Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the sample EQAO reading/writing activity. There is also a math worksheet reviewing concepts around counting money. This homework is due on Friday, February 27th.

Here is a photo of students writing poems about pancakes and maple syrup on Pancake Tuesday!

NOTE TO PARENTS

Mr. Bell and Ms. Kolcze are organizing a school-wide mural project, "Unity at Davisville PS". A yellow note was sent home on February 6th asking for a photo of your child that will be used in this mural. Photos will be glued directly onto the mural and so cannot be returned. The last day to submit photos is Friday, February 27th.

News for February 20

News for February 20

This four-day week began on Tuesday with our class celebrating Pancake Day! We discussed the origins of this celebration and its many different names (Pancake Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday). We had a great discussion about where all the ingredients come from our pancake making when we compared our experience with the boy in the book, Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle.

In writing, the children continued to learn more about poetry. They reviewed different poems they already had inside them...nursery rhymes! It's amazing how many rhymes the students remembered. We also talked about how these poems have a beat or rhythm to them and they were often used as the lyrics for songs and clapping games. (Ask your child to clap out the poem, From Wimbleton to Wobbleton.) The children reviewed the 5 senses that humans have and used these to help them write poems about maple syrup ("It tastes like liquid raisins.") and pancakes ("It looks like a flat sun."). The class also learned about concrete poems (also called shape poems). These are great fun to read and write since the rules of writing really can be broken because the words in the poem can be written all kinds of different ways in order to make the shape of topic of the poem.

In math, the children continued to work with Canadian money. They learned the strategies needed to help them count a large number of coins (sort, put into piles of $1, count up the dollars and then count up the cents). They learned how to choose the number of coins to match a certain value. For example, what are the fewest coins needed to make 37 cents?

The children learned about Roman Numerals. In Room 5 we use Roman Numerals to write the date, For example, "February 20, 2015" becomes "20 II 15" (because February is the second month of the year and 2 = II). The students also learned about the Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci, who discovered, over 800 years ago, the Hindu-Arabic number system and introduced it to the western world. Before that time, the western world countries were still using Roman Numerals and by converting to the Hindu-Arabic system, it introduced place value and the concept of zero.

In preparation for the author Michael Wade's visit to our school next week, each student read at least one of his books. Then, each child wrote him a letter telling him what they liked about the book, ideas for improving his books and asked him a question. The class put together these letters along with some pictures they drew into a binder to give to Mr. Wade when visits. Hopefully, after he reads the letters, he will write us back and answer the students' questions!

In art, the students practiced sketching techniques and used their foil figure sculptures to help them. This art is now on display on the wall outside of our classroom.

Finally, our video with cool facts about Ontario is finished! Here it is:


Books read aloud this week:

Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle
My Very First Mother Goose (Nursery Rhymes) edited by Iona Opie
Oh, Canada! The Illustrated Anthem by Roxanna Bikadoroff
Blockhead: The Life of Fibonocci by Joseph D'Agnese
A Poke in the I - A Collection of Concrete Poems by Paul Janeczko and Chris Raschka

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the math worksheet on Canadian coins. Also, for the homework writing journal, each child was asked to read the instruction sheet, "How to Draw a Monster", draw a monster and then write a fiction story about the monster in the homework writing journal. This homework is due on Friday, February 20th.

Thank you to all the parents who came by this week to meet and talk about their children's activities in Room 5. The students do amazing work and it's wonderful to share and discuss it with all the families!

News for February 12

 

News for February 12

This week the children continued giving the "Canadian Flag Facts" on the school announcements every morning. Every student has now had a chance to be a part of this project. The Canadian flag turns 50 years old on Sunday, February 15th and the class shared some of the cool facts that they learned with the rest of the school.

In math, the students learned how to read thermometers and a bit about negative numbers (when talking about temperatures below zero). The children gathered up snow and put water outside to freeze and then monitored the temperature as the ice/snow melted. They also measured the temperature of recently boiled water. The class saw that the temperature of water takes on the temperature of the air around it, so, after awhile, the snow and ice melted and warmed up to room temperature and the boiling water cooled down to room temperature. The class discussed the "benchmark" temperatures that are important to know: 

100C - water boils

37C - human body temperature

around 20 C - room temperature

0C - water freezes

-273C - absolute zero (all molecular motion stops)

The students reviewed information about the six Canadian coins. (Actually five coins are used now since we've stopped using the penny.) The class reviewed how to count money using what they know about skip counting.

The children finished their first person narrative stories about being a pencil. These are now displayed on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. The students even made the letters for the sign...out of pencils!

We began talking about the next writing unit on poetry. Poetry is interesting because there really are no rules. You can make up words, write words upside down or in the shape of shoe, if you want! We began however, by learning about an ancient Sanskrit poem, Salutation to the Dawn,  attributed to the Indian poet Kalidasa, who lived about 1,500 years ago. This poem reminds us to be grateful for each day in our lives. The students did a cooperative art project by taking words from the poem and painting them on large pieces of paper. These are now on display on the bulletin boards in our classroom, where the students can read them easily, as we read the poem together every morning. Here is a video of the students reciting the poem:

Our research posters about living and working in Ontario are finally all finished. The children worked very hard to complete these projects and they are now on display in the stairwell by our classroom. We started to make a video to record the interesting facts we learned and that video will be posted next week.

Our class now has a set of three iPads to use. The children used the iPads to explore an app of one of the books we read this week, Oliver Jeffers' Heart and the Bottle.

We had a Valentine's Day celebration on Friday. The students decorated paper bags to hold the valentines from their friends and they learned how to fold origami paper hearts to give to their family and friends.

During our computer lab time, the students explored the children's site:

nick.com/games

Books read aloud this week:
Our Flag: The Story of Canada's Maple Leaf by Anne Maureen Owens
Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers
The Maple Leaf by Barb McDermott

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is for each student to use the Global Pet Foods calendar to answer some math questions and to look at the calendar closely and write a letter to the company saying what he/she thinks is good about the calendar and suggestions for improvement. We will be sending these letters to the company and hopefully they will write us back! This homework is due on THURSDAY, February 12th (since Friday is a P.A. Day for parent/teacher interviews).

On Friday, we celebrated 100 days of school so far in Room 5!

News for February 6

News for February 6

Well this week started out with lots of snow! On Monday, we were a class of only 7 students but we  still had fun and the students enjoyed hot chocolate while playing a cooperative writing game.

In math, the students continued the unit on time and practiced telling analog and digital time and calculating elapsed time.

In science, the students did a lot of reading and experiments to investigate friction, static electricity and other forces. They watched a Magic Schoolbus DVD about what would happen in a frictionless baseball game. They experimented with balloons to investigate static electricity and participated in friction races using folded cardboard and then, balloon powered CD's!

On Wednesday, the students started to learn more about Canada's Flag. On Sunday, February 15th, our flag will turn 50 years old. Each day on the school's morning announcements, a team of students from our class read some facts about the flag. Did you know that flag's birth year was 1965 and members of Parliament argued until 2:00 AM in the morning until they finally voted for our current flag design? The students will continue these announcement next week.

The class finally heard the exciting ending of our read aloud chapter book, Stone Fox. It was a very powerful scene at the end of the race and even though I've read this book aloud to students for years, I still have to read the last few pages through my tears. We had a great discussion about the power of words to make us feel strong emotions.

The writing challenge this week, was for the children to each write a first person narrative. That means a story from the perspective of the main character of a story. The challenge was to write a story from the perspective of the pencil each student uses everyday. The children had to think about what the pencil might like about its job, what it doesn't like about its job and what it dreams of doing one day. The students wrote their good copies of their edited stories on pieces of long, narrow paper and they attached their stories to the pencils. These stories are now on display on the bulletin board in the hall outside of our classroom.

On Friday, the students celebrated 100 days of school together in Room 5! They worked in groups to try different 100-based activities: counting out and stringing 100 Fruit Loop cereal pieces, stamping out 100 designs, completing a large 100 chart, creating designs with groups of 100 objects and counting how many exercises (like jumping jacks) they could do in 100 seconds. It was a lot of fun!

Here is a video from 2009 showing the first 50 crazy shirts of Mr. Lee:

 

Books read aloud this week:

Stone Fox (chapter book - finished) by John Reynolds Gardiner
Groundhog Day by Clara Cella
The Secret Pizza Party by Adam Rubin
Our Flag: The Story of Canada's Maple Leaf  by Ann Maureen Owens
The 100 Shirts of Mr. Lee by Nancy Rawlinson and the class of 2008-2009

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework writing journal based on the time of your child's choosing on the analog clockstamped in his/her journal. There is also a math sheet reviewing analog and digital time. This homework is due on Friday, February 6th.

On Monday, I will be sending home a form to book a parent/teacher interview with me. The TDSB specifies that only selected interviews be held at this time, BUT, I like to see everyone! I love to speak to parents personally to talk about the amazing things the children are doing in Room 5. If you would like to come to the class to see and talk about your child's work, please fill in the form and I will send home a confirmation note with your child.

February may be the coldest, shortest month in the Canadian winter, but it sure has a lot of special days. Here is a listing:

February Special Days:

February 2 - Groundhog Day
February 6 - 100th Day of School
February 11 - Term 1 Report Cards go home
February 12 (evening) and February 13 (morning) - Parent /Teacher interviews
February 13 - P.A. Day - no classes
February 14 - Valentine's Day
February 15 - Flag Day - Canada's flag turns 50 years old this year.
February 16 - Family Day holiday
February 17 - Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Pancake Tuesday
February 19 - Chinese New Year begins
February 24 - Author Michael Wade visits our school
February 26 - Carnivale! An all-day school celebration

February has also been designated as Black History Month

Whew! That's a lot for 28 days!

Finally, as we say goodbye to January, I should mention that our "doubling" or "multiplying by 2" experiment started with a one-digit number on Jan. 1 and ended with a ten-digit number on Jan.31. Or, if put in the terms of money, we started the month with $1 and doubled the amount every day for 31 days and ended up with $1,073,741,824, over one billion dollars! The class learned the power of doubling and had a lot of practice reading multi-digit numbers.

News for January 30th

                                     

News for January 30

This week the students began the last week of January by making decorations for the Chinese New Year Holiday. The students learned that this holiday lasts for 15 days and begins this year on February 19th. The date is different every year but is always in January or February. The children used what they know about 2D and 3D geometry to create paper lanterns. By folding and stapling traditional "lucky" red envelopes each child made lanterns to decorate the hallway outside our classroom and even made some to give away to staff members. We also talked about the Chinese Zodiac and how even though all students in our class were born in 2006, some children are considered to be "roosters" if they were born before January 29th (Chinese New Year in 2006) and some are "dogs" if they were born after January 29th of their birth year.

Mrs. Farrelly and Ms. Schneider came by our class to admire our decorations and to ask the students about Chinese New Year. Mrs. Farrelly challenged the class to figure out how old she was if she gave us some clues: she is a "snake" in the Chinese Zodiac and she is younger than Ms. R. The students thought about this and combined the clues with what they know about Ms. R's age and birthday and figured out that she could be either 38 or 50 years old. So we wrote a letter to Mrs. Farrelly to ask for another clue to answer her challenge. We even used our survey skills to help us! 

In math, the class finished the unit on data management and began the unit on time. The children reviewed various concepts in the traditional calendar and why they are what they are. For example, a year is the time it takes the Earth to orbit around the Sun once and a day is the time it takes the Earth to revolve around its axis once. They did a lot of activities around figuring out dates that are before and after certain days on the calendar. Finally, we reviewed telling time using analog and digital clocks. The expectation for grade three is to tell time to the nearest five-minute interval (e.g., 2:50).

In writing, the students each wrote a reflection on the process and outcome of making their 3D art inspired by the book You Are Stardust. They also designed a book based on the stories they wrote. Then each child read another student's book and wrote them a letter praising their efforts, offering suggestions for improvement and asking a question about the story. All these materials will be put together to become another Room 5 class book

In science, the students learned about magnets. They read that magnets have two different poles (labelled North and South) and when opposite poles are put together they attract or pull together and when the same poles are put together they repel or push apart, no matter how hard you try! The children experimented with all different kinds of magnets as well as the forces involved in balancing, making wind-up toys work and even playing with play-doh. Science is everywhere!

In computers, the children visited a site to play online games to help them understand forces. Here is the link:

sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities/forcesinaction.html

In preparation for author Michael Wade's visit to our school on February 24, the students started to read chapter books in the series ...And Then it Happened. Nest week the children will be writing book reviews to give to Mr. Wade when he visits.

The students have made a lot of progress on their research about various topics about Ontario. So far, most students have almost finished the rough copy of their research and the titles for their posters. Did you know that the Eastern White Pine is Ontario's official tree? Did you know that Ontario's flag has a small flag of England (known as the Union Jack) in the upper left hand corner? 

The children received letters from their Learning Buddies this week and they got back the "dinosaur fossils" that they made last week. In turn, the students wrote letters back to their Learning Buddies thanking them for being such good teachers. Mr. Grundy reported to me that the kindergarten children were thrilled to get personal letters back from their Learning Buddies. 

This week it was our turn to teach the kindergarten students. The children worked hard to create "Race to 50" game packages and on Friday, they each taught their buddies how to play the game. The students even made their own dice!

Books read aloud this week:

Stone Fox (chapter book) by John Reynolds Gardiner