Please be advised...

Please be advised that as a result of the recent job action by the teacher union, all postings on class blogs have been suspended until further notice.

Instagram and Sharpies

Instagram

Please read the Room 204 student posts on Instagram each day. Follow us @planet5news on any apple device or go to www.instagram.com/planet5news to view pictures (click on a photo to read the text the student wrote).

Sharpies

The students are having trouble managing their lunch bags and clothing. Many items get lost every day. Please use a Sharpie or any permanent marker to write your child's name on items they bring to school. If a lunch bag has a name clearly printed on it, it's much more likely to be returned.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story (fiction or non-fiction) about the squirrel sticker in the homework writing journal. Please make sure your child reads the editing promise taped on the front cover. There is also a math worksheet reviewing the numeration patterning work we covered this week. This homework is due on Friday, September 25th.

Borrow-A-Book Program

In Room 204 our Borrow-A-Book program allows the students to borrow books from our classroom library to take home to read. The students are allowed to borrow one book a day and can exchange a book each day if they wish (less often if he/she has chosen a chapter book). The students do not need to take a book each day if they are reading their own books or library books at home. The children have been given plastic zip bags to put the books in to keep the books clean. It is expected that each child read at home for a minimum of 20 minutes a day. This reading time is considered to be daily homework. When we finally get our agendas, the students will be required to write down the name of the book and the number of pages read each day in the agenda.

News for September 18

News for September 18

This week the students studied the first group of Word Wall Words (WWW). These words are chosen from lists of words appropriate for the grades with a focus on irregularly spelled words and homophones as well as words misspelled from the students' written work. The children all know to study these words in class and at home each night because they realize that they need to be able to spell these words for the rest of their lives. It is expected that the students spell WWW correctly in all their written work. (When we finally get our agendas, the WWW will be written down several times each week.)

In math, the students worked hard to link what they know about skip counting to the hundreds chart. The children realized for example that counting by 2's doesn't always begin at 2. It could start at 37, add 2 each time and end at 47. That is, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47 is also counting by two's. We cut up a hundreds chart into rows and made a very long number line. The class used number lines to show number patterns. The students created their own hundreds chart and used these charts to play a game with dice call "Race to 100".

In social studies, the class began the unit "Living and Working in Ontario" by first understanding a bit more about Canada. The children learned about "O Canada", our national anthem. Did you know that the song was first written in French in 1880? The English words were not written until 1908 and it did not become the official national anthem until 1980. The children learned the American Sign Language (ASL) signs that go with singing the national anthem. The class also learned that Canada became a country on July 1, 1867 and that Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister.

The children learned how to play a cooperative writing game using dice. Each student chose a different colour of marker. The children took turns rolling the dice and writing that number of words only. The challenge is to write only the number of words shown on the dice and to ensure the story makes sense. (This reinforces the strategy of rereading one's writing to make sure it makes sense.) The partners sat together in circle and shared the stories that they wrote...they were very funny!

The class folded and decorated large portfolios to collect work that they do during the year. We will take time over the year to reflect on the work done so far.

I typed the stories that the children wrote last week and the students themselves mounted the stories on black paper and then attached the stories to the artwork. These stories and artwork are now on display in the hallway outside our classroom.

The children read short one-paragraph stories and learned the strategies to answer comprehension questions like multiple choice questions and short answer inference questions.

The children read their first "Reader's Theatre" play of the school year. The students worked in four groups to read the parts of the play, to choose and gather props and rehearse the play. The purpose of this activity is to increase reading fluency as well as to develop group participation skills. Everyone did a great job! Here are the videos:

Group One



Group Two



Group Three



Group Four


Books read aloud this week

The Good Little Book by Kyo Maclear
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (chapter book)

Word wall words

Since we don't have the agendas yet, here are the word wall (spelling) words for this week.

Update from Ms. R

Welcome to Planet 5 News!

Every week I will post the news from our class here. I usually manage to post by Sunday morning but sometimes it's a bit later...

Here you will find photos, sometimes videos and information about what happened in Room 204 that week. I will also post the homework information and any pertinent news for parents.

Here's to a great school year as we all grow and learn together!

* The homework for this week is to complete the "A Little Bit About Me" worksheet (both sides). This homework is due on Friday, September 18th.

ROOM 204 HOMEWORK NOTES

In our classroom, there are TWO kinds of homework. There is daily homework and weekly homework.

Daily homework must be done everyday. It consists of TWO things: reviewing the word wall words and reading. First, the word wall words (spelling) that are assigned for the week need to be practiced in preparation for the "test" each Friday. These words will be written in the child's agenda every Monday. (Please note that we are still waiting for our agendas to arrive...so for the time being the children will be writing their words on a piece of paper to take home each day.) Second, it is expected that children read for a minimum of 20 minutes a day. Your child can read books from home, from the library, from the school library or from our class Borrow-A-Book program. (This program will begin next week.)

Weekly homework is assigned every Friday and is due the following Friday (or Thursday if there is no school on the Friday). This homework consists of math and language work. This work is review and your child should be able to complete the work independently. I post the homework on the blog every week.

News for September 11

News for September 11

We've had only four days together so far in Room 204, but the students managed to get a lot done!

The students worked in groups to generate the rules we follow to be safe at school. In the hallways, in the classroom, with specialty teachers and on the playground we need rules for everyone to do their best and be safe. The groups made posters with this information and these are now on display outside of the classroom.

In math, the children began to review and practice skip counting, place value and the use of ten frames. One strategy for counting a large number of objects is making groups of ten. We can skip count by ten and ones and use this information to get the answer. For example, four groups of ten and three ones means "43" NOT "34". The class learned the mnemonic "The value of the digit depends on the place that you put it." This is a reminder of how powerful our base ten number system is, because we can make ANY number in the whole universe with only ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9).

In writing, the children reviewed the parts of a perfect sentence. Most importantly, that every sentence has a capital letter at the beginning and a period (or "!" or "?") at the end. In their writing journals, children printed the 26 capital letters of the alphabet and noticed that these letters are all the same size. After printing all 26 lowercase letters of the alphabet, we noticed that 7 letters are tall letters (b, d, f, h, k, l, t), 5  letters go below the writing line (g, j, p, q, y) and 14 letters are in the middle (a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z). With only 26 letters, we can make any word in the English language!

 Each student had a short writing conference with me to talk about the things they need to remember when writing. We talked about the writing process (plan, rough copy, edit, revise and publish) and how to use their dictionaries. Will will be talking about the writing process and using dictionaries much more in the coming weeks.

The students wrote about things they did over the summer holiday (non-fiction) and used their imaginations to write about things they did not do (fiction). The children also started to write fiction stories based on the art they painted earlier in the week.

In art, the children each planned and painted a picture that had a clear setting and characters. Then the students used their paintings as planners for their first fiction story of the year.

The students learned how to draw "chunky" or thick capital letters. Then each child created one or more chunky letters, drew patterns on the letter, cut it out and taped it to blue paper. Together we created the message "Welcome back everyone from Room 204". This message is now on the wall of the hallway outside of our classroom.

Books read aloud this week:

The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers
The Book That Eats People by John Perry
Do Not Open This Book by Michael Muntean
What? Cried Granny by Kate Lum

Waiting for the students to arrive...