News for February 1

News for February 1

This week the students finished their letters to Proctor and Gamble containing the results of our research. Hopefully they will write us back!

In math, the students learned how to read and represent analog and digital time to the 5 minute mark. They also learned about how to calculate elapsed time (the time difference between two different events). The class also talked about temperature, thermometers, benchmark temperatures and the history of degrees Celsius. (Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer who lived from 1701-1744.)

In science, the children build a "balancing acrobat" toy by reading and following written instructions. Then they wrote about the different forces working together to balance the toy.

In guided reading the class read about landslides and sand dunes and how friction and gravity act to make these happen.

After a lot of hard work, the students finished presenting the results of their research about different countries around the world. They used a success criteria checklist to make sure each poster was complete. These posters are now on display in the stairwell by our classroom. The students each connected their posters to the country's place on a map of the world.

The students learned about Chinese New Year and created holiday lanterns for decoration. Using lai see or lucky red envelopes they folded and stapled the envelopes together. The lanterns are now hanging from the ceiling outside of our classroom. (This activity was also a great review of geometry concepts!)

The students had a great opportunity to see two performers, Q Mack and J Box, talk about bullying and keeping peace. Through basketball moves, magic tricks and beat-boxing, the students learned how to deal with bullying.

The class was asked by Susan Bakshi and Tanya Murdock of our parent council to create an art appeal for money to create an outdoor classroom at our school. The students created an amazing garland of art and words giving reasons we should have an outdoor learning centre at our school.The garland is now on display in the office. A video of the children reading their work can be found at the end of this posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
I Want My Dad Back by Robert Munsch
Ask Albert Einstein by Lynn Barasch
Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy
Stone Fox (chapter book) by John Reynolds Gardiner

Teamwork! A great example of how the students of Room 5 work together.



Room 5 helps the Parent Council's bid for arts funding. Room 5's reasons for an outdoor classroom....



The Room 5 Interview Show! This week Etienne and Hanandi interviewed our gym teacher, Francesca.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story, in the homework writing journal, beginning with the sentence starter, "If I lived in a world without gravity, then..."  There is also a math worksheet focusing on reading and interpreting calendars. This is part of our new math unit on measurement. This homework is due on Friday, February 1st.

News for January 24

News for January 24

We began the week discussing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After reading Dr. King's biography, the students watched a clip of his famous "I have a dream" speech. 

We also learned about the life of the musician, Stevie Wonder, who wrote a song about Dr. King and campaigned for the recognition of his work for equality and peace by creating a holiday in his name. 

In math, the students did a class survey to determine which Pringle potato chip was the class' favourite. After writing down what each chip looked like, smelled like, felt like and tasted like, they voted and decided that they like the sour cream and onion flavour the best. Each student graphed the information and we talked about the results. Then the children discussed how we could use this information. Next the students wrote letters to the Proctor and Gamble company, the maker of Pringles chips. In the letters the children described the results of our survey and then wrote their ideas for new flavours and packaging for Pringles chips.

Later in the week, the students wrote the unit test for Data Management and Graphing. The class began the unit on measurement by reviewing the measurement of time through calendars, as well as, analog and digital clocks.

The students continued their social studies projects researching different countries. They learned about the meanings of words like population, currency and Internet country code. They also learned another method for creating chunky letters for putting titles on their posters.

In science, the students did group activities for hands-on learning about forces. Through experimenting with marble games, magnets and dominos, the children learned more about friction, gravity, magnetic and mechanical forces.

The class also had an opportunity this week to watch a play in the gym based on the story, The Shoemaker and the Elves.

In the computer lab this week the children had a chance to visit the Pringles chips site and other sites with kid-friendly activities:

www.pringles.ca

www.facthound.com

www.capstonekids.com

Books read aloud this week:

Martin Luther King Jr. by Garnet Jackson

Little Stevie Wonder by Quincy Troupe

Gravity All Around by David Conrad

Thing Thing by Carey Fagan

The Room 5 Interview Show! This week, Amy and Lemaan interviewed Ms. Laura.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the EQAO practice questions for math and reading. This homework is due on Thursday, January 24 (Friday is a P.A. Day).

Note to parents:

This week we began to talk about the EQAO test that is written by all grade 3 students in Ontario at the end of the school year. There will be a parent information night about this in the spring. If you are interested in learning more, please visit the EQAO website at www.eqao.com . Please know that by the end of the school year the students will have covered the grade 3 curriculum. The most difficult part of this process is to teach 8 and 9 year old children to write a standardized test! We will be learning test taking strategies, doing practice tests and reviewing curriculum materials in class.

News for January 18

Look at our amaryllis now!

News for January 18

The big news this week is the launch of our new weekly internet show...The Room 5 Interview Show. Every week, two students will interview a school staff member. This week the guest was our school's principal, Mrs. Farrelly. The video of this interview can be found at the end of this posting.

The children finished their books about collage this week. After writing paragraphs on the history of collage and reflecting on the art process, each student created a book containing the writing and the collages they made. These are now on display on the bulletin board in the hall outside our classroom.

In science, the students learned about the different kinds of forces in the world and if the force is a "push" or a "pull" (for example, the force of gravity is a "pull"). We also talked about how forces can cause movement, change speed and/or direction of the movement or change the shape of shape of an object. In our computer time the students visited a site to help reinforce concepts of forces and motion. Here is the link:
http://www.gamequarium.com/forcesandmotion.html .

The students learned the history of  the Canadian flag. Did you know that our country is 146 years old and our flag is only 48 years old? We are learning about Canada and its flag as a class. As part of the research on different countries that the students are doing, they examined the flag designs of their chosen countries and began to plan and paint flags for their projects.

The children created colour wheel using playdough. They reviewed the concepts of the three primary colours, created the three secondary colours by mixing the appropriate colours of playdough and learned about the concept of complementary colours. These are now on display in our classroom.

The children visited their reading buddies in Room 101 this week and taught them how to make the paper elephant model they learned how to create last week. After the pairs of students read books together.

In math, the students continued the unit on Data Management. This week the class learned about circle graphs (also known as a pie graph). They also practiced drawing and labeling pictographs and bar graphs. Each child created his/her own survey this week. They each set up a survey question, a cup labeled "yes" and a cup labeled "no" on their desks. The students went around and answered everybody's survey question. The children then tallied the results, created a bar graph of the information and wrote about what the survey and graph tells about our class. Did you know that if we were to pick a game to play, that dodgeball would be an excellent choice? That's because all the students in our class said they liked to play dodgeball in a survey.

After reading the book, One Grain of Rice, the children made a connection to our calendar pattern, where the numbers are doubling every day. The book illustrates the power of doubling over a short period of time. The class also viewed a video of a similar story. Here is the video:




Books read aloud this week:

Follow That Map! A book about mapping skills by Scot Ritchie
One Grain of Rice by Demi
The Bookshop Dog by Cynthia Rylant
Canada's Maple Leaf - The story of our flag by Ann-Maureen Owens

The Room 5 Interview Show - The guest this week was our school's principal, Mrs. Farrelly. The interviewers were Katherine and Nandana.

Update from Ms. R

Happy new year to all the families of Room 5 and all the best in 2013!

The homework for this week is to complete the math worksheet on graphing and data management and to write a story (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal about the elastic each student was given. This homework is due on Friday, January 18.

Important Dates:

January 25 - P. A. Day - no classes on this day
February 11 - Term 1 Report Cards go home
February 14 (evening) and February 15 (am) - Interviews for selected families - no classes on this day
February 18 - Family Day - no classes on this day
March 11 to 15 - March Break holiday
March 31 - Good Friday
April 1 - Easter Monday

News for January 11

Look at our amaryllis plant!

News for January 11

This first week back saw the children doing a wide variety of activities...

In math, the students reviewed multiplication and subtraction and wrote the unit test on Wednesday. The class started the unit on Data Management and graphing. The students learned about bar graphs and pictographs, both the parts of a graph and how to "read" a graph.

The children created "personal dictionary" books and wrote the current 94 word wall words in it. Now the class word wall is empty and ready to get the next wave of word wall words. As well, the students learned how to properly use a dictionary by learning how to use the features of a dictionary page. Also students were reminded that they are to use dictionaries only during the editing and revising part of the writing process.

The class began to learn about flags and all the different countries of the world. After reading the story behind the song Wavin' Flag by K'naan, the students looked at globes and maps to help them each chose a country to research. The video of Wavin' Flag can be found here:

http://vimeo.com/10085362

The class was inspired by the book "The Perfect Machine" and the collage illustrations to create their own collages, which are now part of a book. They also learned the history behind this art technique and wrote a non-fiction paragraph to include in their collage books.

The students also made "get well cards" for Ms. Mantello, who had a successful operation on Monday this week. I mailed the cards to Ms. Mantello and she should get them by Friday.

In computers, the students visited a "guess the flag" site at:
http://www.guesstheflag.com/

We had an unexpected day on Friday, but we made silly putty, movable paper elephant sculptures, geometric colouring patterns and a field trip to the fruit market and hot chocolate from Starbucks!

Books read aloud this week:

Wavin' Flag by K'naan
Monkey World (poems) by Matthew Porter
Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak
The Perfect Machine by Lance Letscher
What Pete Ate from A-Z by Maira Kalman
Raj the Bookstore Tiger by Kathleen Pelley

Favourite videos

Frosty the Snowman


Dewey Readmore Books
Magic Crystals

Cookie Monster - So Share It Maybe