Stop the summer slide

 

We have finished reading our way across Canada - what a huge country we live in!

Little learners can lose some serious ground over school breaks thanks to the dreaded summer slide!  Consider the following tips to help keep the mind powered up!!

• READ with your child and develop a life long reader.  
• TALK is the best thing a parent can do with their child
• DISCUSS while reading what is happening in the story - say, "This part remind me of..."  ask, "What are you thinking will happen next?"  
• PLAY games that promote strategy - think Checkers, UNO, Sorry
• USE audio books in the car on road trips
• CREATE a space in the house just for reading
• MEASURE together in the kitchen - 2 tablespoons or 1/2 cup or 6 forks
• GO outside 

The Calgary Public Library is free and they have many great resources available for children.  Your library card will give you access to Tumblebooks, Bookflix and Kanopy to name a few.

Raz-kids, Mathletics, and Prodigy memberships remain available to you - 

Our walking field trip to Confluence Park will be tomorrow - Tuesday, June 28.  We will leave the school first thing in the morning and return in time for lunch.  Please have a backpack with water and an energizing snack!

Tomorrow at 1:00 pm is our final assembly and you are all invited.  We will recognize our June Pillars of Care winners and acknowledge all the people who will be leaving us over the summer.

Congratulations to our winners, Noah, Numan, Youssef, Saud and Ryleigh

An invitation for you -

 The little drummers of room 10 would like to invite you to the Drumming Assembly Friday at 11:00 am in our gym.  One World Drumming has been here all week and we would like to show you what we can do!

Walking Field Trip

 We are so proud to say we have finished the alphabet in cursive writing!!  Just in the nick of time.  

Everyone will need an extra bag, backpack, shopping bag on Monday to bring home everything in desks.

Tuesday morning (June 28) the grade 3's would like to walk over to Split Rock in the morning.  Leaving the building by 9:00 am - returning for lunch at 11:45 am.  Please make sure your little learner has a water bottle and snack and is dressed for whatever the weather may bring.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate with this plan.  If the forecast is not favourable on Tuesday we will go on Monday.  

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One World Drumming

 We played a true/false game of Rights/Responsibilities/Freedoms in social studies this afternoon and your little learner has an excellent understanding - the were hard to trick👏

Ask your little musician about their first drumming lesson.  One World Drumming is in the house this week and I for one had a great time.

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Kamp Kiwanis Pictures

We had a great day at Kamp Kiwanis - most importantly we did not get wet!!  
 

Schedule change

 Slight change to our Kamp Kiwanis schedule - the bus is not able to pick us up until 9:00 am which just means we will shorten our centre time in the morning. Our day will begin with math as usual!  We will return to school at 2:30 in time for the bell.  We were also offered the opportunity to go to the pond and use the nets to pull out water striders and minnows, maybe some froglets. See what's living in the pond. Sounds like fun to me!!  

 Please ensure your little camper is dressed for the weather and has a change of clothing - particularly socks.  A toque or hat of some kind might be beneficial.  We are looking forward to playing outside - 

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Kamp Kiwanis Field Trip

 In a backpack near you are the forms required for our field trip to Kamp Kiwanis!!  We are so excited that this has come together for us and we are able to go.  Thank you to the volunteers who came forward - we can't go on field trips without you.  Please complete all the forms and send them back to school as soon as possible.  The payment must be made online through your CBE account.  If you are unable to pay the full amount please contact the school to make other arrangements.

Ask your little learner about the smudge we participated in this afternoon -

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Life Cycles

 After watching a video this morning about hamsters, toads, lions and jackal students were given a choice about which one animal they want to write about.  In their writing they will be telling what they already knew about the animal, what was new information about the animal, questions they still have about the animal and drawing a picture.  As we work through the life cycles of animals in science we are also concerned about animal habitat and adaptations.

We have all made a clock to use in math to show elapsed time - next we will be using referents to measure cm and m and decide which unit of measure is more appropriate.

We are almost to the end of our novel study - The Tale of Despereaux.  My little authors are currently writing, How To Be A Mouse - instructions for the survival of a mouse.

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Sports Day/Ultimate Summer Challenge

 

Our mouse craft to go along with our novel study The Tale of Despereaux.  

Tomorrow is Sports Day at Beddington Heights.  Please make sure your little athlete is dressed for the weather, has sun screen on (please don't send sun screen to school) have on their fastest running shoes and have a water bottle.

Yesterday we participated in the Ultimate Summer Challenge through the Calgary Public Library.  The library wants to ensure we all read over the summer and offer this great program every year.  Participants can register by going to the Calgary Public Library website or in-person at any location.  They have some great prizes for every 40 hours a child reads over the summer.  They also have some great programs to take part in.  The best part is the library is free!!

Down and Out

 My apologizes for the lack of communication - I was down and out!!

Our work around life cycles continue and we have had a close up look at the life cycle of mice, chickens and frogs.  Today we read did a paired reading of the life cycle of frogs.  We had a look at a fiction story and a non-fiction text.  We found that there was still some good information to be had in the story book - although we did enjoy the up-close photos of frog eggs and frog embryos in the non-fiction book.

Some great patterns appeared before us today as we were relating seconds to minutes, minutes to hours and hours to days.  We also found that our new found multiplication abilities came in handy!  We have had a look at "Just a Second" by Steve Jenkins and can make reasonable estimates on what can be accomplished in a second, minute and hour.

"Carson Crosses Canada" was introduced with the question - "A trip from the west coast of Canada to the east coast is about 5,500 km - how long will it take Carson to cross Canada?"  answers ranged from one year to 187 days to 1 1/2 weeks.  We also talked about where we would go if we could travel Canada and children seem happy to visit Banff and Jasper while many would like to see Quebec.  Great discussions come out of picture books!

Toilet paper roll for Thursday this week please -

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Spring Concert

 The Beddington Heights Spring Concert has its kindergarten to grade 3 performance tomorrow evening, Wednesday May 25.  The doors will open at 5:30 performance will begin at 6:00 pm.  Performers need to go to their classrooms upon arrival while parents can find themselves a seat in the gym.  See you all there!!

Just a reminder that everyone needs at least one toilet paper roll for Friday!

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Please collect

 Please collect a few toilet rolls for next week.  Everyone will need one or two for an art project.  They will need to be at school Thursday, June 2.  Thanks!!

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Volunteers Wednesday, June 15

 I am in need of 5 volunteers for our field trip to Kamp Kiwanis on Wednesday, June 15.  You will need to have a police clearance in place and the whole day free to play in the trees.  The school board requires we have volunteers and without your help I am afraid we will have to cancel.

                                                                                Fractions in action!

We are proud to say we can describe a fraction using the words numerator and denominator, explain that a fraction is part of a whole, and describe where fractions are used (sharing a cookie or a pizza).

We are using comparison language in our writing about the characters from Tale of Despereaux - Miggery Sow is like Princess Pea ... and Princess Pea and Miggery Sow are different ...  We will carry this over into social studies when we compare and contrast living in India with living in Canada.

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Fractions

Fractions in grade three is about grasping the idea of parts and whole.  I want them to see the different sizes of parts and be able to identify how many parts it takes to equal a whole.  I want my little mathematicians to be able to describe where fractions are used (sharing a pizza, cooking in the kitchen) and compare fractions so they know if they want 1/4 of a cookie or 1/2.  We have just started to name fractions and match the picture to fraction.

We continue to practise being good readers - in social studies today we previewed the picture book, Same, Same But Different, and talked about the pictures on the front and back of the book, made a prediction based on the things we noticed in the picture and the title, asked some questions, and then listened to the story.  We then wrote about how close our predictions were to the actual story.  Tomorrow we will continue our work and make connections to the story - text to self, text to text, and text to world.

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Kamp Kiwanis

 The grade three students have the opportunity to attend the outdoor program at Kamp Kiwanis on Wednesday, June 15.  This is a great opportunity for us to go and play in the forest and apply our new science knowledge to solve problems while playing games.  Kamp Kiwanis is located at the round-a-bout on Highway 22 and Highway 8.  We will spend all day outside with the counsellors.  We will also be needing volunteers for the day - if you have a current police clearance and would like to spend the day in nature this trip is for you!!  Please send me an email if you can help out!

We had our first dance session this morning - ask your little dancer how they liked the activity!

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Classroom Photos

 

Our Balancing Animal Structures

Math in action this morning

Fact vs. Opinion

 Balancing Animal Structures are due at school tomorrow - please also ensure your little scientist has their paper work with them and the writing portions completed.  everyone will have the opportunity to share their project.

How can I tell the difference between a fact and an opinion was the question asked today.  Using a stuffed mouse we created facts and opinions together that related to it.  We then sorted sentences about fact and mice.  

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Work on your Balancing Animal Project

 

Growing Smiles Spring Fundraiser

It's Spring! That time of year again where everything is new and beautiful and growing! Beddington Heights Elementary is happy to be Fundraising with Growing Smiles once again we will be selling beautiful hanging baskets, along with many varieties of potted plants. Our Campaign is starting Friday April 29th - Friday May 13th. Orders will arrive Thursday May 26th at Beddington Heights School  Pick up time to be determined closer to delivery date. Please click the link below and place your order. Feel free to share with your family and friends! Please place child's name, teacher's name (if you know it) and grade on order form to assist with sorting. You can make payments via credit cards or e-transfer to beddingtonpca.ca  Password :plants If you have any questions about the fundraiser, please send us an email at beddingtonpca@gmail.com https://beddingtonheightsschool.growingsmilesfundraising.com/home   [beddingtonheightsschool.growingsmilesfundraising.com/home]

Nanabush and the Bridge

We have been learning about strong, stable and sturdy structures in science.  Today we read the story, Nanabush and the Bridge, and engineers were challenged to make a bridge for Nanabush and his fish out of paper to symbolize the birch bark from the story.  The bridge had to hold the weight of Nanabush and his fish.  

We had to use what we already knew about structures to solve this problem.

Balancing Animal Project due Tuesday, May 3

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Balancing Animal Science Project - Tuesday, May 3

 In a backpack near you is the science project - Balancing Animal Science Project.  This is the reason you have been saving recyclables for the past several weeks.  Today we began designing our structure in the project booklet.  The challenge is to build something that is strong and stable.  Students will also need to reflect on the process of their design.  Structures need to be at school Tuesday, May 3 along with their completed booklets.

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Earth Day

 

After reading Hello, Earth by Joyce Sidman we were inspired to write our own poem to the Earth on this, Earth Day.  We wrote our own version of Hello Earth as a group.  Some of us then went on to write our own Earth Day poems during Freedom Friday.  

Ask your Little Learner about perimeter.  We were introduced to perimeter in math today and everyone was very busy practising with their ruler.

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Poetry Month

 April is poetry month and we have been reading and writing various poems.  We worked with a teacher in Kelowna last week via video link who helped us to write a poem with repetition.  It is our goal to have those poems done and published next week.

We have been taking groups of objects and dividing them into 2, 5 and 10 - determining if they are equal groups or if there is left overs.  We have linked division with multiplication and are working on the fact families.  

This morning we tested the strength of marshmellows, popcorn and playdough as fasteners.  Ask your little learner about their hypothesis and their results.

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Blurting Out

The enthusiasm to share our thinking has become a problem because it's easier to shout out than put up our hands.  We have to deal with this to allow everyone the opportunity to share their thinking.  We started off this morning with the story, "Interrupting Chicken."  to help those little learners who don't realize that there is a problem.  After the story we talked about the problem and everyone wrote on their sticky note why it is a problem to be blurting out all the time.  You will notice students have written, it's rude, I can't concentrate, I can't hear what anyone is saying etc.  After we read through all the sticky notes we had a sharing circle in which everyone offered an idea about how to help the situation.  Every child contributed to the conversation.  After listening to each other with our hearts wide open we took a sticky note to write down the best ways to help out.  Ideas range from be more thoughtful, self control, think of others to remove that person from the discussion.  Hopefully this will help everyone to remember how to contribute their ideas appropriately.

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Pysanky Eggs

 In our class discussion today we talked about the rise of little toys appearing in the classroom.  Things that create a great distraction, can easily disappear and cause arguments.  Just a reminder that it is school policy that toys remain at home - including stuffies, pop its, dolls etc.  Thank you for your help keeping things at home.

After reading Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco we created our own eggs painted in the Ukrainian style.  We created a design and then used watercolour paint and salt.  The salt was added while the paper was still wet and it should have pushed the pigment of the paint away and left a lighter spot.  It would appear we did not use enough salt, not the right salt or not enough water as our effect was not as dramatic as I would have liked but we are still pretty happy with our pysanky egg.

Little engineers were reminded again today to be collecting boxes, toilet rolls, yogurt containers for science next week.

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The Doorbell Rang

 The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins is our mentor text in math this week.  Through the story we encounter division.  The story starts with 2 children ready to share 12 cookies when additional friends and family begin to arrive to share the cookies.  Little mathematicians are retelling the story using pictures, numbers and words and generating a different ending to the story when grandma arrives with more cookies.  I am looking for little learners who understand the concept of sharing and can explain what each number represents in their story.

Bill Nye helped us to create a DID YOU KNOW about structures.  In the video we found out some great new information such as buildings and bridges are built to sway about 1 metre in high winds!  Ask your little learner what they thought was most amazing!

We should be ready to start building with all those recyclables you have been saving the week of April 18- toilet paper rolls, shoe boxes, cracker boxes. etc. will be needed.  The more the merrier.

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Artist in residence

 

Artist in Residence this week at Beddington Heights.  This afternoon we each painted a portion of a mural that will hang at the school.  

Art work

 

Our Georgia O'Keeffe inspired flowers for the family of Mrs. Paolini

SNOTS

 To make our thinking while reading visible (because Mrs. Anderson can't crawl inside our heads to see what we are thinking) we are making small notes on the side (SNOTS) with our green pens.  Children are highlighting words they don't know, putting question marks where they have a question, using the infinity symbol when making a connection and an exclamation mark where there is a WOW moment.  Today we were reading about the life cycle of a mouse.  We made SNOTS on the sides and discussed with a partner what we were thinking.  The main character in our novel study is a mouse and so now we know that the things the little mouse is doing is defiantly not mouse-like.

So far in our novel study we have made predictions, asked questions and collected important information about the main character.  We found out today that the main character who is a mouse, can read!  How exciting to be able to read all the books they have in a castle!  As we go along in our novel study we will be incorporating some science research as well as discussing the elements of good story.

Little engineers were asked today to start collecting recyclables at home for a building project.  Things like toilet paper rolls, boxes, will be useful when it comes time for us to build.  Thanks for your help.

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Predictions/Hypothesis/Estimates

 Welcome back to school!  We had an excellent first day back!

We are trying to answer the question, "Do all beams support the same mass?"  We began testing an accordion beam, rectangular beam and a box girder in science today to determine which will be best to build with.  We designed a fair test, created a hypothesis and are working with a partner.

Using pictures, numbers and words we are identifying and describing the increasing pattern from the story, "Mrs. McTats and Her Household of Cats" in math. We can also estimate how many more cats may join Mrs. McTat in her house. The ability to write about our thinking in math is a very important skill.

Readers were shown 5 very different pictures in language arts today and asked to use their knowledge of story, the items and make a prediction about what our next book will be about.  Good readers can make predictions.

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Structures

 "Look At That Building" is a great picture book for the vocabulary of structures.  After reading the story we responded with: One thing I knew...  This was new to me...  I'm still wondering... and What I saw...

We organized the story, Princess Hyacinth the Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated into a quick summary of somebody, wanted, but, so, then.  This helps me to see the children who clearly understand the story.

Tomorrow is Jump Rope For Heart Event Day - thank you to all the families who have been collecting for the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

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Capture the Array

Capture the Array was the game of the day today.  After playing with a partner I had students complete a quick little 'check-in' with how they were feeling about multiplication.  It looks like we are all pretty clear🌞 especially using an array and skip counting.  There was a few 🌧 surrounding vocabulary such as factors/multiples/product.  

Our work with Princess Hyacinth continued today as we talked about the problem and solution in her story.  Readers were drawing a picture and labelling it with their understanding of her situation. 

Jump Rope For Heart is up and running - we were practising skipping today in phys. ed!

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Jump Rope For Heart

 We have kicked off our Jump Rope for Heart campaign at school.  If you are interested in supporting the Heart and Stroke Foundation go to, www.jumpropeforheart.ca to register and begin fundraising!

Our mentor text this week is, Princess Hyacinth the Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated by Florence Parry Heide.  We are comparing the story to classic fairy tales looking for elements of magic, royalty, talking animals, things that come in 3's and 7's etc.  We have also discussed the characters, problem and solution.  Princess Hyacinth has a very unique problem.  Ask your little learner.

The multiples of 2 were our focus in math today.  We looked at a multiplication chart and found all the factors and the products and then drew ourselves some arrays.  We will continue with this work tomorrow 

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Truth

 We started math this morning with the word equal.  We determined that equal is having the exact same.  We then made equal groups using 12 blocks.  We put the blocks into groups of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  We drew the blocks and wrote the multiplication sentence.  We found out that 12 can not always be put into equal groups.  Students then had the choice of what number they wanted to work with - 18, 20, 24, 36.

We started the science unit of Testing Materials and Design and today we completed our first experiment - will a square shape support more mass than an arch shape?  We conducted a fair test and recorded our observations.  We are becoming great scientists!

Truth - the 5th pillar of the month at Beddington Heights based on the Seven Sacred Teachings.  We looked at the word for things we new for sure (number of vowels, root word, suffix ending) brainstormed connections we have to the word (my brother took the last cookie from the cookie jar and then said I took it) and what we think the word means (not lying).  Then we watched a quick video on the Seven Teachings and our thinking was transformed so now we know that Truth is living with wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty and humility.

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Gee's Bend Quilt

 After reading the story, Belle, The Last Mule at Gee's Bend by Calvin Ramsey we got our creative juices flowing and started a classroom quilt.  During the Civil Rights Movement the people of Gee Bend made quilts by taking apart clothes and then using the entire piece of fabric to make something new.  The people of the area made quilts.  Our quilt is made from four colours, with all rectangles and students were challenged to use ALL the paper they were given just like the people of Gee Bend.  Once we have all our pieces put together I will post a picture for you.

Parent/Student/Teacher interview schedule is open for you to book Thursday, March 10 and Friday, March 11.  Looking forward to seeing you!

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Fair Test

 We began working with the poem, Kindness by Haley O'Conner this week - we read it for rhyme, rhythm and repetition, connections and visual images.  We discussed the meaning of the poem and the feelings it gave us and we talked about our favorite parts.  Today we looked at the suffix endings (group of letters at the end of a word that make a new word) of the words in the poem.  We found ness, ly, s and ed.  This was our first look at suffix endings and we have much more to come!

Ask your little learner about the pencil they received yesterday during our first fair test in science!!  We came to the understanding that for a test to be fair the scientist must always control all the factors of the test by keeping everything the same.  (We all had a different pencil of some sort)

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Present

 We worked with the word present today.  We counted vowels, consonants and syllables.  We found little words in the big word and we talked about what the word means - connections we have to the word and the picture the word puts in our heads.  Responses were as you would expect - gift, surprise, birthday, Christmas, wrapping paper, bow and card.  Then we looked at the story, "What Does It Mean to Be Present?" by Rana DiOriu and found out that present also means being in the moment, listening carefully when someone else is speaking, doing one thing at a time, being grateful etc.  Our work will continue this week with the single word as we work towards being present!

In math we continue to make equal groups with an equal number of things in each group to begin writing multiplication sentences.

We wrapped up our 'brain dump' of all the things we know about sound and hearing.  We had a sharing time and a writing time.

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Ukraine

 Ukraine is part of the grade 3 social studies curriculum.  We have become aware of the location of the country, talked about how the people meet their basic needs and things that people need for a good quality of life.  Today we discussed Russia's invasion of the country.  Our conversation was focused on how other countries are helping out by sending money, reinforcement and no longer buying their products such as oil and gas.  We will be keeping an eye on the situation as current events are also part of our curriculum.  When the children ask questions I try to keep the answer simple and straight to the point - reassuring them that they themselves are safe.

Mart - the joyful mixture of art and math!  We started Array City today in mart.  It is a project of a city scape full of multiplication arrays.  We were busy with measuring, cutting and creating.

Congratulations to our February Pillars of Care winners:  Sophia, Ayla, Sarah, Ryleigh and Lilly.  

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Tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day

 Wear your pink shirt tomorrow and stand up against bullying - 

Today we read, Amanda Beans Amazing Dream by Cindy Neushwander to further our understanding of multiplication.  The book provides us with multiple representations of multiplication equations and various ways to solves multiplication problems.  We found arrays in window panes (three panes across and six panes down), in the bakery (five doughnuts across and 3 doughnuts down) and even in the way the trees were planted in the park.  We will continue to read and write about arrays from the book all week long.

We put the poem Things by Eloise Greenfield into our poetry duotangs today and wrote a response to her writing.  It's a catchy little poem about the things in life that we get and no longer have but a written poem is forever.  

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Happy Valentine's Day

💜💙💚💛

 Our mentor text this week is, "Love Twelve Miles Long" written by Glenda Armand to help us understand that there are different kinds of love.  It is a true story of a slave woman who walks twelve miles every night to tuck her son in bed.  Then she walks another twelve miles back to her plantation.  While they are together the mother tells him the same bedtime story over and over.  A true testament to a mothers love knowing no distance.

Our art project today involved creating a repeating pattern with 6 different colours of our own choosing and filling in all the white spaces.  Artists reflected on their own work telling me how their details enhanced their composition and what they would do differently next time.  

Just a reminder that Thursday and Friday are Teachers Convention followed by Family Day Monday Feb. 21.

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Circles and Stars

Have a look at the musical instruments we made to celebrate our sound and hearing unit. Now, for a quieter activity we are learning some American Sign Language.  We started with a few quick words such as I love you, happy birthday, beautiful and our names.  Ask your little learner how they sign their name!

We started playing Circles and Stars - a visual representation of multiplication as it is related to addition.  To play, children roll a die to find out how many circles to draw and then roll the die again to find out how many stars to draw in each circle.  After drawing they write the addition sentence that describes each picture and then the related multiplication sentence.  Ask your little learner to teach someone at home how to play Circles and Stars.

We will not be sharing Valentine Day cards with our friends and classmates.  Once again, Covid keeps us from celebrating as we have in the past.  Assure your little learner that we will make something here at school on Monday.
 

In a backpack near you you will find your second box of Rapid Test Devices.

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What do you know about multiplication?

This week we are looking for the key events in non-fiction texts.  We will be paying close attention to the words in bold letters and the sub headings.  Our mentor texts will surround Black History month as we look at people such as Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King.

Multiplication.  The most anticipated grade 3 topic was started today.  I started today with the question, "What do you know about multiplication?"  Responses were varied from nothing all the way to making groups.  This gives me information about the range of experience in the classroom.  We started with the basics and brainstormed together all the things that come in groups of two - eyes, ears, hands, bikes, chopsticks and went from there.  Students worked together to brainstorm things that come in groups of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

 Musical instruments are due at school tomorrow.  Your little learner should be able to tell us that a high pitch sound has a high frequency with more vibrations than a low pitched sound.  It would be super helpful if the instruction sheet that arrived at home came back to school so that I may use the rubric on the back side.

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Tuesday, February 8

 Musical instruments are due on Tues. Feb 8.  Your little learner should be able to tell us how the instrument makes sound and how the volume is controlled.  We looked at how sound is measured today and how to protect our ears against that sound.

We are using the strategy of subtracting on a number line.  Taking jumps of ten and skips of one.  It is a useful strategy for young mathematicians.  We also looked into the quadrilateral family today.  We noticed they all have 4 sides, are closed shapes and could be called polygons!

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Floorcurl

Floorcurl is the new game in town!  Ask your little curler how we got started today with the rocks, house and hack!

Our poetry experiences continue as we are building a poetry quilt.  We are reading poetry books and choosing the poems that speak to us - the ones that have rhythm or rhyme or repeating words and copying them onto a quilt square.  Students need to be able to tell me what they notice about the poem, wonder, visualize, or feel.  What ever expresses their ideas or thoughts.  Once we are done I will post a picture of our poetry quilt.

Report cards are now available online - use your myCBE account to access it until Friday, Feb.4

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Musical Instrument due Feb. 8

 In a backpack near you there is a little homework project for science.  Little learners are to build a musical instrument that demonstrates a variety of pitches and has a loudness control.  Feel free to look on the internet with your learner to source ideas.  Please use materials you already have at home - this is not intended to be a shopping project.  Instruments are due at school Feb 8, 2022.

We have been brainstorming ways to tell someone new to the Great White North about snow.  We thought about all the different ways to finish the sentence, snow is...  We came up with snow is sparkly, snow is fluffy, snow is fun, snow is deep.  Then we read, A Thing Called Snow!  It changed how we described snow because we learned about similes.  Snow is sparkly like your eyes.  Snow is fluffy like your tail.  So now that we all know about similes we went back to the last story we were working on and dropped in a simile to make our story interesting for our reader.

Congratulations to our January pillars of care winners who were voted in by their peers:

Learning - Numan

Place - Sarah

Others - Yusef

Self - Mateo 

Wisdom - Karim

No school Monday

Decomposing Tens

 We have been working with the sentence, "There (are/aren't) enough ones to subtract ____ ones.  You (don't have to/have to) decompose a ten." to determine if students are understanding the concept of borrowing.  We are working with base ten blocks to physically manipulate numbers and take them apart if necessary.  Students must be able to share their thinking and describe what they are doing with numbers and this sentence will be beneficial.

Discussion this afternoon was around jobs that the mama and the papa do while we are at school.  This led us into goods and services.  We have determined that a good is something that we can see and feel and a service is something done by someone else.  Now that we have determined what the words mean we will look at goods and services in Tunisia, Ukraine, Peru and India.

Our mentor text this week is, "Henry's Freedom Box" by Ellen Levine.  We have used the story to ask questions before during and after reading, next we will use it for character traits.  It is the true story of Henry Brown who mails himself to Philadelphia and freedom from slavery.  Our discussion of slavery and the treatment of other people will carry on as we move into Black History Month.

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Goggle Classroom

In the fall I sent home a set of passwords etc. to access our Goggle classroom, Mathletics and Raz-kids.  Please practise each one of those sites to ensure you can access them in case we need to go online with no notice.  Drop me an email if you need help.

We've been reading poetry on Wednesdays - talking about how it looks, how it sounds, how it makes us feel etc.  Children have been reading poetry with a partner and trying out some different styles and different authors.  Ask your little learner if they have a favorite.

We are using words we know - all, tell, pill, roll, pull to decode and spell new words and asking ourselves, does that look right?  Not only are we using all the vowels but also the double l ending.  We are looking at the words and also listening to new words in this activity.

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Antigen tests

 In a backpack near you is a box of COVID-19 Antigen tests with instructions.  Masks will be coming in another delivery.

Rounding to the nearest 10 was our objective in math today.  We looked at a number line from 1 - 100 that was coloured just for rounding purposes.  We looked at how many jumps was between numbers so we could decide if a number would round up or round down to the nearest 10.  We built a number line from red cups that were labelled from 10 - 100 and played Pick-A-Stick - everyone had craft sticks with numbers on them to place in a cup.  Then we followed clues in the classroom to round numbers.  We should all be rounding to 10 experts at this point!

We are still working on our walking stories about our favorite toy.  Some great beginnings have been practised and we discussed the difference between an anchor line and robot writing.  Authors were super busy today.

Vibrations create sound.  Vibrations travel on molecules in the air.  When the molecules reach our ear the eardrum begins to vibrate.  Our science discoveries today.  Sound maps were created simply by making a map of where the sounds were coming from in our classroom.  We noticed that a lot of sound comes in our doorway and from the furnace!

We were so busy for a Monday!

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Sound and Hearing

 We conducted our first science experiment of our new unit, Sound and Hearing today.  We found out that sound is caused by vibrations.  Vibrations move through the air as waves.  We also found out that as people get older they lose the ability to hear high frequency sounds.  Ask your little learner about the experiment we did and all the sounds Mrs. Anderson could not hear that they could!

After listening to a couple poems we compared poetry to story - we focused today on what a poem looks like and started an anchor chart all about what we are discovering about poetry.  We also had time for everyone to dig into a poetry book and do some independent reading.

We noticed today that the houses in Tunisia all had flat roofs - we then wondered why the houses in Calgary all have a pitched roof and what that says about the way homes are designed in different countries.

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Bear is a Bear

 Welcome back to school!  We were all so excited to be back together again.  

Our mentor text this week for writing is 'Bear is a Bear', the simple story of a favourite toy and the girl who grows up loving him.  We talked about our favourite toys and the anchor line that appears over and over in the story, "Bear is a bear full of love."  Writers will plan their own story about a favourite toy and write this week using an anchor line.  Anchor lines help make the story interesting for our readers.

In math we were drawing and writing about 3-D objects in our math journals so we have the information we need to do some comparing.

Our work around questioning continues - today we were asking questions about the story, "The Wednesday Surprise."  Good readers ask questions before, during and after reading.  Good questions help us to think beyond the story and are not necessarily answered in the book.  We found out that most of our questions were pretty quick, and right there in the story.  We will aim tomorrow for questions that are deeper and thicker and not answered right there on the page.

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