Prepare to Write

"What makes a good piece of writing?"
In our teams we discussed this question, put ideas on sticky notes and grouped those sticky notes into like ideas.  When we looked at each groups thinking we noticed a lot of similarities.  We were then able to create two writing goals for ourselves, making our writing interesting and making our writing clear for our readers.  We all now have goals that we are working towards and are pretty proud of ourselves!

Ask your child about our nesting monkeys that were used for determining continents, countries, provinces etc.  They were a great hit as we endeavor to know where in the world things are located.

I'm sure you heard we started handwriting.  Probably the most anticipated grade 3 outcome next to multiplication and division.  Handwriting is a long road but we made a great beginning!

Reading Give It A Shot - read 20/10 today I gave away 1 hockey card.

Pillars of Care assembly Thursday Oct. 31 @ 1:30 congratulations to Julia, Roua, Daven and Adrian.

Black and orange day tomorrow.

Dodgeball

Dodgeball intramurals is being offered to grade 3 Wednesday's at lunchtime.  If your child wants to participate then they should have a form in a backpack near you for signing and returning to school by  Monday Nov. 4

We took a bookwalk through our social studies textbook today taking note of the features of non-fiction.  We noticed lots of maps, pictures, fact boxes and the table of content.  We used the map of the world at the back of the text to look for Canada, oceans, the equator and the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere.  Continents and oceans were located and named.  We have discovered a textbook to be a very interesting piece of writing indeed!

We continue to work on patterns in math - noting there are a variety of strategies to be used to solve pattern problems.  Help your little learner by noting the patterns in the house - in the wall tile, floor tile etc. 

Read 20/10
Reading Give it Shot - I gave away 5 hockey cards today -

Reading Give it a Shot!

In a backpack near you is a tracking sheet for Reading Give it a Shot!  The whole school is reading their way to Calgary Flames hockey cards.  Every 100 minutes will earn your little reader one hockey card.  Once they have collected all 24 cards they will be able to earn their way to Harvey the Hound.  This is an incentive program for readers but their reading time must be tracked by you.  Every time they read at home please note the time and sign their paper.  Today we recorded our quiet reading, buddy reading and for some of us Ignite reading and so we are well on our way!

Walking trip tomorrow to Confluence Park - dress in layers, good walking shoes, hat, mitts, water bottle and snack! 😎

Community Walk

In a backpack near you there is a note about our community walk on Friday.  Please have a look so your little learner is able to enjoy their morning outside.

We had a look at the words First Nations in social studies -  the people who were here first and then their belief that everything is connected.  First Nations people see themselves connecting to everything so we drew a target with 5 circles around it to show all the things we are connected to - our family, community, homes, land etc.

Patterns

Centres were introduced in math this morning all about patterns.  In grade 3 little learners need to be able to demonstrate an understanding of sorting objects, increasing and decreasing patterns and describe, extend, compare and create patterns.  We will be using picture books, task cards, Mathletics and working with the teacher!  Yay for us.

Our anchor book this week is 'A Bad Case of the Stripes' by David Shannon.  We enjoyed a great story with silly pictures but also understand that the main character just needed to be herself.  We drew the main character and then wrote adjectives around her.

Read 20/10
Scholastic book orders due now.

Walking Stories

Read 20/10
Scholastic book orders due Monday Oct.21

Authors write stories that describe something ( a person, a place or a thing),  stories where something happen and poetry.  Today we looked at what would be in a walking story and read "17 Things I'm Not Allowed To Do Anymore" as an example.  Little authors then began their own writing telling a story about themselves, their own 5 things they aren't allowed to do, stories about their pet etc.  This is a work in progress as we only had about 20 minutes to write this morning.  It will be our goal to finish our stories next week.

Everyone has a Mathletics account that we started today.  Your child will have a log in card to bring home to practise Mathletics.  Tomorrow they will each get their Raz-Kids account and will bring home that card too-

Under Your Feet

What is under your feet?  Scientist want to know!!  So, being scientist we went outside to dig in the ground to find out.  In the poem, Under Your Feet we read that there could be snake, bunny, worm, leaf and twigs.  We are not so sure so we went to find out.  Tomorrow we will dump out our goody bags and investigate.  Ask your child what they dug up today!

Scholastic book order due Monday October 21

Scoot Games

We played two versions of a scoot game today - one in math to read base ten blocks and write the expanded notation and one in language arts to search for capitals and periods in sentences.  Scoot games have us up and moving about the classroom looking for cards hidden around the room.  When a card is found it has one question on it that is answered on personal answer sheets and then students 'scoot' off to the next card.  It's a great way for us to show our learning and move at the same time.

Ask you little learner if they enjoy scoot games.

Woot, woot!!  We finished up our last Student Learning Assessment this morning!!  Yay for us😀
If I Could Be A Teacher For a Day was the topic given to us by the province.  We watched a video, we talked to our elbow partner, we brainstormed as a group then we went and wrote our stories.  Done.  One set of SLA's.  We will repeat this same process in May.

Read 20/10
Lunchroom Expectations form due back please.

See you Wednesday!🦃

Good readers adjust their predictions

Part 2 of the math SLA assessment was completed today.  Ask your little learner how they felt about the test.  It was long.  It had many questions.  It was hard for some of us but we stuck with it and most of us are finished.  Tomorrow we will do the digital portion of the reading test.  Headphones would have benefited those children without.

Edward the Emu is the mentor text we are using this week to practise making predictions.  Not only did we confirm and adjust our prediction about Edward but we drew him as well!!  Great fun to end the day with a directed drawing.  Our emus are actually adorable!

Read 20/10
Fun lunch orders due Thursday

Thanks for dressing for the weather!!  I have a lot of black mitts, snowpants and lunch kits in my coat room that don't have names in them.  Please make sure your child's name is on their things.  You would not believe how many things do not belong to anyone!

Good readers make predictions

Ask your child how they felt after their first Student Learning Assessment.  We completed the written portion of the math test which focused on patterns.  Colour patterns, number patterns, skip counting and extending a pattern.  Tomorrow we will complete the digital component of the math test.

Good readers make predictions before, during and after reading.  We all had a look at the cover of Edward the Emu and made a prediction about what the story could be about based on the picture and title.  Tomorrow we will read the story and confirm our prediction or adjust it.

Read 20/10
Fun lunch due Thursday

Monday October 7

Library books need to be at school on Monday October 7.  We will have our library exchange on Monday next week due to a blip in the schedule.

SLA testing will begin on Monday.  Headphones at school please.

In a backpack near you is a purple fun lunch notice.

Ask about today's art project!

Headphones at school

Monday October 7 we will begin our SLA testing.  Please ensure your little learner has headphones at school.

Representing numbers in various ways based on their place value was our work today.  We can use standard form (35), expanded form 30+5=35, word form thirty-five and base 10 blocks to draw a number.  Representing in various ways allows a mathematician to think flexibly about numbers.

Read 20/10

Syllables

We are working on breaking down big, unfamiliar words in our reading.  We have done a great deal of work around the difference between a letter-sound vowel and its-other-sound vowels.  Today we layered in the use of a syllable.  Big words can be broken into word parts called syllables and each word part has a vowel sound.  Each part is a syllable.  We can hear word parts by clapping.  We can identify syllables by seeing how many times our chins move when we say words.  And, we practised figuring out the syllables in everyones name and then we looked in our books for the biggest words we could find and then determined the syllables.  The biggest word we could find was uncomfortable.  Do you know how many syllables?

Read 20/10 - everyone has new books from the library to read tonight!