Volunteers Needed

3 volunteers are needed Thursday January 10 from 9 - 11 am to help with Teacher's Pet.  If you can lend us a hand drop me an email please. 

Pillars of Care assembly Friday 8:15

Fun lunch tomorrow

Fact vs. Opinion

Our work here continues, but the natives are getting restless!
You can help out by making sure your student is getting enough sleep at night and sticking as close to routine as possible.

We continue to add to our reindeer anchor chart (Reindeer can, have, are) and today we looked at the difference between a fact and an opinion.  Our working definition has become something that can be proved and something we believe.  We read a paragraph about reindeer antlers and highlighted all the facts one color and the opinions another color - looking for signal words such as, I think...


Pillars of Care Assembly Friday @ 8:15
Report cards coming home Friday in a backpack near you.
3 Volunteers needed Thursday January 10 from 9-11 for Teachers Pet.

Volunteers

Thursday January 10, 2019 I will be in need of 3 volunteers from 9 - 11 am to help out with Teacher's Pet.  Teacher's Pet is an in-school 'field trip.'  The topic of the morning is Tunisia - a country we learn about in social studies.  Volunteers will run a station for the instructor.  If you can find time in your schedule please drop me an email!

Quality of Life

We have practiced a variety of strategies for subtracting larger numbers.  We know how to expand to subtract, use a number line to hop backwards to subtract, Ally's method for subtraction (ask your student) and the vertical method for subtraction.  We all have our opinions on which method is our favorite but the fact is we can all subtract.  So tomorrow I'm thinking we will have a little subtraction quiz.

We brainstormed all the things we know about reindeer and created a tree map together - reindeer have, reindeer are, reindeer can before we read "The Wild Christmas Reindeer" by Jan Brett.  Jan Brett has an very interesting artistic style and once we caught on we were very impressed.  By the way, we know very little about reindeer so we will be exploring this topic a little more closely this week.

Quality of life.  How do we determine quality of life?  That was the question we are exploring.  I am proud to say that students feel the most powerful of all is freedom.  They felt freedom trumps all other aspects of their lives (yes even their iPads and Xboxes) We talked about clean water, shoes, bikes, toys and book.  The doctor, dentist. a job.  They are able to express what is important and why. So we defined quality to life as, The sense of safety, comfort, security, health and happiness that people have in their lives.

Fun lunch orders went home in a backpack near you last Thursday - that can be ordered on line now.
Winter concert Wednesday Dec. 12 @ 6:30

Subtracting on a number line

Scholastic book order now due.
No school tomorrow.

We began subtracting on a number line today.  This was difficult thinking for some.  Jumping backwards.  Looking into the tens place of the second digit to see how many jumps of ten to take and then looking to see how many jumps of ones to take.  Once we finished several examples and then wrote about what we were doing the strategy became clearer.  Practice makes perfect.

We tried our hand at writing a journal entry that explains a personal experience including important details to make the writing informative.  With our anchor book as an example many wrote about grandparents, weekend camping trips and being on Nose Hill.  The idea was to include detail to make a picture for the reader.  This bring us to the end of our work with The Raft.

Dear Mom and Dad,

When was the last time you sat down to read for the pure fun of it?
I don't mean to read this blog😉 or the school newsletter or the manual for the new fridge.
One of the best things you can do is model the joy of reading.  I understand you are busy.  There are many things to accomplish in a day.  But consider making the time to sit down and open up a good book.  This is the best thing you can do for your child.  Honest. Let your children see the process of you enjoying a story.  It doesn't require any money since our public library is free in Calgary and you can sit side by side with your child.  On the couch.  With a hot chocolate.  Maybe a potato chip or two.  The CPL book truck was here today and we went out to have a tour through it.  They had many great titles on board.  Get a public library card and send it to school every other Tuesday and then read.  My daughter and I have a date for over the holidays at our new downtown library.  We plan on spending the afternoon checking it out once the crowds have died down a bit and I can't wait.  Lots of great books and time with my child.  Win.  Win.

Read 20/10

Children who did not complete their homework last night spent their recess with me this morning.

Vocabulary Homework

Vocabulary and rhyming work is homework tonight and is due back tomorrow.
Everyone is choosing 5 of the vocabulary words to rhyme with and 3 words to use in a sentence.  Last week we put vocabulary words into alphabetical order and those are glued into the reading journal for reference. We worked for about 40 minutes this morning on this task and I'm sure you will agree with me that that is a sufficient amount of time to complete this activity.

We used the strategy of expanding numbers to subtract today - some of us found it to be a hard strategy to use but in time I am confident that it will be useful.  Once we begin subtracting larger numbers and needing to borrow it will all become clear!  For now trying new things is the sign of a thinker😀


Aussie Rules Football was introduced to us today from the Calgary Kangaroos - we learned three skills required in the game and played a little version of tag using those skills.  Great fun.  Ask your child what they thought!

Scholastic book orders due Thursday December 6 please.

Calgary Public Library book truck is coming tomorrow - bring your library card and check it out!

Jot Notes

Congratulations to our November Pillars of Care award winners as voted by their peers - Seren, Hannah, Sol and Ally!  They will receive their award tomorrow at 8:15

We began making simple jot notes today using a small reading about the animals from The Raft.  We pulled out important facts people should know about the animals and made jot notes.  We also jotted own questions we still have about that animal.  This is one method we use in grade three to find information and record facts.

Continents, countries, provinces/states, cities and communities are very confusing when you are 8.  Today we used the nesting monkeys to determine that countries are inside a continent and cities are inside of countries.  We labeled all 7 continents on a map and the oceans.  Not an easy task for us.

Dance Mat Typing

Use keyboard skills to compose, revise and print text is an outcome that we are responsible for in grade 3.  So we started today with Dance Mat typing which is an online resource for typing skills.  It is a website you could add to your list of helpful tools.

Some of us used Mathletics this morning while the rest of us began subtraction of 2 digit numbers using the strategy of drawing a picture.  We drew the base ten blocks to show 47 then took away 13.  A visual representation is very important so that we can make a picture in our head of what is happening during subtraction.

Mini lesson before writing surrounded personal editing.  Students are asked to first re-read their own writing.  Then ask themselves "Does this make sense?"  While they read again they will underline words they think are spelled incorrectly, look for missing capitals and periods and then change one word to make it more exciting for their reader.

Pillars of Care assembly Friday November 30 @ 8:15

The Raft

This week we are using the story 'The Raft' by Jim LaMarche as our anchor text.  It is the story of young Nick who is sent to spend the summer with his grandmother in the woods of Wisconsin although he'd rather be in the city.  He isn't very impressed with the work that needs doing but before long a raft appears in the water and he makes some great discoveries about the animals around him on the land and in the water.  He also discovers great things about his grandmother.  We wrote about the animals today in our journals, expressing an interest about one over the other.  We then completed a graphic organizer to summarize the story using somebody/wanted/but/so/then.  We will be using the book to compare fiction and nonfiction as well as learn a little about the animals we meet.

We learned how to line up our tens and ones numbers on a chart for adding today.  The most important thing to remember about this method of adding is to keep the numbers in the appropriate columns.  This strategy wraps up our addition of larger numbers and now we will move onto subtraction.  Students are working through the Mathletics unit for further practice.

How does daily life reflect quality of life in Peru? is the question we attempted to answer as a group.  We looked at the pictures of people living in Lima Peru and pictures of life in the country side and decided that we would rather live in the country.  Did you know most people in Peru have a city home and a country home?


BHS Loves Reading Day - November 29
On November 29, 2018, Beddington Heights School will be celebrating all things books on our BHS Loves Reading Day.
Students are welcome and encouraged to come to school dressed as their favorite book character for the day.  They may even want to carry a copy of the book that the character is featured in with them, as we will be having multiple "Drop Everything And Read" times throughout the day.  Classes will also be decorating their doors with book themed artwork, and taking the time to appreciate why reading is so amazing.
We hope to see a good number of students, and teachers, in our school participating in this community spirit event.  
We can't wait to see all of our friends and peers dressed up, reading, and showing us what characters mean the most to them.

Science Homework Tonight

Some of us have science home work to wrap up a piece of writing.  Please have this finished tonight and sent back tomorrow as we need our science notebooks for our crystal experiment.

I think my rock is ____________ because ________________.

1 thing I learned about rocks and minerals is ______________.

1 question I still have is ______________________________.

We began comparing fiction to non-fiction with a tale from India called Pattan's Pumpkin and our social studies textbooks.  We noticed features of the textbook like the maps, photographs, the chapters and the glossary while the fiction book did not have any of these elements.  Some of us prefer to read fiction while some of us love our non-fiction.

We are able to add bigger numbers using the strategies of breaking apart the tens and ones and now we can all use a number line.  It is important for students to be aware there is more than one way to work with numbers and provide them the tool belts to work affectively.

Growing a Crystal

We have started growing a crystal.  This is our first science experiment.  We are hoping to see results tomorrow.

We accomplished a great deal of art today.  We have learned how to draw a fall tree, double load a paint brush, use cool colors to create a feeling of fall and to mix pastel chalk with our paint.  The results are great and all based around the book Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter.  We can't wait for you to see them this week during interviews.

No library exchange tomorrow but rather book shopping at the Scholastic Book Fair in the library.  You can send money with your student or plan on buying together when you come for interviews this week.  A wish list could be composed when we shop tomorrow.

Please book a interview slot on our web page.  Thursday evening or Friday morning.

Fire Bell

The fire department visited us this afternoon.  With lights and sirens.  The fire bell was pulled by little fingers as we were all coming in from lunch.  Our students did a great job of evacuating the building, some still in socks because they were taking shoes off, some with coats on because they were still in the hallway.  This brings up the conversation of only using the fire bell in emergencies.  As a class we talked about all those trucks and fire fighters responding to our emergency call when there was no need  and someone else having a real emergency and not able to get help.  Please reinforce this message at home.  Perhaps a good time to review your family evacuation plan.

The Calgary Public Library Book Truck is visiting Beddington Heights School every Tuesday from 2 – 3 p.m. starting tomorrow November 20, 2018.  The Book Truck is a library on wheels that will be set up on our compound.  Students can climb aboard and borrow from their collection with their public library card.  

Students in our class with their library card tomorrow will have the first chance to check out the truck and borrow books to take home. 

Bring your library card tomorrow to get started on the book truck!

Rock, Paper, Scissors

We played some Rock, Paper, Scissors this morning with a partner, keeping track with tally marks the numbers of wins, losses and draws.  Everyone then put their personal data onto a bar graph to visually represent their results.  A writing piece was also completed with two things Mrs. Trumper could learn by looking at the bar graph and one question she may still have.  Who knew we there was math in Rock, Paper, Scissors!!

Alex Munro School on 78 Ave NE have a great collection of rocks on their school grounds.  We had a look at some pictures of it and then listened to a song their teacher, Mr. Bell, wrote for them along with pictures they drew.  Such talent!  We then took the words of their song, Rocks and Minerals, and completed a T chart of things we knew in their song and things that were new in their song.

Scholastic book order due tomorrow
Book Truck coming to Beddington Tuesday after school.  Bring your public library card!

Math Practise Websites

Many students have chosen basic facts as their math goal - which is a great life long skill to have under your belt.  To help them practise think about computer games that will give them a boost.

Xtramath

Mathletics

Math 3 Under the Sea

Fun Brain

ABCya

Consider also family games such as Sorry, Trouble, and Sequence Math which involve adding dice together and counting spaces on the board.  All good choices for Friday Night Game Night!

The Calgary Public Library Book Truck will be coming to Beddington Heights School every Tuesday starting November 20 from 2- 3 pm.  If your child has a public library card they can visit the truck after school and take out books.  Some students will visit from 2 - 2:30 but I can't guarantee your student will get there as it will only hold 10 students at a time and there are 450 of us!  Join us in the truck at 2:30 or send your student with their card and I will see about getting them in for a visit!

We have several fundraising activities currently in the building all the work of our Mavericks (Grade 6 leadership)  We are collecting food for the Food Bank please send your cans and boxed food for that.  Kernels Popcorn is sold everyday at lunch to raise money for community groups and Movember is in full swing and students are voting for the male staff member with the WORST mustache.  $1.00 per vote money raised going to all cancers.

Personal Goals

We spent a great deal of our day entering our goals into our Iris accounts.  This is something you can view at home - your child knows how to get there and open everything up.  The good news is we will look at these goals together when you come to see me next week.  Some great skills have come out of this little exercise as we all know how to take a picture in photo booth and upload it, attach a document and share our work.  Great life skills for tech type people.

Scientists were busy this afternoon testing their rocks to determine what type they are working with.  Some of us have a pretty good idea of what type of rock we have.

Scholastic Book orders due Friday

Super Busy Monday

We worked so hard today and accomplished a great many things!
Everyone has now started testing their rocks to see if they are igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary.  So far we have not had a magnetic rock or a rock that fizzes (because it contains calcium carbonate) but we are hopeful we will see some rocks in action!  Any geologists or gemologists or soil experts out there in the parent crowd that would like to come and share their knowledge with us?

Sticker math was a Monday morning challenge today!!  It took us into the discussion of sometimes you have to draw yourself a picture to see the answer.  So now when we are approaching a story problem we know to read multiple times, circle the numbers, underline the question, box the important words and ask ourselves what are they asking me to do?  what is my plan to solve?

When you come Thursday November 22 or Friday November 23 for Student Led conferences we have some goals to share with you.  We were busy today up-loading those into our Iris account.  We have pictures and everything!  Plan to be here.

Scholastic Book Orders due Friday November 16.  Pay online, cash or cheque.
Thank you for supporting readers in our classroom.

Read 20/10

Why Do We Wear A Poppy?

We endeavored to answer the question - "Why do we wear a poppy?" before we began making poppies for our classroom wreath for assembly Friday morning.  The poem 'In Flanders Field' was a connection students were able to make.  They now know that it was written by a Canadian doctor after he noticed all the poppies growing over the graves of the soldiers.  Making the poppy a symbol for Remembrance Day.  We worked on our wreath and also a little display for the learning commons.

Ask your student if they have rounding homework tonight - please get that little booklet finished up and returned to school for Friday please.

Hoop dancing in gym today was a lot of fun.  We also learned to say hello in Blackfoot - OKI and to count to 10.

Remembrance Day assembly Friday @ 10:30

Knew and New

We have been working on making connections to the text that we are reading and today we expanded that into the nonfiction text we are reading (or viewing in our case).  When reading information we make connections to the facts we already knew and make connections to our background knowledge. We discussed the difference between the word knew and the word new (you would be impressed with what your students know!)  We watched Bill Nye Rocks and Soil looking for information that was new and information that we knew.  Tomorrow we will finish up putting that information onto a chart.

As authors today we wrote stories that we think will be engaging to our readers.  Everyone chose a story topic they thought they could write well about and began a story that uses words that show the action, not tell about it.  Harder than you might think.

Really enjoyed our dance this morning and looking forward to tomorrow with the new dance instructor.

Remembrance Day assembly Friday Nov. 9 @ 10:30 - all welcome

Everybody Needs A Rock

Everybody Needs A rock is the picture book we read in science today.  10 rules for finding the perfect rock.  We then started our own writing about our own rock - 10 things we like or notice about our rock.  On a rock.  Of course.

We continue to round numbers to the nearest 10 and some of us to the nearest 100.  We used Xtramath for extra practice as well.

Good readers can make connections to the books that they are reading because they are able to join together the text they are reading and an experience from their lives.  We found out that the story of your life will help you understand the story better.  A good reader can make a connection to a part of the story, a picture, a character or a feeling.  We read a story together and everyone in the classroom was able to put a sticky note somewhere in the story with a connection that they were able to make.

Dance continues tomorrow in gym with the Canadian National Ballet and then Wednesday we will start dance instruction with Shirley Hill an aboriginal dancer.

The majority of our BHS male staff members are participating in our traditional Movember

fundraiser. For a $1 donation students can buy one vote for the teacher with the worst or best mustache this month.

The donations will be going to the Canadian Movember Foundation. Movember is an annual event involving

the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues, 

such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide

Healthy Snacking

Our morning snack break is an opportunity to fit extra nutrients into your students diet.  Snacks should consist of nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grain and seeds.  This helps to keep the blood sugars even and the tears at bay.  A healthy snack has about 100 calories in it and has about 7 grams of sugar.  Consider anything that comes in its own wrapper - apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, cucumber or carrots.  All those pretty pre-package foods are a trap. Beware!!  As part of our health unit we have started to talk about super foods for our bodies.  Foods that power our brains!  In essence please keep the Halloween candy at home for an occasional snack.

Pillars of Care tomorrow at 8:15.  Congratulations to Ally, Logan, Tamika and Cayleigh this months award winners as voted by their peers.

Read 20/10

Raz-Kids and Xtramath

Your student is bringing home their log in information for both Xtramath and Raz-kids.  One is for reading practice the other basic facts.  Both equally important and as your student knows we can't expect to get better at reading or basic facts or skating or swimming or walking without practice.  Rad-Kids can be used when looking for books to get in your daily reading.  Happy 20/10!

Number line work continued today in math with work around reading and writing sentences:

64 rounds to 60 because it is 4 numbers away from 60

Rounding

My classroom is covered in number lines!  We began our unit on rounding by making interactive and very visual number lines. We then posted them all around the room.   When students have a good grasp of rounding, they are capable of making reasonable estimates.  Rounding and estimating are useful tools in real life situations.  We use them to see if we have enough money when shopping or when trying to get somewhere on time.  We will be working all week to round numbers - stay tuned.

Dance was great with Jen from the Canadian Ballet.  We worked on a follow me dance and moving in the gym in slow swimming in jello steps and hot on lava steps.  I thought we did a great job of trying something new with a wide open attitude!

Good readers use the book and their brains was practiced again.  Everyone had a brain paddle and were using it to begin conversations.  We talked about why it is that people have different schemas and why our experiences are not always the same.

Library tomorrow -
Black and Orange day tomorrow -
Pillars of Care assembly Friday at 8:15am

Metacognition

Metacognition is the biggest grade 3 word ever and it should be dropped at the supper table tonight by your student!  Metacognition is not only fun to say but a really impressive word.  It means to think about your thinking - good readers are always thinking with their book.  Together we talked about the word and then we made a reading salad - complete with books and brains.  Every time we read a page we dropped a book into the reading salad when we stopped to think out loud about the book we dropped in a brain.  We discovered that we had way more thinking than we did pages of the book in our salad.  Students then practiced with their own brain paddle and a partner - reading and thinking.

What can change a rock?  We made our own rocks with plastercine so that we could start to answer this question.  We know that heat and pressure, compaction, melting and cooling will all change a rock.  When we watched Magic School Bus we learned that weathering and erosion are also factors.  Every one should now have a rock at school.

Black and Orange day Wednesday Oct. 31
Canadian Ballet Tuesday morning - did you return your form?

Deal It

Deal It was the math game students played this morning to practice comparing numbers.  With a partner they made 2 or 3 digit numbers with playing cards and then compared the numbers with the greater than and less than symbols.  It was a game that went over well and students worked well with their partners!

'Alexander and The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day' is a picture book that is an excellent example of an author using an anchor line.  An anchor line is used to hold the writing steady and repeats through out the story.  Authors will use an anchor line to add detail to their writing and make it more interesting.  We read the story this morning and then discussed how Judith Viorst made good use of the anchor line.  We have added this idea to our tool box of ways authors add detail to their stories and will put this into action next week.

We discovered that water, erosion, heat and pressure are the only things that can change a rock while we watched Magic School Bus.  We also talked about the things you will find in earth materials.

No school tomorrow.
Your student should now have a rock at school for testing.

Which earth material will absorb the most water?

We compared more numbers today, ordered them, grouped them by even and odds, found numbers larger and numbers smaller.  We were so busy.  We then did a sorting activity to have a closer look at numbers.  Phew...

Mrs. Paolini had some new books for us to look at in the library today.  We all have new books for reading 20/10 at home tonight.

Recognizing nouns, verbs and adjectives is our work this week and today we took words form 'Finding Winnie' and determined what part of speech they were.  We then sorted those words.  And wrote sentences about them.  We are good detectives.

Which earth material will absorb the most water?  that was the science question of the day.  We poured water into sand, gravel, clay and soil.  We also voted on which earth material we thought would absorb the most.  Sand and soil were tied in their voting.  Gravel only received 1 lonely vote.  Ask your child which earth element they voted for and which material absorbed the most water.

No school Friday Oct. 26
Please return National Ballet forms

Comparing Numbers

We were rolling dice and comparing numbers today using the greater than and less than sign.  We are able to order numbers from largest to smallest based on the number in the hundreds place and tell if the number is odd by looking at the number in the ones place.  Super busy! and very flexible thinkers when looking at numbers.

We have been finding nouns, verbs and adjectives in our reading and today we expanded on that and learned about the tenses of verbs.  We noticed that the past tense of a verb usually contains the ending of 'ed' while the present tense has no ending or an 's' on the end.  We also noticed that the future tense of a verb usually has the word 'will' attached to it - will jump - will cry.  We used sentences from 'Finding Winnie' and determined the tense of the verbs.  We are all pretty good at it!

The components of soil are sand, gravel, clay, organic material (leaves, dead animals) and air which we looked at today and then discussed who needs soil and what would we do if we didn't have soil.

Ask your child about their dance experience with the Canadian Ballet School in phys. ed today.   We are lucky enough to have someone coming on Tuesday's for the next four weeks.  Please look for the Acknowledgement of Risk in a backpack near you -

Game of More

Game of More
In this math game we had to figure out who had more and then figure out how many more.  We played with a deck of cards and cubes.  When we finished playing the cards we counted our cubes to see how many we each had.  Then we found the difference between the scores.  After recording game one, we played again and recorded the scores.  Our last job was to figure out the total scores of each player from both games and then find the difference.  This card game gave students practice with basic facts and with adding and subtracting two and three digit numbers.

We did a little visualizing lesson with 'Finding Winnie' and then completed an ABC activity.  In grade 3 we must be able to use alphabetical order to the second letter.  We practice multiple times during the year in various ways.

We had an unexpected visit from our buddies this afternoon which we all love so it is not a hardship! We then carried on with our handwriting.

No school Friday Oct. 26

When you add ten to a number

Work continued in math today with adding ten to a number.  What happens to the value of the tens place?  What is the largest digit you can have in the tens place?  This work is important since it will lead us into borrowing and carrying larger numbers.

Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick is the true story of Winnie The Pooh - ask your student what they learned about the famous bear from this book.  We read the story and were totally amazed about all the things that we didn't know but the biggest was that Winnie was a real bear and Canadian!!  We will be using the story for several days in our classroom.

We sorted all our Earth Materials today and discovered that mostly we had collected soil.  We compared it to the poem we started with and found we had a lot of the same items.  Next we will be collecting soil samples from around the school.

Walking stories due tomorrow for those wh took them home.

Walking Stories due Friday

We took advantage of the beautiful day today and went out for gym, a fire drill and to collect earth materials for science.  We took a shovel (teaspoon) and collection bag (lunch bag) and went out looking for the things under our feet.  Yesterday we read the poem, Under Your Feet, and we will use it again tomorrow to sort the earth materials we found and compare them against the poem.

Students are bringing home their Mathletics login information so they can continue to practice math skills at home.  This is an excellent method for further development.  Some of us were logged on  this morning and began the Numbers to 1000 unit while others worked with me and were building numbers and adding 10 more.

Walking stories were handed in today.  Students who were not finished have brought them home for completion by Friday.  Your student should be able to tell you that a walking story is a descriptive piece of writing where each of the 5 boxes contains a different piece of information but nothing really happens in terms of a problem so it stays on a straight line.

We also have new reading material from the library to use for reading 20/10 tonight

Representing Numbers

We continue to represent and describe numbers to 1000 in our math work.  Today we added using a hundreds (or thousands) chart to our toolbox of ways to show numbers.  We can now use the standard form (184), word form (one hundred eighty four) expanded notation (100+80+4=184) base ten blocks (ask your student) write an expression (180+4=184) and a hundreds chart.  We will continue to practice before moving on to comparing and ordering numbers.

How do authors make their writing interesting? that was the question we explored and one way is to add detail.  We are eliminating the robot writing of I like... I like... I like... as it is NOT interesting nor is it grade 3 quality writing.  We worked on giving a fact.  I like the beach.  And following it up with a detail.  I like the beach.  At the beach I listen to the crashing waves and walk in the surf in my flip flops.  Adding detail after the fact makes the writing more interesting for the reader.  During writer's workshop we practiced this writing technique.

We also had our first handwriting lesson today!  So exciting!  Ask your student what letter we started with-

Please return the yellow STUDENT DEMOGRAPHIC VERIFICATION FORM



Book orders due tomorrow.

Picture Day tomorrow

We were super productive today.  Much was accomplished!

We turned our lovely art project from Friday - printing fall leaves on a tree with a cork - into math this morning.  Something I like to call MART.  Students estimated the number of leaves on their tree and then created a strategy for themselves on how to actually count the leaves on their tree.  We then shared the strategies students used for counting such as counting by colour, making groups of 5 and then counting by 5, 1 to 1 counting of leaves and talked about mathematicians having their own strategies for working with numbers.  Interesting.  After sharing students then figured out how many leaves they had altogether at their table group.  This meant we were working with much bigger numbers but we conquered the task!  Calculators were used and we checked our work.  Ask your student what strategy they used for counting all the leaves on their tree.

Students worked really hard to complete a foldable about the plot of the story they chose to read.  Everyone is working on their own and you could have heard a pin drop in here while they all worked on this task.

We've just begun our science unit, Rocks and Minerals, and so this afternoon we generated questions that we have about rocks.  It is important that everyone wonders and questions - especially as we are practicing to be scientists.  We enjoyed Rock Odyssey an oldie but a goodie.  Like Fred Flintstone!

Coco Brooks orders due tomorrow

Picture Day tomorrow

The plot thickens!

Today we read, 'WANTED! Ralfy Rabbit, Book Burglar' to discuss plot of the story.  We created an anchor chart together with a beginning, middle, end and the story elements of characters, setting, problem and solution.  We already knew that climbing stories had these elements while walking stories do not so we were able to build on what we already knew!  Good for us😊  Students then picked a book that they can read to complete a foldable about their own personal book.

High Rollers is the math game we learned to play - it had us building numbers with a partner and then deciding who had built the larger number and comparing them.  Sticker math this morning also had us comparing numbers.

We read with our buddies today as they won't be available tomorrow - this is an activity we all enjoy.

Scholastic book orders for October are in a backpack near you.  Please have your cash, cheque or order on-line in by Tuesday Oct. 16.

School photos Tuesday Oct. 16

Rocks please

We brainstormed all the things that we think we know about Rocks and Minerals as an introduction to our new science unit, Rocks and Minerals.  We then had a look at some books with a partner looking for some interesting facts.  Everyone will need to have their own personal rock by Wednesday next week.  (October 17)Their rock should tell a story i.e.; I found my rock in the Kananaskis River.  It has a hole in it. My rock was made smooth by the water of the river.

We continued with our Making Words activity - we found that the English language has many words that sound the same but a spelled differently i.e. sew/so and sore/soar   Even with the few letters we have to work with.  It's no wonder this is such a difficult language to learn!


We were at the library today so everyone should have new materials to read for 20/10 tonight.  Students do not have to wait until Wednesday to get new library materials.  If you find they finished with their books send them back to school and your student will get downstairs for new books.

Check the yellow important papers folder for school photos.

Post turkey

We may have been full of turkey but we accomplished a lot today!

Students were introduced to sticker math this morning.  Sticker math is one problem on a sticker that they stick into their math workbooks and solve.  They are always 'story problems' on a current math strand.  Today, sticker math read:

A number has the digit 3 in the ones place

 and the digit 9 in the tens place.  

Write the number 3 different ways.

A question like this tells me if your student can think about numbers flexibly.  It tells me if they can show numbers in a variety of ways.  We will have sticker math a couple times each week.  Questions that are not finished will be sent home for homework.  Please check with your student if you find a lot of sticker math coming home to find out why they are unable to complete the task in the allotted 30 minutes.

Last week we reviewed the vowels and today we learned how to recognize the syllables of a word.  We can clap a syllable and we can use our hand under our chins to feel the syllables.  We practiced finding the syllables in the names of our friends then turned to our books to find the word with the most syllables.

We read the walking story 'No, David' by David Shannon and then tried our hand at writing a walking story.  A walking story has no problem to be solved, no rise in action but it should have lots of detail.  There were great ideas for writing such as myself, space, 5 reasons not to chew gum in school. Students worked really hard at being authors and many have finished their story.

SLA are done!

We finished all of the BIG tests today and we are pretty proud of ourselves for getting that dastardly deed done.  Ask your student how they felt things went.

We continue to work on the various ways to show numbers which will take us into next week.  We read with our grade 6 buddies this afternoon and have finished up our Scarecrow art project with pastels.  We are all exhausted and have decided we deserve a long weekend.  Enjoy some family time and a turkey meal or two.  Fingers crossed my 18 pound turkey will defrost in time and come out of the oven golden brown - my boys are coming home hungry!

No school Friday October 5 and Monday October 8

Soccer Tricks

Students learned some great soccer ball tricks from a guest instructor in the gym this morning.  We had a great time perfecting our tricks.  Ask your little soccer player!

Fundraising notice from Parent Council in a yellow important papers folder in a backpack near you!

We were at the library this morning so there may be fresh reading material in the backpack for reading 20/10 this evening.

We reviewed the vowels and the difference between when you hear a vowel's name and when you hear its other sound.  Our work in this area will continue as we investigate how it can help us when we come across a word we don't know.

No school Friday October 5 or Monday October 8

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!
Good Canadian children are prepared at anytime of the year to be out in snow.  But who would think so much snow so early?😡
Please ensure your student is prepared to be outside with boots, mitts and an appropriate jacket.  If you need any of these items drop me an email and we can help out.

We wrote the pencil and paper portion of the SLA today.  Ask your child about the patterns a firefighter uses in their daily work.

Library tomorrow.

SLA MATH

Thank you for the headphones.  With your permission we will keep them at school for use when using Mathletics and Raz Kids.

Ask you child how they felt about the digital SLA math test this morning.

Notice coming home about fun lunch in the yellow important paper folder in a backpack near you!

A message from Mr. Sadowsky

Monday is Orange Shirt day - check out the website for more information orangeshirtday.org

n 1997, Walk our Children to School Day was launched in Chicago by the Partnership for a Walkable America. Canada held its first national Walk a Child to School Day in 1998 with participants from five provinces. In 2000 the first International Walk to School day officially began and today schools from all thirteen provinces and territories join millions of students all over the world as they walk to school.

Participating countries include Canada, United States, Mexico, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, India, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

To learn more about the international event please visit www.iwalktoschool.org.

Join the movement and millions of walkers around the world as we walk to school during t.his week! 

As a school we will keep track each day that week how many students walked or rode their bikes to school. I will post our results on this blog. Lets see how active Beddington Heights can be!

The dates are October 1st - 5th 

Greg Sadowsky

Odd vs. Even

We have been working to create a rule for numbers that are odd and numbers that are even.  We have come to the conclusion that when everyone has a partner the number is even when someone is left out then we have an odd man out.  An odd number.  We have been using spinners and dice to create numbers and then sorting them onto our odd and even mats.  Such fun.  Especially since it involved mODDsters!

Practise, practise, practise.
We have been using the SLA website to practice for the BIG test next week.  We even read the book.  Headphones are required on Monday

Pillars of Care assembly tomorrow at 8:15

5 Finger Rule

Last week we talked about the 5 Finger Rule for finding 'just right' books and then we practiced.  We read, "Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians" where Goldie Socks used the five finger rule to see if her book was too hard.  She started with a closed fist.  When she came to a word she couldn't read, she put up one finger.  All five fingers went up while reading the first page of the book, so she knew that book was too hard for her.  She tried another book and did not have any fingers up so she knew that it was too easy.  Then she found a book that was just right. She had three fingers up for words she did not know. We are looking for books to read that are just right for us.  Please help your child to use the five finger rule at home when they are reading.  Remember that we are reading for 20 minutes by ourselves every night and 10 minutes to someone else.

We went to the Learning Commons today to get ourselves new reading material and practice the five finger rule.  Your child should have new books to read with you tonight.  Wednesday's will always be our book exchange day.

Headphones required Monday for SLA testing

Who was Terry Fox?

Due to the weather forecast for this  week we have changed our annual Terry Fox Run to Tuesday September 25th. We will start with a quick assembly in the gym at 1:30pm.  Everyone is welcome.  We are collecting Toonies for Terry from Monday September 24th to Friday September 28th.  You can also go to:  http://www.terryfox.ca/BeddingtonHeights  to donate online.  Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather and wearing appropriate shoes to run (running shoes).  Thank you for your support.

"Who was Terry Fox?"
I asked this question this morning and got some pretty interesting answers.  We created a chart together where we could brainstorm all the things we knew about Terry Fox and then students made their own in their reading journal.  We had a look at a few short videos that highlighted his struggle with cancer and his dream to raise money so other children would have hope when faced with cancer.  He was a remarkable Canadian and we will celebrate his life and legacy tomorrow with our school run.  Please consider donating a toonie for Terry.

We started practicing for the SLA test this afternoon.  We practiced the reading comprehension together talking about how to choose the best answer and how to help ourselves when stuck.  You can practice at home at SLA Government of Alberta - https://public.education.alberta.ca/assessment/

ALL students will need headphones at school ASAP.

Terry Fox run tomorrow @ 1:30 pm

Pillars of Care Assembly Friday @ 8:15 am

See you all tonight!

See you all tonight.  Remember there will be pizza available for purchase in the gym so you don't have to make dinner😀

Reminders

Couple of reminders for housekeeping details:

• Student Information package should have been returned
• Digital Citizen form has been returned
• Meet the Teacher appointment has been made for Thursday September 20 online following the instructions in you student's backpack 
• Pizza will be sold in the gym during Meet the Teacher
• September Scholastic book order has been returned
• Friday September 21 is a Professional Development Day and teachers will be taking First Aid

Number Detectives

We start each day in our classroom with Number Detectives.  We are practicing our number sense and learning to think flexibly about numbers.  The questions remain the same from day to day, just the number changes, so that everyone is able to become a master.  Currently these 10 questions are taking us 20 to 30 minutes to complete.  Time Christmas rolls around we will be down to 10 minutes.  I will start sending Number Detectives home if your child is unable to finish in the allotted time frame.  If you find this happening on a regular basis you need to ask your student what they are doing during the work time.
We had a great writing time this morning!  Everyone was an author and wrote their own poem in the style of Jessica Crum.  Ask your student about their writing!

Meet the Teacher Thursday Sept. 20 please book online following the instructions sent home with your student.

Scholastic Book orders due tomorrow.

No school Friday September 21 teachers are compelling First Aid training.

Small Saul

We are currently working on our hallway display for you to see on Thursday evening when you come for 'Meet The Teacher'.  We have been tasked with creating a display around the Beddington Heights Pillars of Care.  We have been reading books about people who make a difference in the lives of others.  Today we read 'Small Saul' by Ashley Spires.  Saul is a little pirate who isn't like most pirates and tries to make the pirate ship a better place to be a pirate.  We are all thinking about the question 'How can you make a difference?'  Check out our hallway Thursday night when you come for Meet The Teacher.

We used the poem 'Friends' to answer the question "When do we use capital letters in writing?"  We brainstormed together and came up with; at the start of a sentence, using I, proper nouns, and titles of books.  All of which are grade expectations so we used these rules to create an anchor chart for future reference.   Everyone has a copy of the poem 'Friends' and we looked at it for patterns and capital letters.

Meet the Teacher Thursday September 20 - please sign up on the school website.  Instructions to complete this were sent home today.

Book orders due Wednesday  September 19

No school Friday September 21 teachers will be completing First Aid certification.

Raising Readers

Raising readers with the help of Scholastic book orders.
Scholastic book orders went home today for the first time. We oohed and awed over the books being offered this month.  We talked about what we wanted and we talked about why we read books😍  Scholastic is a great way to put books into the hands of children.  To become better readers we must read.  When you purchase books from Scholastic for your child they provide books for our classroom.  A literate classroom needs to have over 1000 titles in it so your help is appreciated.  Book orders are due Wednesday September 19 and can be paid for in cash, cheque and on-line at Scholastic Canada.

Read 20/10
Meet the Teacher Thursday September 20 - please sign up online.

September

For me, September is all about building relationships, establishing trust, creating a working environment and getting to know your children as readers and learners.  September is for teaching children what it is that good readers do, setting tone and establishing expectations, procedures and engaging and motivating children to want to learn to read.  Learning to read is our business!  With well-written stories that have interesting plots, playing with words and exploring a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry and rhymes.  I will be helping your child to access what they already know and make connections to something new.
We have been working on why people read and what this classroom looks like and sounds like when we are reading.  We wrote it all up in a nice T chart and then practiced.  For our first couple tries went really well.

Ask your child what Read 20/10 means to them and why it is important.

Meet the Teacher Night September 20

Welcome Back to School

Welcome back to school!

My name is Laurie Anderson and I have been teaching at Beddington Heights for many years.  I am looking forward to getting to know your child this year.   We will spend a great deal of our time creating our classroom culture.  We started with getting to know each other through stories and activities.  I am trying to build a culture of community where children hold each other accountable for behaviors, learning, respect and kindness.  Many team challenges have occurred that lead to conversations about being a leader not a boss.  We are all excited about the benefits of team work. 

Student information paper went home for updating and should be back at school.  It is important that you and your child have had a look at our student handbook posted on the school website. Please follow the steps from the Culture and Environment tab before signing the Student Handbook page.

Please ensure that your child's name is on everything that comes to school.  Lunch kits, shoes, water bottles and hoodies accumulate in the coatroom and appear to never belong to anyone.  
Feel free to contact me at anytime.  Email is best (and can be found on the school website) but a phone call works too!  I am looking forward to meeting you September 20 at the open house.