September Open House

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Mrs. Boekhout

It was FANTASTIC seeing so many of my students and their parents at Open House! Of course the “Nature Center” was a big hit! We have almost all our Classroom Pets now: Fluffy the hamster, firebelly newts, firebelly toads, leopard gecko, 4 species of walking sticks, long tailed lizards, and green anole lizards. We also showed off our new SmartBoard, (and found that if too many “little siblings” get going on it, the system will crash.) Nonetheless, lots of parents had the chance to see why we are so excited about it.

Parents also had the chance to view some of work displayed in the hallway. It seems that the parents were REALLY good at the “Guess Who I Am” display… I guess they know their children really well!

Welcome to Classroom 2!

🙂 Mrs. Boekhout

What did YOU enjoy
showing the most?

September arrives… we are back!

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Mrs. Boekhout

The time is NOW…
the place is HERE…
and we are READY for Grade 2!

It’s been a very busy first full week of Grade 2 in Classroom 2. Our school was a-buzz with desks moving from classroom to classroom, as we unfortunately had to undergo reorganization. Everyone has settled in now, and our class has a full roster of 24 lovely students!

Supplies have been (almost!) organized, we’ve had our first newsletter and spelling test, first library and gym time, and Mrs. Boekhout got to lead the first Primary Sing-along. The first class pets have arrived (Fluffy the hamster, Speedy the Leopard Gecko, Fatty and Skinny the 2 Fire Bellied Newts). We’ve worked on good manners at the door (saying “Good Morning” while looking at Mrs. B. in the eyes) and being ready to LOOK, LISTEN, and LEARN. We are learning to follow the 7 parts of the Morning Set-Up (including having 2 sharp pencils and one big eraser ready!) We’ve talked about “Being in Control” and how to “Be a Good Friend“. We’ve started to learn where all the “good choices” are in the classroom, including different kinds of books, math manipulatives, paper for drawing & writing). Some people have started writing letters for our classroom Postal Service. Almost everyone is cleaning up their desk after lunch (oops… we have already lost one sponge!) We done some Math, journal writing, worksheets, reading, and we watched a Terry Fox video and participated in our School-Wide Terry Fox Run! … and MORE!!!

Doesn’t that make you feel tired? I know that Mrs. Boekhout was exhausted!

So… that’s a pretty typical first week in Mrs. Boekhout’s class, BUT, there is SOMETHING MORE! Nestor School has its very first SMARTBOARD, and… (can you guess?) it’s in OUR CLASSROOM!

How did this wonderful event happen? It all started last NEW YEAR’S DAY 2013! Mr. B. knew how much Mrs B. wanted a SmartBoard and so he talked to Mr. E. who belongs to a charitable organization and Mr. E. talked to Mrs. B. about the Coquitlam Foundation which sponsors “good ideas”, and Mrs. B. wrote a looooooong letter about her “good idea” and sent it in. Just when Mrs B. had given up hope, she got a letter (in May) saying that she was going to receive a GRANT for her SmartBoard! Yeah!

The SmartBoard was only installed in the afternoon of Sept. 3 and so Mrs. Boekhout is just like a KINDERGARTEN student, learning what to do at school! The students have had lots of laughs when things go higglety-pigglety, but we have all been so excited to use our new learning tool. We are getting lots of visitors who want to see too!

Whew!

I wonder what Week 2 will be like!

🙂 Mrs. Boekhout

Open House… what a success!

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Mrs. Boekhout

Open House is always such an exciting time!

It took a lot of work to get all our displays ready for our parents in just 2 weeks, but we did it! You all did your best to produce quality work! (Poor Mrs. B. got sick and lost her voice, but there was no way she was going to miss school when getting ready for such an important event! Mrs. Singh was sad that she could not come on Thursday, but she made a beautiful “hello poster” for you to show your parents.)

I think the “Who am I?” display was the most fun. Funnily enough, your parents seemed to be able to find their own child’s “body” and writing. Maybe that’s because you did such a good job of making a “realistic” head! Thank goodness I was finally able to bring the pet tanks back into the classroom! I prefer being able to bring the classroom pets in one-by-one but it did make for a special surprise for you to “suddenly see” them all at once!

Which piece of work were YOU
most excited to show your parents?

Welcome to my new Grade 2 class!

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Mrs. Boekhout

School started for students on Wed. Sept. 5 (although you know that teachers were in preparing their classrooms for days or even weeks ahead of time!)

I am delighted to say that my new Grade 2 class is WONDERFUL!

I can tell that parents have really been working on
polite manners,
kind hearts, and
good listening skills.

It’s going to be another GREAT YEAR!

A visit from Mr. Davo Devil

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Mrs. Boekhout

Tasmanian Devil seen at Nestor School!

We had an unusual visitor from “Down Under” on Monday! It was Mr. Davo Devil from Australia! He was actually visiting Mrs. Nielsen’s class, but she just KNEW that Monty Moose would like to meet him. What Mrs. Nielsen did not know, was that Wilbur Wombat was at Mrs. Boekhout’s house, just waiting to be sent back home to Australia. Davo and Wilbur had an emotional conversation about their beloved homeland, Australia!

We didn’t have time to show Davo all around the class, but we DID take him on a very special walk… our “Tracking Trash” walk to clean up the school for Earth Week and collect some real DATA on what kind of garbage is polluting our school grounds! Davo was a BIG help!

Davo and Mrs. Boekhout made a little slide show of his visit, which you can see on DAVO’s BLOG!!!

http://mrdevil.edublogs.org/

Here are a few of the photos we took.

Classroom Energy Diet Challenge – Can YOU help?

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Mrs. Boekhout

PLEDGE FORM – (You will need an email address.)

You might think of cutting down on sticky cupcakes and sweet soda pop when we say the word “diet”, but Classroom2Kids has been working on an ENERGY DIET with Canadian Geographic! The Challenges are fun and involve lots of SCIENCE, MATH, and ENVIRONMENTAL studies… but that’s not why Mrs. Boekhout started the class on this project… she started it because Classroom2kids could never remember to SHUT THE DOOR when they went outside to play! It’s been really cold, too! Brrr! A lot of HEAT ENERGY would go flying out the door with the students!

We aren’t close to the top in total number of points… and we can only imagine how much learning those students have done, but we ARE proud to say that we are NUMBER 17 in points out of over 250 CLASSES in Canada, grades K to 12! (Here is a map of the participants.) Add that to the fact that dozens more classes signed up for the challenges and never even started!

So far, we have done 7 challenges: Buckle Up (making wise transportation choices), Post It (putting up posters that promote good energy use), What’s for Lunch (tracking how where the food comes from), Drew’s One Hour No Power (we did two hours!), Making the Energy Grade (doing an energy audit in our classroom, improving what we could, and then re-auditing to see the difference), Get Growing (learning about the importance of photosynthesis and growing our own plants), Water Works (calculating how much water we use each day and thinking of ways to not waste water). We have started “Energy Needs and Wants” (what uses energy but is “entertainment” or “easy” rather than “necessity”) and over Spring Break we will be trying to give up one “energy want” for a whole week!

What can YOU DO?

Can you walk or take the bus instead of always taking the car?
Can you remember to turn off lights,
wear a sweater instead of turning the heat up,
unplug things you aren’t using?
Can you turn off the tap while you brush your teeth?

You can help our earth by making just one pledge to save energy too!
You can help us earn points by using our pledge form to do it!

Students… get the whole family involved!
Parents… help out by providing an email address!
Everyone… you can HELP our EARTH save energy!

PLEDGE FORM – (You will need an email address.)

We hope you will sign up… not sign out!

Winter Snow

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Mrs. Boekhout

*Let it snow! * Let is snow! * Let it snow! *

We FINALLY got some snow here! It didn’t last long enough to build any snow forts, but we enjoyed it while it lasted!

Monty Moose had just come back from Montebello, Quebec, so he was glad to see we got some snow too.
Lucky Monty even got to go DOG SLEDDING in Quebec!

Dog Sledding in Quebec from Nora Boekhout on Vimeo.

What is YOUR favourite activity in the snow?

Congratulations to Mrs. Yollis, Winner of the “Class Blog” Eddy!

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Mrs. Boekhout

I had a FANTASTIC time at school this evening, between 4:00 and 5:30pm, participating in an “Online Blackboard” ceremony of the Eddy Awards! There were over 115 teachers from ALL AROUND THE WORLD typing messages in real time, talking over microphones, and watching the results as they happened “live”. I even got to e-meet some of the teachers I have links to! There were teachers from Canada, USA, Europe, South America, Australia and more! For some of those teachers, it was the middle of the night, and others had their students listening at school!

A HUGE congratulations to Mrs. Yollis for winning the Class Blog Award… she certainly deserves it! I have learned a lot about creating blogs by reading her inspirational posts and using her guidelines and suggestions. Mrs. Yollis also won the “Most Influential Blog” award!

Although Classroom2Kids didn’t win, I am SO proud to have made it to the Edublog-selected nominations. I am especially proud, considering the other amazing Class Blogs that were nominated. Thank you to EVERYONE who voted for us!

THANK YOU, EDUBLOGS!
YOU ARE A WONDERFUL ADDITION TO OUR LEARNING!

“Eddies” nomination for Classroom2Kids!

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Mrs. Boekhout

A big THANK YOU to Mrs. Nielsen for nominating our Classroom2Kids Edublog for an “Eddy” award! We feel honored! You can vote for us by selecting “Best Class Blog” and then “Classroom 2 Kids”. BTW, it seems that we are especially honored because we were shortlisted into the actual voting selection!

EDUBLOG QUOTE: Each year there are more and more nominations, and of increasing excellent quality, reflecting the ever growing edublogosphere — nice work guys!Unfortunately we can’t list every single nomination in each category — that’s too overwhelming for everyone. Instead, our intrepid team of judges combed through hundreds of nominated sites to whittle them down to a manageable number of shortlisted nominations for each category.

Here is Mrs. Nielsen’s nomination:
http://lynnenielsen.edublogs.org/2011/12/09/vote-for-mrs-boekhouts-classroom2kids/

Note: You can only vote once per IP address (that means, only once per computer). Extra votes from the same computer are deleted.

Classroom 2 Kids

Reading, Writing, and Blogging!

Category Archives: News

September Open House

What did YOU enjoy
showing the most?

September arrives… we are back!