News for October 21
The big news this week is the arrival of our pet fish! We now have 4 fish in the fish tank. The orange sailfin molly is named Alpha. The black molly is called Beta. The silver molly is named Fibonacci (after the 12th century Italian mathematician) and George is the catfish algae eater.
In language, we reviewed the written words for the cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers and the homophones for one/won, to/too/two and for/four. In reading the students reviewed their CASI reading assessments with a view to how they can improve their written answers the next time the assessment test is given. After going through the stages of writing (planning, writing the rough draft, editing and writing the good copy), the students finally finished their rock stories. They put them in a small presentation box along with their rock. The children learned the cursive letters "e,l and f". The students also learned a new word game, Smart Mouth. Using one letter for the beginning of a word and one for the end of the word, each student writes down as many words as they can.
In math, we focused on 3 digit (grade 3) and four digit (grade 4) addition and subtracting, with and without regrouping. The students reviewed the actual process using place-value blocks and then moved to the traditional pencil and paper algorithm. The class also practiced "mental math" strategies by playing an oral game and writing answers on individual blackboards. For example, take the number of fish in our tank (4), double it (8), add 10 (18) and subtract 7 (11).
In science, the students learned about the 4 different layers of the earth. They learned how to make a diagram (a labelled informational drawing) to show the earth's crust, mantle, outer core and inner core. The children also learned about igneous rocks and created a mind map drawing to record the facts about igneous rocks ("born from fire" or rocks that are formed from cooled liquid rock). The class also watched a DVD about rocks and minerals. When we were in the computer lab, the students visited the rocks and minerals website at:
The class was invited to Ms. Brand-Jacobsen's classroom to watch a new video by Ryan Emond about Toronto. We had a wonderful discussion about what the video showed but we also talked about how the video was made and why the artist made this video.
The Toronto Tempo video we watched this week can be seen at:
Book read aloud this week:
Stone Fox (chapter book) - John Reynolds Gardiner
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