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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