I can't believe this was our last full week of February. This week we celebrated the 100th day of school. To warm our brains up we tried dividing 100 cubes as many ways as we could. It was a challenge, but it was interesting to see all the different strategies and ideas everyone came up with. For literacy we travelled into the future and imagined what our lives and the world will be like in 100 years. To help them imagine, I used an aging app to show them what they might look like in 100 years. Everyone got a good kick out for it! Then they wrote about what they imagine 2118 will be like and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of their ideas. In the afternoon we travelled back in time 100 years and looked at picture of Calgary from 100 years ago. We also took a look at a grocery store flyer from 1920 and imagined we were grocery shopping with only 100 cents (or $1). For math students had to calculate how much they could buy with 100 cents. To their surprise, they could buy ingredients for an entire meal! We continued to explore the concept of division this week in math and we will begin to look at the strategies that we can use to solve division equations. We also tried out some logic puzzles this week. They were tricky but really got our brains thinking. Here's an example that you can try at home: Thank you to everyone who came to Math Night last night, it was great to be able to share more of what we do every day to teach math!
We are continuing to explore Peru, Tunisia, India and the Ukraine. This week we looked at where each country is in the world and began working on mapping the location of each country. This week students received new spelling words and were able to practice them during literacy centers. They will work with these words for one more week before being tested. We continue to focus on writing in literacy, looking at how we can add more description and write more interesting sentences. We also started hand writing this week. Each day we will learn a new letter in cursive, and slowly start to practice how we join the letters together. Students will not be expected to use handwrite during class activities, as we are aiming to introduce them to the concept. SWIMMING: Our class will be participating in swimming lessons this year. We now have confirmed the dates and times for each class. Our class will be swimming APRIL 9-13. Our lesson will be from 10-10:45 and students will be transported by bus from the school. We are looking for parent volunteers who can help with this field trip. Volunteers would need to be available from approximately 9-12. This time frame includes the time it will take to bus there and back, but it is yet to be determined if parents will ride to bus with classes or meet us there. We are especially interested in having some male volunteers to help in the boys change room. All volunteers will need a current police clearance to help with the field trip. Please let me know if you are able to volunteer! Music: Next week students will explore a specific genre of music: Disco! In the week leading up to our “Drum Fit” unit, we will be focusing on one of the most infamous dance genres. Whether you like it or not, Disco had a major influence on dance. Pulling from the genres of motown and funk, disco was a marginalized genre in the early 70s that eventually exploded into the mainstream. Movie Night- The Parent Council is hosting a Movie Night next week on March 1. Tickets are still available and can be ordered online. Pink Shirt Day: next week on Wednesday we will celebrate pink shirt day. This day recognizes the important of kindness. Students are encouraged to wear pink! Upcoming Important Dates: February 28 Pink Shirt Day & Fun Lunch March 1 Movie Night March 7 Fun Lunch March 9 Club Friday March 21 Fun Lunch March 23 No School- PD Day March 26-30 No School- Spring Break April 2 No School - Easter Have a great weekend! Ms.Brett What a sweet end to our short week! My heart felt very filled this afternoon watching all of the kindness and friendship in our classroom during our board game time. Thank you to everyone who sent in treats, cards and games, the laughter and smiles made the enjoyment evident.
The past few days we have focused a lot on writing. We worked with a writing prompt on Monday and on Tuesday we started to think about details and what that means. We read a book together, and then drew a picture of a house as a class. It was interesting to see how much detail we could add to one house, and how it transformed from just a box, to something special and unique. Next week we can going to practice transferring that skill to our writing. We have also made a new rule in our classroom: No one is allowed to start a sentence with the word and. We also talked about how we make our writing more interesting by starting our sentences differently. I hope that you are able to see a difference in our TWAS writing. I introduced the word DIVISION to the class in Math this week, and we are going to begin exploring what division is and how it works together with multiplication in the weeks to come. I will continue to post about the strategies and vocabulary we are using in our classroom. Our class also started a new novel this week. We will be reading Wonder as a class for the next couple of months. This beautiful story will tie into our social studies topic of quality of life, as well our health and life skills curriculum. Thank you to our wonderful gym teachers (and the weather for cooperating) for organizing an awesome winter sports day. We are keeping up with the Winter Olympics in our classroom, and this afternoon was a great compliment to everything the students are working on in gym class. A big thanks to the parent council for providing hot chocolate as well! A message from Ms.Thomas: This week’s artist of the week is iconic for the legacy she left on Canadiana music with her blended folk/rock/jazz/pop style. Joni Mitchell got her start in the early 60s by working her way through Western Canada as a busker and playing in a variety of local venues. Have a wonderful long weekend! See you on Tuesday. Ms.Brett The end of our week marked the beginning of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Today we took some time to learn more about Pyeong Chang and to make our predictions about what the Canadian athletes will accomplish this year at the winter games. We will be following the games as closely as we can, keeping a tally of medals won by Canada and reflecting on what the experience is like for them. Students have also been learning about the different winter sports during their gym time this week, and our wonderful gym teachers have been super creative in finding ways for students to experience these sports in the gym. We continued our exploration of hearing and sound this week by looking at how other animals hear. We looked specifically at the bat, and learned about echolocation. Bats can hear sound that travels at a much high frequency than humans, and this was the perfect introduction into the concept of pitch. We used instruments to further explore what pitch is and how it works. Next week we will be exploring how we can change sound. Our Social Studies activities this week focused on the culture in the four countries we are exploring. We have learned about the celebrations and traditions in each place, including the food, music, clothing, religion and language that makes each culture unique. Students continued working through math centers this week, focused on practicing the skills and strategies for multiplication. We have also finished looking at the multiplication chart up to 12 x 12 (way more than we need to know, but it is pretty cool to notice the patterns that are created by the chart). We will continue to practice and solidify our understanding of multiplication next week before introducing division. We finished writing out Harry Potter writing this week, and we will talk about editing next week, working towards creating their final draft. We are also continuing with literacy centers, daily reading and writing activities. Remember to continue reading at home and record any reading on the sheet sent home last week if your child would like to earn hockey cards! Our student teacher, Ms.Marshall, taught us a lesson on synonyms this week and we have been practicing using these synonyms in our writing it make it more exciting. BLUE DAYS: Hopefully this week was the worst of it, but a reminder to students and parents that it is important to come to school with appropriate winter gear including: hat, gloves, snow pants, winter jacket, snow boots. Although many days start as a blue day, it is very possible that conditions improve during the day and students are able to be outside in the afternoon. We go outside for our natural break as often as possible, so please ensure appropriate clothing is coming to school every day. Winter Sports Day: On Monday (February 12) we will have our winter sports day. Students will have the opportunity to enjoy winter activities outside for an hour in the afternoon, followed by hot chocolate provided by our parent council. PLEASE SEND STUDENTS WITH APPROPRIATE WINTER GEAR! Valentines Day: On Wednesday (February 14) we will celebrate Valentines day. An email was sent home regarding exactly what we will be doing and with a list of student names. Family Day Long Weekend: Due to Teachers Convention and Family Day there will be no school for students February 15, 16 and 19. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Ms.Brett Please note:
Cookie orders are due back Friday February 9th and NO LATE ORDERS will be accepted. Orders can be submitted through the hot lunch site at cranston.hotlunches.net or can be submitted to your child’s teacher. Thank you for your participation. Who else felt like January flew by?! In math we learned about a special math rule that is especially helpful when trying to memorize multiplication facts. It is called the commutative property. Here is what we used to help us remember it: Now that we have learned the strategies and rules for multiplication, we have moved into our multiplication centers so that we can continue to practice and strengthen our skills. In addition to our centers, I have also started a multiplication belt program, and students can earn belts for learning their times tables. In grade 3 we are looking for students to know facts up to 5x5, but I have challenged students to try to learn even more if they are feeling ready to do that! We have started to look more closely at opinion writing this week. This includes talking about including interesting details and reasons in our writing, as well as an introduction and conclusion to our writing. Our goal with opinion writing is to try to convince someone that our opinion is right. Next week we will be looking closely at how we add details and describe our reasons in our writing. Our exlploration of celebrations and traditions around the world continued this week. Students spent some time researching celebrations in their countries on the computer, which they discovered is harder than expected! We will continue to practice researching on the computer and how to find good information. After our computer research, we tried out reading books on celebrations around the world and found it was less confusing to get information from them! In Science we looked more closely at vibrations and sound through different mini experiments. In blue communication folders you will find: Spelling tests from this week. Scholastic books orders, due February 9. There are new spelling words coming home today, as well as information about a home reading program we will be starting this month. It is optional, but I highly encourage your child to participate! I have attached the letter and tracking sheet to this blog in case it gets lost! Letter Tracking Sheet A musical message from Ms. Thomas Artist of the Week: QUEEN Piggybacking on last weeks influential artist of the 70s, this week we will be exploring one of that bands that David Bowie collaborated most successfully with. Queen was an important pop-rock/progressive rock band of the 1970s, and created some of the world’s most favorite sing-along anthems. At the end of the week, we will take a look at “Under Pressure” in order to make a connection with David Bowie. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Ms.Brett |
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