Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the grade appropriate math worksheet. Grade 2's have a time/money review sheet and grade 3's have an EQAO math practice sheet.

Important Dates:

March 1 - Report cards go home today.
March 4 (afternoon) - Local blues musician, Brian Blain, visits our classroom for the afternoon.
March 4 (evening) and March 5 (morning) - parent/teacher interviews
March 12 - 100 Books Party (morning) - Families are invited to attend!
March 13 - 21 - March Break

News for February 26

News for February 26


This week the big news was our school-wide celebration of the Quebec Carnival on Thursday. The students went to an assembly, made masks, ate pancakes, played BINGO, went to the tatoos and face painting station, played floor hockey, played computer games, made plasticine sculptures and saw our own version of "Bonhomme Carnivale".

We spent the week sharing the book "Mary of Mile 18" during our read aloud time. Pairs of students read together this charming story of love and friendship in a family choosing to live as the pioneers did hundreds of years ago.

The students read a poem about pioneer toys and how they were made from everyday and/or discarded items. We then discussed about how that is different from today's toys. The children then created their own toy puppets using socks, yarn, buttons and fabric.

The students practised writing in the first person style (for example, "I am a pencil and I don't like being sharpened because I get shorter"). They then learned about paragraph writing and planned a paragraph to write about their sock puppets in the first person writing style.

In math, the grade three students continued to work on multiplication and division. The grade two's reviewed money concepts and began a unit on telling time.

Our new student teacher, Ms. Rodrigues, started this week. She is studying at The Institute of Child Study/University of Toronto - OISE. The children interviewed her and found out she has two big tanks of tropical fish at her home!

The students finished their fairy tale story boxes. Each box has a circular book and character figures inside the decorated box.

The class learned the traditional song, "I Bought Me A Cat" as part of our pioneer unit.
In computers the children visited some math skills sites:

http://www.multiplication.com/
http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/games

and played games with the 2010 Olympic mascots:

http://www.vancouver2010.com/mascot/en/games.php

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is for students to write a story of his/her choice (fiction or non-fiction). Please remember to follow the rules for writing on the cover of the homework writing journal.

News for February 19

News for February 19

We did a variety of things this (short) week. First were our daily discussions of the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver, British Columbia. We are keeping track of the medals and photos of athletes on the wall outside of our classroom.

In writing, the students have been working hard on their retelling of the fairy tale, "The Little Red Hen". They learned how to use quotation marks to show the words that a character is saying. After editing their work, they used circle shaped paper to write their good copies. The students are working on creating a "storybox" by painting cylinder shaped boxes and creating small cardboard characters to include inside the box.

In math, the grade 3 students began the unit on multiplication by understanding how simple multiplication is just a faster way to add groups of the same number (as in 3X2 means "three groups of 2"). The grade 2 students reviewed addition of two-digit numbers with and without regrouping. They also practised solving word problems.

In social studies, we began the unit on pioneers by doing a "thought experiment" to imagine what life was like two hundred years ago.

We celebrated two holidays this week: Pancake Tuesday and Chinese New Year. The students learned that Pancake Tuesday historically is a Christian celebration (Shrove Tuesday) when people would feast on foods made with butter, sugar and eggs before Lent. So the class made and enjoyed pancakes with real maple syrup. Chinese New Year is based on a different calendar and the children figured out that they were born in the year of the snake (most grade 3's) or horse (most grade 2's). If a birthday is before mid-February, the animal is from the previous year. Red is a lucky colour in the Chinese tradition and we used lucky "lai see" red envelopes to create paper lanterns. This activity offered a great review of 2D and 3D geometry as the students folded the envelopes from a rectangle to a pentagon to a hexagon and then stapled them together in the figure of an octohedron (on the inside).

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the grade appropriate math worksheet on money. You can help your child improve his/her understanding by selecting random groups of coins and have your child add up the value of the coins.

News for February 12

News for February 12

This was a very busy week in Room 5!

Thursday was the 100th day of school. Our class celebrated by doing many activities based on the number 100. The students played with collections of 100 objects (for example, pennies and straws), filled a 100 chart style grid with stamps and drawings, counted out 100 fruity cereal loops on red licorice and exercising for 100 seconds and doing physical activities (for example, 100 jumping jacks). A video of our morning is at the end of this posting.

Our dance unit continued with the children listening to the rhythm of different kinds of music and showing the beat by moving their bodies in different ways. They used balls and fabric to help them express their reactions to the music.

We received a thank you letter back from the Quaker company (actually Pepsi, because Pepsi owns the Quaker company). They thanked us for sending them the results of our rice cake survey. They also included $16 worth of coupons for us to use to buy Quaker products for our class.

In math we continued the math unit exploring money. The students practised money counting strategies. The children learned how to sort the coins and then, starting with the largest value of coin, to use skip counting to add up the value of the coins.

We began our unit on fairy tales by listing all the fairy tales that the students already know. The class referred to our "fairy tale checklist" to help decide if a story is a fairy tale or not (for example, animals act like people or groups of three). We read some different versions of these stories (for example, "The Emperor Penguin's New Clothes) and we went to the gym to see a new version of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" presented as a play.

The class learned more about Canada's Flag Day celebrated on February 15th. Did you know that the flag is 45 years old this year and it has a maple leaf with 11 points so you can still see it is a leaf when it flies in the wind? (Most real maple leaves have 23 points.) The children compared the holidays of Flag Day and Valentine's Day using a Venn diagram. Each student created his/her own Canadian Flag complete with a flagpole pulley system, so the flag can be raised. The flags went home on Friday to help families cheer on our Canadian athletes at the Olympic games.

The students created poems for Valentine's Day and made cards for their families. On Friday, the children made their own colourful paper mailboxes for our valentine card exchange. We also made healthy fruit smoothies to enjoy with some sweet treats at our party in the afternoon.

During our computer time this week we watched a dance video using treadmills! The students also practised money counting skills using a game. These can be found at these sites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaRfxjcpYvM

http://fen.com/studentactivities/Piggybank/piggybank.html

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a fairy tale (a "once upon a time" type of fiction story) in the homework writing journal. Homework is due Friday, February 12.

We will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Friday, February 12. Our class will be exchanging cards on this day. A list of the names of students will be sent home on Monday to help with creating cards.

Important Dates:

February 11 - The 100th Day of School! (Please contact Ms. R if you are available to volunteer in the morning to help with this celebration.)

February 15 - Family Day - There are no classes on this day.

February 25 - Winter Carnival - an all school, all day celebration

March 1 - Report cards go home today.

March 4 (evening) and March 5 (morning) - parent/teacher interviews

March 12 - 100 Books Party! - Families are invited to join us in the classroom in the morning.

March 13 - March 21 - MARCH BREAK

News for February 5

News for February 5

This week the students continued their investigations of the "Elements of Design" (colour, line, texture, space, form, shape). They finished their colour and line art and wrote a reflection on how they made the artwork as well as what the art reminds them of. They learned about primary, secondary and neutral colours and tried mixing paints to create new colours.

The students worked in pairs to find different colours in our classroom and created art "assemblages" of that colour on our carpet using the different objects that they found. The partners then made posters communicating information about their colour, illustrated by photographs. Finally they each cut out the paint colour patches that they mixed and painted and arranged them on a narrow piece of paper using "an artist's eye" to find the arrangement they liked best. All these projects are now on display in the stairwell by our classroom. A video showing the art can be found at the end of this posting.

In math, we reviewed our graphing unit and both grades wrote the unit test. At the end of the week, the class began the unit on money by reviewing the different Canadian coins.

In social studies, the students began discussing Flag Day (February 15) by talking about the Canadian flag. They children began to build miniature flagpole structures.

On Thursday, the students attended a Recognition Assembly in the gym. The junior grade students presented projects about how "Carnivale" is celebrated all over the world.

In computers this week, the students visited the site:

http://www.crayola.com/