division 8, memorized 100 digits! Watch the little video below or link HERE to see his amazingness!

Vansessa from div 2 and Christy from div 1 had many many digits memorized. Allison from div 2 had over 200 digits memorized and Lili from div 2 was our grand champion with over 400 digits memorized! Crazy! The older girls didn't want to be videotaped ;) The top five participants each won a little Pi pin and a copy of the book Sir Cumference and the Dragon and the Pi.
It was a fun Pi Day in the library!

-Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Fred and Pete at the Beach

This week the primary classes enjoyed our last Chocolate Lily Book Award nominee for picture books. Fred and Pete at the Beach is written an illustrated by Vancouverite Cynthia Nugent and takes place in the Kits area of Vancouver.

Many of the students made text-to-text connections between this book and the first Chocolate Lily Book we read, On My Walk.

Students from each primary class wrote some comments about the book...the illustrations in this one were very popular!

After listening to and discussing the story, the students used the Doodle Buddy app on the iPads to draw a favourite illustration from the book. We looked at the brush strokes and colours the artist used and found ways to replicate her style on the iPads.

 

 

As you can tell, after some misadventure, Fred and Pete had a great time at the beach!

Ms Novakowski

iPads in the Blair Library

Blair is taking part in an iPad Inquiry through CUEBC and we are investigating the different ways students can learn and create using the iPads. Each class at Blair has now had the opportunity to use the iPads.

Today, the primary classes (divisions 7, 8, 9 and 10) explored interactive Dr. Seuss books in honour of Dr. Seuss' birthday and the students learned how to swipe to turn pages and to interact with the touch screens.

On March, 1, Divisions 4 and 5 first looked at the book Canada from Above: A Photo Journey and then explored Google Earth to find the Arctic and to find Blair Elementary.

Division 3 created simple circuits to light little lightbulbs and then diagrammed their circuits using the Doodle Buddy app. They learned how to change colours and add text using the touch keypad.

Division 6 used Doodle Buddy to create rockets in response to the children's book Sheep Blast Off! They learned how to change backgrounds and to add chalk, glitter and text effects.

Division 1 explored some math and word game apps, Google Earth and then used Doodle Buddy or Writer's Studio to represent and African folktale.

Division 2 explored some math and word game apps. Chicktionary was particularly popular with this class and some students also explored Flipboom Lite, an animation app.

The students are all looking forward to another chance to use the iPads!

Janice Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Stanley's Beauty Contest

Today we read Stanley's Beauty Contest by Linda Bailey. Linda is a local Vancouver author who has written 23 books for children. There are 3 other Stanley books which the students were familiar with.

The students really liked this book, particularly the dogpile part! They made connections to their own dogs and to other stories and cartoons. Several students made connections to an episode of Martha Speaks on Treehouse TV and how a birthday party is ruined in a similar manner.

We had a good discussion with each class about the message in the book as it ends with a line that suggests that dogs know what is really important - and it isn't winning beauty contests!
Janice Novakowski