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)