Welcome!

I am so excited to get to know this brand new bunch throughout the 2019-2020 school year!

Our first day was filled with excitement! We completed a few "get to know you" activities, including a class word search and a couple of circle games in our carpet corner.

We also created a class time capsule with information about them from the beginning of the year. At the end of the year, the students will fill out the same page before we open the time capsule to compare how they have changed.

We read a few stories to remind us about class rules and how to treat each other. The students also worked in groups to brainstorm and create lists about what they thought the most important school rules were and then presented them to the class.

We also had a special musical presentation by Garth Prince!

LANGUAGE ARTS

This week, we read "What If Everybody Did That?" by Ellen Javernick. Then the students came up with their own ideas and we created a class book.

We started reading from our Collections series. This is a series of readers that we will read together as a class a few times a week. The students are encouraged to participate by taking turns to read aloud. If they do not feel comfortable, they are asked to follow along in the books and help answer questions about the stories as we read it together.

The students completed a Making Words activity. We will try to complete this once a week. The students are given a set of letters and asked to make 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter words. This set also makes a Mystery Word which they are always excited to figure out. This week, they were given a, e, e, o, t, m, r, k to make TEAMWORK! They have the opportunity to first work alone, then with a partner and finally we compile the words to make a class list.

During snack, I will be reading aloud a novel. The first novel we started is called "Third Grade Angels" by Jerry Spinelli.

MATH

We began our first unit in Math which is Patterns. This week we worked on finding the difference between two numbers mentally or by using their fingers/number line.

We also learned Addition Battle and played a few rounds.

SCIENCE

Our first unit in Science is Rocks and Minerals. This is always a favourite unit and the students usually continue talking about it for the remainder of the school year. We started by filling out a class KWL chart (K-what we know, W-what we wonder and L-what we have learned).

They also had an opportunity to explore and pass around a variety of rocks as well as read a few books from the classroom library. Before we start learning about rocks and minerals, the students were given their first homework assignment which was to find a fact online to share with the class. They came back to school with some GREAT information. Throughout the unit, as we learn, we will be completing an interactive lapbook. This will take the place of a duotang or notebook.

SPECIAL ACTIVITIES

Friday afternoon was all about apples! The students read and highlighted important information about the life cycle of an apple tree. This ties in with our life cycle unit that we will be doing at the end of the school year.

We also completed an experiment to see which liquid (water, milk, vinegar or lemon juice) would make the apples turn brown, the least to the most. The students made predictions and then we talked about fair testing, making sure we had the same amount of liquid in each cup and putting the apples in the cups at the same time.

The students completed their first STEM challenge (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). We will be doing these challenges throughout the year to develop problem solving skills, creativity and working collaboratively. Their first STEM challenge of the year was to build an apple raft using two apples, twelve toothpicks and a plastic knife as their tool.