News for October 30

News for October 30

This week the students focused on non-fiction procedural writing. They learned how to use the key words first, next, then and finally to help them write instructions on how to make a pillow. To help them break it down into steps, they first drew four pictures to illustrate how to make a pillow and then used their words to write about their "comic". These comics are now on display in our classroom.

In math the children finished the unit on perimeter and started to learn how to measure "area" or the amount of surface that a figure covers, using blocks and graph (squared) paper. On Halloween, the children each estimated the number of rocket candy packages in a 500 g container, and they were pretty close. The range of estimates was 27 to 100 with the actual amount being 65 packages. As a class we then figured out the quickest way to count all the packages (use the 10 strategy). We also calculated that there were enough for each student to get 3 packages. We even figured out the number of actual candies...975 candies!

The students all finished their pillows by stuffing them and hand sewing the opening closed.

We talked about the holiday of Halloween. The class listened to several books read aloud, both fiction and non-fiction. They practised their oral storytelling skills by retelling a simple story about a witch, a cat and a ghost by cutting parts out of a piece of paper that, at the end, revealed a holiday surprise.

On Friday, the children learned how to make caramel apples. This year we even dipped the caramel apples in chocolate chips! The students also made a holiday lantern complete with a light inside. We all lit our lanterns when we had our Halloween celebration.

The children also wrote a "scary" story this week. They then practised reading their stories aloud to a partner and talked about what they like about their partners stories. Some children chose to read their stories aloud to the class.

During computers, we watched a funny video where animals appeared as if they were talking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hwLbhpatJo