News for November 20

News for November 20

This week the students were very busy as usual! The students even managed to start sewing the next character in their fiction writing...the glovetopus!

In math, the class continued with the geometry unit by learning about angles. For grade two and three, the students need to know how to recognize a right angle (where a horizontal line meets a vertical line) and if an angle is bigger or smaller than a right angle. However, the students were introduced to the proper math words. An acute angle is smaller than a right angle and an obtuse angle is bigger than a right angle. The students made an angle measuring device from strips of cardstock paper and a paper fastener (or brad).

The students explored the Chinese game called tangrams all week. Tangrams are a set of seven polygons pieces (called tans) that are assembled to make pictures. The students looked at the attributes of each of the shapes and learned the word "congruent" that is used to describe objects that have the same size and the same shape. The class practiced solving tangram puzzles as quickly as possible. This helps the students develop an understanding of the relationships between the different polygons as well as helping their visual memory match shapes on the paper with actual polygon pieces. The children then designed their own tangrams and worked to solve the student-designed puzzles. These puzzles are now part of a new class book and is now in our classroom library. Every student can solve a tangram puzzle in less than 30 seconds and the best time was 11 seconds! The children also used the tangrams to follow along a tangrams story during read aloud time. The children then wrote a reflection on learning about and using tangrams in their writing journals.

The class began a week-long read aloud project by listening to and discussing a series of five books. These books were published separately, but each is like a chapter in a chapter book. The characters and setting are bascially the same in each book, so we could focus each day on comprehension strategies and making connections to the other stories in the series.

In our guided reading groups, we read the ebook What is Colour? to learn more about this element of design. The children read about complementary colours (colours that are opposite on the colour wheel) and warm colours (yellow, orange, red) and cool colours (blue, green, purple). 

In science, the students began the unit on structures. They experiments with different types of building materials, to determine the attributes of materials that make a strong and stable structure. The verdict? Materials with flat sides, that are cubes or rectangular prisms and that are able to connect (for example blocks, snap cubes) make stronger more stable structures than thin, rounded or soft materials (for example, golf tees, pom poms, tissue paper). We also touched on the beginning of using the scientific method for experiments (purpose, materials, method, observations, conclusions).

The students also experimented with making paper stronger. Using sheets of copy paper, they folded, stacked and rolled the paper to make structures that will hold a heavy load. As a group, we discovered that four pieces of paper folded in half and rolled into cylinders held 18 dictionaries! When more weight was added the paper collapsed, demonstrating that there is a limit to a structure's strength and stability.

The students have begun the second set of Readers Theatre plays this week. This time the children are in three groups and performing three different plays. This week the students read through the scripts, decided which parts they were going to play and began to rehearse the plays.

The class began to explore the QWERTY typewriter keyboard using ipad mini computers. In future, the children will be learning about the "home row" keys and how to type efficiently.

Finally, the class looked at famous structures around the world and each child chose a structure to research next week as a part of our science unit. 

Books read aloud this week:

Martha Speaks by Susan Meddaugh

Martha Calling by Susan Meddaugh

Martha Blah Blah by Susan Meddaugh

Martha Walks the Dog by Susan Meddaugh

Martha and Skits by Susan Meddaugh

Iggy Peck Architect by Anne Beatty

Three Pigs, One Wolf and Seven Magic Shapes by Marilyn Burns