Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the reading comprehension activity on the history of soccer, the science worksheet about gravity and the math worksheet reviewing graphing concepts. This homework is due on Friday, January 30th.

Volunteers Needed!

We need two parent volunteers to join us on the Kiwanis Choir trip. Please email me if you would like to join us on the afternoon of Friday, March 6th.

Important Dates:

January 30 - Family Skate Night at Hodgson Senior Public School
February 2 - Kiwanis Choir permission forms due
February 11 - Term 1 Report Cards sent home
February 12 (evening) and February 13 (morning) - Parent Interviews
February 13 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
February 16 - Family Day - no classes on this day
March 5 - Directors Cut - Film Animation Workshop (in class)
March 6 - Kiwanis Festival - Grade 3 Choir performance (PM only)
March 16-20 - March Break

News for January 22

News for January 22

This four-day week started off with something very exciting! We got 2 new water snails for our aquarium. The students used their survey skills to decide on the names for the snails. Mr. Gold and Stripey were the most popular names. The snails seem to be getting along fine so far with our two African Clawed Frogs, Mr. and Mrs. Pickles.

In math, we continued to practice the 10 tricky multiplication facts every day. The children have made a lot of progress and we will now move to a once a week practice of these math facts. In the Data Management unit, the students learned how to read and create pictographs and circle graphs and reviewed how to read and create bar graphs (vertical and horizontal).

The students finished their  3D art and the fiction stories they wrote based on their art. These stories will be typed and made into books. For the covers of these books, each child set up and took a photo of his/her sculpture. The class also took the time to write a reflection on creating their 3D art sculptures.

In Social Studies, the students finished up the unit by reading a last summary article on Ontario facts and practiced using yellow highlighters to focus on important information. For the final activity, the students are researching key topics about living and working in Ontario and have started to create large posters to communicate what they have learned.

In science we talked about forces (push or pull) and focused on the force of gravity. (It's considered a pulling force.) Gravity helps us stay on the ground and helps the earth stay in its orbit around the sun. It's a very important concept! The children also read a non-fiction story about the life of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the English scientist that first described universal gravity.

The students received the "dinosaur fossils" they made last week and letters from their friends in Mr. Grundy and Ms. Standing's kindergarten class. Our class wrote thank you notes to their learning buddies thanking them for teaching them how to make salt dough "fossils".

During our weekly computer time the students continued to explore keyboarding games to help them learn how to type on the QWERTY keyboard efficiently. This is the site they visited:

www.tvokids.com/games/keyboardclimber

Books read aloud this week:

Stone Fox (chapter book) by John Reynolds Gardiner

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework writing journal about the "ring pop" candy given out to each student on Friday. There is also a math worksheet with some multiplication facts to practice and some bar graph interpretation questions. This homework is due on THURSDAY, January 22th (since Friday is a P. A. Day).

Note to Parents:

1. The class is working towards all students in Room 5 learning their multiplication facts from 0 to 10. The students have learned lots of tips and tricks to help them learn the facts but there are ten facts that everyone finds a bit tricky, (6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 7x7, 7x8, 7x9, 8x8, 8x9, 9x9). Students were asked this week to practise these facts. The children made fact cards and took them home this week to help them practise.

2. The students answered the survey question "Do you read at home each day?" Half of the class self-reported that they do not read at home each day. Please know that although Room 5 has weekly homework, there is also daily homework. It is expected that the students study the weekly word wall (spelling) words each day and read for a minimum of 20 minutes each day.

News for January 16

News for January 16

This week the students had an experience learning about bus safety. The children saw a video about proper and safe behaviour in and around a school bus, then they went into an actual school bus and learned all the safety procedures in case there is an emergency.

In math, the children continued to practise their multiplication facts. The first thing the students do in the morning is to write a multiplication quiz. They have mastered most of the facts from 0 to 10 but are concentrating on the ten "tricky" facts (6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 7x7, 7x8, 7x9, 8x8, 8x9, 9x9).

Also in math, the class continued to learn more about surveys, graphs and how to interpret information from the graphs. This week we concentrated on bar graphs. Each student learned how to properly draw and label a bar graph. Finally, the students wrote various quesitons to ask their fellow classmates. They each tallied the information, created a bar graph and wrote about what the graph told them about the students in our class. After assembling this information, each child created a poster showing this information. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

In social studies, the children continued to learn about the province of Ontario. They compared a map of Ontario with a satellite image of the province. They looked at a huge map of Ontario to appreciate that most people in Ontario live in the southern part of the province. They learned this is because of the importance of people living near water, near the United States (our biggest trading partner) and because the Great Lakes lowlands area has good soil for farming. The children also picked their research topics on Ontario to work on next week.

The students learned more about the Great Lakes. The class learned about the classic storybook of Paddle-to-the-Sea (written in 1941). In this story, a native boy carves a wooden man in a canoe and sets him on a journey to the sea, starting in Lake Nipigon in northern Ontario and floating through all the Great Lakes and finally landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The class saw the National Film Board adaptation of this beautiful story (it was nominated for an Academy Award in 1966). If you are interested in watching this lovely film, here is the link to the National Film Board site:

https://www.nfb.ca/search?csrfmiddlewaretoken=Qgj5i3boc9CXH7jCtOkolhFWrnrJofMI&q=paddle+to+the+sea&btnG=Search

Here is a short video showing some of the things to see and do in Ontario:

In writing, the students worked on finishing their stories about their 3D art sculptures. These stories will be typed and bound to go with their artwork.

In guided reading groups this week, the groups read a short, multi-chapter book focusing on comprehension and fluency reading strategies.

In art, the children finished their 3D sculptures with geometric forms. The students wrapped the wooden forms with clear nylon thread. They created colourful drawings, cut them out and taped them inside and on the forms so the pictures look as if they are floating. This artwork will serve as the illustration to each child's story.

The children visited their learning buddies in Mr. Grundy's class this week. They helped their buddies created dinosaur "fossils" using salt dough.

The class went to Mr. Hinrichsen's classroom this week to learn more about how to answer the reading questions for the EQAO test. By learning the rules to answering these kinds of questions completely, the students can better communicate, in writing, what they are thinking.

Books read aloud this week:

The Boy Who Invented TV: The story of Philo Farnsworth (finished) by Kathleen Krull

Paddle-to-the-Sea (book) by Holling C. Holling

Paddle-to-the-Sea (film) by Bill Mason

Update from Ms. R

Welcome back!

The homework for this week is to complete the multiplication facts table and answer the multiplication word problems. There is also a sheet of EQAO- style practice questions reviewing reading comprehension, word knowledge and how to to answer multiple choice questions. This homework is due on Friday, January 16th.

Important Dates:

January 23 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
February 11 - Term 1 Report Cards sent home
February 12 (evening) and February 13 (morning) - Parent Interviews
February 13 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
February 16 - Family Day - no classes on this day
March 16-20 - March Break

News for January 9

News for January 9

The students had a great first week of 2015! The children performed plays, created folded circle 3D sculptures, learned about the Great Lakes, started to prepare for the EQAO standardized test and much more...

In math, the students reviewed 2D and 3D geometry concepts by learning how to fold paper circles into an equilateral triangles, then using these units they created all sorts of paper sculptures, from tetrahedrons to octahedrons to icosahedrons. Each child also wrote a reflection on the process.

Also in math, the children reviewed the basics of single digit multiplication and began learning their multiplication facts from 0x to 10x. They learned the "tricks" for multiplying by 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10 this week. They learned how to used skip counting to help them reason out the answer s to other facts and also the "commutative law", where the order of the factors in multiplication does not matter (that is, 3 x 5  is the same as 5 x 3).

The class reviewed the Term 1 word wall words by creating personal dictionaries, to which they can refer if needed when writing. The students were also challenged to count the number of word wall words (119 words) that they now will spell correctly, for the rest of their lives!

Inspired by the artwork in a book we read before the holidays, You are Stardust, the students began to create a diorama frame using wooden chopsticks and hot glue. They began to plan their art and the fiction story to go with the art.

In social studies, the students reviewed the meaning of rural (country) and urban (city) and learned more about the province of Ontario, with a focus on the largest freshwater lakes in the world, The Great Lakes. They used the memory device of "Superman helps everyone" (Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario) to help them not only remember the names of the lakes but also the order of the lakes from west to east.

The students began to learn the standard way to type on a keyboard. They visited the following site to play games to help them learn the "home keys". Here is the link:

www.dancemattypingguide.com

We had sad news this week. Our pet water snail Georgette passed away. We had a chance to look closely at her shell and saw that she was getting quite old as her shell was starting to crack in many places. We miss her.

We have a special pattern on our calendar this month. Everyday, the number doubles and so far the growing pattern shows 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256... the power of doubling! The pattern goes from one digit to three digits in 8 terms. The class discussed the read aloud book, One Grain of Rice, which is an Indian folktale based on this idea and watched a short video of a folktale using this growing pattern based on the 64 squares of a chessboard. Here is the video:



The students rehearsed their "The Golden Touch" plays, about King Midas and the consequences of having the ability to turn everything into gold. The children really got into acting their parts and creating their props and costumes. Here are the videos:


 

Books read aloud this week:

The Hershey's Chocolate Multiplication Book by Jerry Pallotta
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
Peggy - A Brave Chicken on a Big Adventure by Anna Walker
One Grain of Rice by Demi
The Boy Who Invented TV - The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull