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.

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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.

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