Wellness Day!

The students spent the afternoon participating in a variety of activities related to "body", "mind", "fun" and "food". The students were placed into mixed grade level groups and will be with the same friends as they rotate through the twelve sessions over the three Wellness Days throughout the year.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Exciting  news! I have partnered up with a teacher in Vancouver, BC to provide the students with a Pen Pal experience. They were so thrilled to receive their first letter and share it with their peers. Next week, we will be writing back to our new friends and answering all of the questions they had for us. 

We started a new writing project called "All About Me" which will continue throughout the year. The students will be writing six diary entries from a given list of topics. They will be using proper paragraph format, writing a topic sentence, five details and a concluding sentence. These paragraphs will be typed and after they have been edited, they will be printed and illustrated. 

Now that the students have a good understanding of what nouns are and how they are used in a sentence, we have started to focus on verbs. After watching a short video, the students came up with a definition of what a verb is and worked together to compile a list of examples. The next day, they searched for task cards placed around the room. Each task card contained one sentence in which the students had to read and find the verb in each. 

MATH

We started comparing two and three digit numbers and reviewed the greater than, less than signs. The students also worked on putting numbers in order from smallest to greatest and greatest to smallest.

SOCIAL

Now that we have finished our unit on mapping and geography, we will begin studying four new cultures in Social Studies. To introduce two new concepts, the students were given envelopes with a variety of pictures. In partners, they were asked to sort the pictures into two groups and then label and give an explanation for their sorting. They came up with some very creative ideas (expensive and not expensive, verbs and nouns, things found inside and things found outside, things we buy and things nature makes) before finally discovering that they were pictures of needs vs wants. As a class, we defined these words and related them to what they mean when we talk about quality of life. They also worked in partners to create posters of these two concepts using magazines to cut out pictures of needs and wants. 

Before "flying" to India, we learned a few quick facts about the country and reviewed where it is in relation to us. We talked about the currency, language and the students started their booklets.

ART

In preparation for the upcoming Christmas Concert, each class is creating a piece of art to decorate the gym. We are working on a Rudolph project using oil pastels. 

AMAZING RACE

SPECIAL GUEST

STUDENT OF THE WEEK

Two Day Week...

LANGUAGE ARTS

Every week, the students do a "free write" in their Journals. These are not assessed but I read them so I can reply with a question or comment about what they wrote. They usually write about their weekends but some have started writing short stories, adding a chapter a week or they tell me about upcoming holidays or something they are looking forward to. This week, the students had a five day weekend that they were excited to tell me about.

We also read a few more stories in our Collection series and worked on letter "Gg" in their cursive writing duotang.

MATH

We continued working on place value by representing three digit numbers in a variety of ways (base ten blocks, expanded form, using words). The students also learned a new game to reinforce their knowledge of building numbers with base ten blocks.

The students had time to be creative in Math. They were asked to design an animal or creature of their choice using place value blocks. Using their design, they had to calculate what number their animal represented in expanded form. 

 SOCIAL

We wrapped up our mini unit on mapping by learning about the provinces and territories in Canada. After exploring the continents around the world and looking at our own country, the students have a better idea of where we live in relation to the four countries we will study throughout the year.

ART

We completed the "Owl Moon" art project that was started last week by sketching and cutting out a silhouette of a tree branch and owl. 

AMAZING RACE

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR STUDENT OF THE WEEK!!!

Remembrance Day...

The students, staff, parents and honoured guests of RBES attended a special ceremony on Friday in remembrance of those who fought for our freedom. In class, we read a few stories and spent some time talking about Remembrance Day and peace.

The students also worked on an Art project for the ceremony. After reading the poem, "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae, the students sketched a drawing of a poppy on top of a handwritten copy. They carefully ripped the edges to create an "old" look and then used paint to complete the project. 

LANGUAGE ARTS

This week, the students read about poppies and an article about John McCrae. After highlighting important information, they completed true/false and multiple choice questions.

We started working on long "e" vowel sounds. They brainstormed words and completed a few activities to reinforce the sound and discover different ways to make the "e" say its name. 

We have really been enjoying the short stories in the Collections series. The students have been building their confidence reading aloud to the class. We have started working on using expression when reading words inside quotation marks. 

The students were very surprised when their Morning Message was full of mistakes. They worked on editing my message, by making complete sentences and correcting the capitalization and punctuation. We will make this a weekly routine so they can become experts at editing their own work.

MATH

In Math, we worked on representing three digit numbers with base ten blocks and writing numbers in expanded form. We also practiced reading and writing number words for one, two and three digit numbers.

We started a new booklet called "How Many Ways". Once a week I will give them a three digit number and they need to come up with a list of addition/subtraction equations that are equal to that number. 

The students also learned a new place value game using dice. 

SOCIAL

The students continued learning about the seven continents. This week, they completed Asia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica. The students worked independently learning about the last three continents. After watching each video, they created a web and then made sentences using the facts they learned. 

ART

After reading the book "Owl Moon", we talked about the descriptive words and illustrations. The students learned about tints and shades and were shown how to mix paint to great a night sky. Next week they will be adding branches and a silhouette of an owl to their painting. 

AMAZING RACE