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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