Update from Ms R

The homework for this week is for each student to teach an adult how to play the game "20 Questions". Many adults already know how to play this game but do they know the best strategies? After the lesson, the student teacher must then write a reflection on the experience to communicate what he/she thought went well in the lesson and what could be done differently next time to make the lesson even better. There is also a math worksheet reviewing fractions that are part of a whole. This homework is due on THURSDAY, April 2nd (due to the Good Friday holiday).

News for March 27

News for March 27

It was wonderful to welcome back everyone after March Break! The students got right back to work and began a number of new projects.

In math, the class began the unit on fractions. Fractions can be difficult for many children so we spent the week concentrating on understanding two basic concepts. The first is that fractions are EQUAL parts of a whole. The second is that the size of a fraction depends on the size of the whole that you are considering. For example, if I want to have a big dessert, would I choose half a M & M candy or half of a cake? They are both halves, but the cake is much, much bigger. So half of the cake would be much bigger. The students drew shapes, folded paper strips and played with pizza slices to help with their understanding.

In writing, the students learned how to use quotation marks in their writing to show which words are spoken by a character. We also talked about the difference between editing written work (correcting mistakes) and revising (adding words to make good sentences even better). The children used these strategies to work on their sock creature stories.

The class began to talk about fairy tales this week. First we listed the fairy tales that the class already knew and then we read aloud different kinds of fairy tales. We started to gather up the ideas that make a fairy tale different from other types of narratives (stories). One thing the students noticed was that often fairy tales have royalty in them (kings, queens, princesses and princes), but not always.

In art, the students learned about background, mid-ground and foreground when looking at art and when making art. Using the tissue collage backgrounds they had created previously, the children drew characters and cut them out and glued them on layers of cardboard to show mid-ground and foreground.

The class began the new social studies unit on the people in Canada from 1780-1850. We did a few choral readings of non-fiction stories about how people lived before Canada became a country. We had some very interesting discussions. Did you know that during that time, most immigrants to our county came from Ireland, Scotland and England?

The children did an EQAO-style reading comprehension activity by reading the short story, Once Upon a Time and writing answers questions based on the story. It is important that students have a lot of practice doing these types of activities before the actual EQAO test at the end of May.

The students each got a little cursive writing booklet called A Buggy Alphabet to practice forming their lower- and uppercase cursive letters.

Finally, at the end of the week, the children separated into two groups and began to read the script for a new play, Oregon, Here We Come! Although this is a story based on an American pioneer experience, many of the details of daily life are the same for the same time period. The class will work on making props etc. for the play which will be videotaped and posted soon.

Books read aloud this week:

The Fairy Tale Princess - Seven Classic Stories From the Enchanted Forest by Su Blackwell
The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson
Goldilocks and the Three Bears - A Tale Moderne by Steven Guarnaccia
Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story of the student's choice (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal. There is also a math worksheet reviewing the concepts learned this week about measuring capacity (using litres and millilitres) and mass (using kilograms and grams). This homework is due on Friday, March 27th.

News for March 13

News for March 13

This week started out with the class being invited to the gym to listen to the grade 4, 5 and 6 students give speeches for the annual Speech Arts Contest. It's important for children in grade 3 to attend this event as they will be writing and giving speeches next year, when they are in grade 4.

The students worked very hard to finish up the poetry unit this week. They wrote poems based on the Fibonacci pattern of 0,1,1,2,3,5,8 syllables. Then they painted colourful backgrounds on long paper and measured out and folded the paper to reflect the Fibonacci pattern. The children also created folded books to showcase the other poems they wrote. They glued good copies of their poems to the "pages" and folded it up to make a final book of their poems.

In math, the students learned about how to measure capacity (or the amount that an object can hold) using litres and millilitres. Capacity is different from volume because volume is the amount of space an objects takes up. We also learned about measuring mass (or the amount of "stuff" that makes up objects) using kilograms and grams. On Earth, mass is equal to weight (or how heavy an object is due the pull of gravity).

We visited our Learning Buddies this week in Room 103. It was the students' turn to be the teachers of the kindergarten students and they taught the students all about popcorn! First we taught them a song, then the children taught the kindergarteners to "read" the words to the song and then they used magnifying glasses to look at popcorn kernels and popped popcorn. Did you know that popcorn pops because there is a drop of water inside the popcorn kernel and when it is heated to 100 degrees Celsius the water expands, turns to steam and the kernel explodes!

On Thursday, the children joined the rest of the school along with an estimated 160,000 other students to celebrate healthy food choices by eating an apple at 2:30 pm and joining in on "the big crunch". It was a nice break in the school day and nicely celebrated healthy eating.

The class learned how to play the game "Dots". This is a great game of luck and strategy. It's played on a grid of dots aligned in a matrix of squares. The game progresses as players take turns drawing straight lines, vertically and horizontally. If a player makes a finished square, he or she claims it by writing his or her initial in the square. The winner is the player who has the most completed squares.

Books read aloud this week:

Sock Monkey and the Glass Doorknob by Tony Millionaire
Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys by B. K.Connelly
Up in the Tree by Margaret Atwood
I Saw a Peacock With a Feiry Tail by Anonymous (a 17th century Indian poem, in trick verse)
The World That Loved Books by Stephen Parlato

The Director's Cut ... videos

Here are the videos that the students made during The Director's Cut workshop this week. Well done everyone!

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the math worksheet reviewing money concepts and the reading comprehension worksheet about snakes. The students can compare this information with what they've learned about ball pythons from Mr. Hinrichsen. (The class pet in Mr. H's classroom is a ball python named Regis.) This homework is due on Friday, March 13th.

Kiwanis News!

The Grade 3 Choir competed in the Kiwanis Festival on Friday (at Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute) and they not only won "gold" for the day's competition, but also they won "first" among the 9 choirs in their category. Congratulations to everyone! A special congratulations to Ms. Konjhodzic for all her hard work with the students.

News for March 6

News for March 6

This week the students were lucky to participate in two special events: The Director's Cut workshop on Thursday and The Kiwanis Festival on Friday. You can read more about these events in separate posts.

The students are learning not only how to write poems, but also how to read and interpret them. It's not so easy understanding poems since poems usually have fewer words and break the rules of standard writing. After reading the book, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes, the class started to write additional verses to the poem by writing in rhyme. It's not as easy to write lines that rhyme, but the students did a great job and these new verses are not part of a class book.

In math, the children continued to review and practice making change. They worked in partners to create homemade cash registers and pretended to buy things and make change. They also reviewed how to correctly and completely answer word problems, with a focus on underlining or circling important information in the question in order to provide complete and correct answers.

On Wednesday, Ms. Reinelt came to our class to speak to the students about strategies on how to play at recess time to make sure everyone has fun and is treated fairly.

In preparation for the Director's Cut workshop on Thursday, the children worked very hard to finish his/her sock creature. From sewing on tails, arms, mouths and eyes the students did it all. Each creature now has its own tissue box (house? airplane? car?). The students use their homemade sock creatures and Lego mini-figures in their movies. The movies can be seen in a separate posting. Of course, Ms. R has asked them to start writing a fiction story starring their sock creatures!

In art, the students created a collage gluing coloured tissue paper on cardboard to make a layered background for an art piece that will focus on the concept of foreground, mid-ground and background of an art piece. They will continue working on this art next week.

Books read aloud this week:

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton
Growing Patterns - Fibonacci Numbers in Nature by Sarah Campbell
The Man With the Violin by Kathy Stinson
Geronimo Stilton's Little Book of Happiness by Elizabetta Dami (continued Guided Reading project)

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework writing journal. The story can be fiction or non-fiction, but it must somehow have something to do with money (since our math unit is currently about money). The math worksheet focuses on reviewing how to calculate change when paying for items. This homework is due on Friday, March 6th.

Please note:

Ms. Konjhodzic has informed me that she has enough parent volunteers for the Kiwanis Festival Trip, so there will be no need for any parent volunteers from our class.

Important Dates:

March 5 - Director's Cut animation workshop - in class - all day
March 6 - Kiwanis Festival Trip (afternoon only)
March 16 - 20 - March Break
April 3 - Good Friday - No classes on this day
April 5 - Easter Sunday
April 6 - Easter Monday - No classes on this day
May 18 - Victoria Day - No classes on this day

News for February 27

News for February 27

This week the students worked very hard on creating their sock creatures. They are finding out that there are a lot of steps to creating and finishing an original sock creature. So far, the creatures all have a body, a tail and at least one arm...

The class continued to learn more about writing poetry. The students finished their concrete (shape) poems. They also started a new filing system to keep track of the poems they have written and if they have completed their good copies. The students also learned about and wrote some mask (riddle) poems. We talked about how lyrics (words) to songs are like poetry. After reading the story of the song "Wavin' Flag" by Somalian-Canadian poet, K'naan, we watched the video:


On Tuesday, author Michael Wade visited our school and gave a wonderful talk about not only his books but also about being a writer. Our class drew and painted a sign to hang in the gym for his presentation. We presented a binder of the letters and art the children did for Mr. Wade and since the students asked him questions in their letters, we hope that he will write us back!

In math, we are still working on our money unit and learning how to make change from amounts up to $10.00. The students did word problems alone and in groups, they played games on the iPads and used play money to practice, practice, practice!

On Thursday, our whole school celebrated "Carnaval". The children attended a concert in the gym of all kinds of music from South America (where they celebrate a similar holiday called "Mardi Gras"). Then they played bingo, ate pancakes, made button pins, played computer games, played floor hockey and tried out the equipment to play games of curling. It was a great day!

We visited our Learning Buddies in Room 5 this week and helped them create and collect sheets that recorded their eye colour. Room 101 will use this information to create graphs for their math unit.

Books read aloud this week:

Geronimo Stilton's Little Book of Happiness by Elizabetta Dami
Cat in the Hat by Dr. Suess
Quebec - Journey Across Canada by Harry Beckett
When I Get Older - The Story Behind Wavin' Flag by K'naan
Martin Luther King - A Man of Peace by Garnet Jackson