Sunday, November 27, 2011

Update from Ms. R

The children are very excited about our field trip to the ROM on November 30. However, I have no parent volunteers for the trip! Please if you are able to join us let me know as soon as possible. Thank you.

I apologize for the delay in posting the student movies. I'm having trouble with the movie maker program and I hope to have these posted soon.
Homework for this week is to write a story about the Lego sticker in the homework writing journal. This homework is due on Friday, December 2.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

News for November 25


News for November 25

This week the students were invited to an art show put on by the grade 7 and 8 students from Spectrum
Alternative School (now housed on the third floor of our school). The students spent almost an hour viewing the art, talking to the artists and writing down information on their clipboards. Next the students wrote letters to the students thanking them for inviting them to their show and writing about what they liked about the show. Then the grade 3's wrote a group letter to the students. Finally, the grade three's delivered the group letter and the individual letters to Spectrum, where they presented the letters to the students.
As part of our jellybean project, the class counted the number of jellybeans that our class used to make our jellybean art. Using empty egg cartons, they used what they know about "10" to help them count (that is 10 groups of 10 equal 100).
In math, the students finished up the measurement unit on time by looking at and calculating "elapsed time" (the time passing from one event to another event). The class reviewed temperature measurement in degrees Celsius, noting that at 100 degrees C (water boils), 20 degrees C (room temperature) and 0 degrees C (water freezes). They started the measurement unit on money by reviewing the properties of the six coins of Canadian currency, learning the history of Canadian currency and began reviewing the different ways to count money.
The students did a class study of the Robert Munsch book "I Want My Dad Back!". They reviewed text features, standard parts of a story and began to learn how to write a summary of the story in five sentences (as opposed to a more detailed story retell).
The class continued to listen to the book, The Iron Man, and practiced orally summarizing the events in each chapter.
In science, the children learned about salt and how salt is mined. We even have a Himalayan salt lamp in our class now! The class also read and took notes on articles about mining and fossils. Since metals (in ore) and fossils (in sedimentary rock) need to be separated from other rock in order to be useful, the students had a chance to see how difficult it would be by trying to separate chocolate chips from the rest of a baked cookie. They used knives, spoons and toothpicks to help them. It was a lot harder to do than you might think! The class also had a chance to view a DVD about the Arctic and Antarctica.
Books Read Aloud This Week
I Want My Dad Back by Robert Munsch
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes (chapters 3 and 4)
Currency by Barb McDermott and Gail McKeown
Metals by Andrew Langley

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Update from Ms. R

Thank you to all the parents who came by Room 5 to see and talk about the work your child is doing this year. As you saw, the students are all doing outstanding work!

The Homework for this week is to teach an adult about the class blog and then write a reflection on the experience (and post a comment if you wish). There is also a sheet of grade-appropriate questions based on our "time" math unit. This homework is due on Friday, November 25.

Important Dates:
November 21 - After school movie (a fundraiser by our parent council)
November 30 - Field trip to the Royal Ontario Museum (all day)
December 1 (evening) - Multicultural Night
December 9 - Federation Day - no classes on this day
December 20 (evening) - Winter Concert - Our class will be performing. Please note: Due to our school's increase in student population, this will be our ONLY school concert performance this year.
December 24 to January 8 - Winter Holidays

Friday, November 18, 2011

News for November 17





News for November 17

During this 4 day week, the children worked hard to complete their work to go on display for all the parents to see when visiting the class for parent/teacher interviews.
The students started out the week by viewing a music video by Kina Grannis that uses animated jellybeans. We also watched a video about how the video was made and the students were inspired to make some jellybean art. It was a lot harder than it looked in the video! The students worked in pairs to design and create an image out of jellybeans. They also figured out that the 288,00 jellybeans, if laid end-to-end, would measure 576,000 cm or 5,760 m or almost 6 km!

After all this thinking and learning the students decided to write letters to Kina (the singer songwriter) and Greg (the director) to tell them what they thought about the video and to ask them some questions. After reviewing how to write a standard letter, the students got to work and hopefully we will be able to send the letters, drawings and photos to them (in California!) next week.
In math, we started the unit on the measurement of time. We reviewed the concepts of days, weeks and years and talked about why we use these units of time (for example, one day = one revolution of the earth as it spins on its axis and one year = the time it takes for the earth to go once around the sun). We also started to talk about analog and digital clocks. Each student made an analog clock to use to help them with his/her understanding of these concepts.
The students finished their pillows this week by learning how to hand sew the opening of their pillows so the stuffing won't fall out.
The penguin stories were finally finished and put on display in our hallway.
The students worked hard on their first movie projects this week. The children worked in groups to create an original story and problem-solved how to tell the story visually. They also made beginning and ending credits and picked the music. After filming the movies, the class practiced how to give positive criticism and how to communicate what the groups could do next time to make their movies even better. The movies are posted on our sister blog at:
http://planet5movies.blogspot.com/
Books read aloud this week:
What?! Cried Granny by Kate Lum (Ms. R's favourite read aloud book ever!)
Iron Man by Ted Hughes (chapters 1 and 2)






Here is the video we watched on how they made the jellybean video:

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Update from Ms. R

The good news from Room 5 this week was our winning a "Golden Shoe" award! Every child (including myself) arrived at school by walking or using the subway. It was a great ABC (Anything But a Car) day!
I forgot to mention that our class now has a student teacher for the next few weeks. Nikki Fletcher is a student at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study at OISE/University of Toronto. This is a special honour for me as I received my Master's degree from this same program.
The parents of our school now have a website to communicate upcoming events. Visit the site at: http://davisvilleparents.com/
Important Dates:
November 14- Progress reports go home
November 17 (evening) and November 18 (morning)- Parent/teacher interviews
November 30- Class trip to the ROM to see the Rocks and Minerals exhibit (details to follow)
December 1- Multicultural Night (*New date)
December 20 - Winter Concert (our class will be performing)

News for November 11

News for November 11

This week the class used what they know about measurement to look at the food we collected for the Spectrum Food Drive. The grade three's counted the food (22 pieces), weighed the food (7 kg), made the tallest stable structure possible (112 cm) and made the longest line possible along the floor (286 cm). The students even managed to figure out that a square package's longest length is its diagonal. The students then wrote a letter to Spectrum informing them of their findings, followed by a presentation to the grade four students.
The children worked with Ms. Fletcher to learn about the concept of "point of view". The read the story, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. In this story, a boy finds a penguin and takes him to the South Pole but realized the penguin wasn't lost, he just wanted a friend. During the adventure, the penguin doesn't say a word. The challenge for the class was to give a voice to the penguin and to retell the story from the penguin's point of view. The students each wrote a good copy of his/her story and made a poster including an origami penguin. These stories are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

We now have over 500 paper cranes for our paper cranes for peace project. The children have started to string the cranes in groups of 50 to be part of a display. The students practised singing the words and using the American Sign Language signs, to perform our Remembrance Day song. Our class performed it during our school's assembly on Friday. The children did an excellent job doing their part to honour this solemn occasion.
The class finished up the linear measurement part of the current math unit by working with a partner to measure his/her height and reach (distance from fingertip to fingertip). They had to figure out if their body was "square" (height=reach), a "tall rectangle" (height>reach) or a "wide rectangle" (heightOn Thursday, the author/illustrator Ian Wallace visited our school. He spoke about his job and read aloud one of his books. His animated retelling of his book really made the story come alive.
The students learned more about minerals. Minerals are pure substances, while rocks are mixtures of minerals. They learned that the colour, texture, hardness, weight and shape of the rocks are used to tell which kind of rock a sample is.
Books read aloud this week:
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
Sadako and 1,000 Cranes by Eleanor Coer

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to teach an adult learner how to write Mad Libs stories and then write a reflection on the experience.
Please Note:
November 9 is our school's ABC Day. This means "anything but the car" and is a campaign for students to come to school by any means other that a car.

News for November 4




News for November 4

This week the class started a new math unit on measurement. This week we focused on linear measurement and the standard units, millimetre, centimetre, metre and kilometre. The students reviewed the use of non-standard units and the reason for having standard units. They learned ways to estimate using body parts for the 4 linear measurement units and measured objects around the classroom.
In writing, the students practiced how to use adjectives and metaphors to describe a character. As it was Halloween, the students wrote a description of a monster. Since the students each made a caramel apple for our Halloween celebration, each child wrote instructions for making carmel apples. The children also reviewed the parts of speech for the grades (noun, plural noun, proper noun, adjective, verb and adverb) and used this knowledge to write Mad Libs stories.
The students are now working in groups to write a story and develop the story into a movie.

In science, the students watched a DVD about mining.
We discussed peace this week in relation to Remembrance Day. The students learned a song with American Sign Language signs in preparation for our performance at the school assembly next Friday. The students learned the history of the peace symbol and created a large artwork using images of peace. The children also wrote a 33-word message for peace and wrote it on paper with a half-folded paper crane. (The class is now halfway to our goal of 1000 paper cranes, with 500 made so far.)





Books read aloud this week:

The Tailypo by Joanna Gladstone
Follow the Line Around the World by Laura Ljungkvist
Domo in the World by Kate T. Williamson
Sadako by Eleanor Coer