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:
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
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