The Room 204 Interview Show!

This week our guest was Ms. Reinelt. She is a teacher at our school.

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. Some possible topics we discussed were aliens (always a favourite), a story with a sock monkey AND glovetopus in it or Police Officier Jan's visit (grade 2) or the Kiwanis trip (grade 3). There is also a math sheet reviewing money concepts. (Some grade 2 students finished this worksheet on Friday.) This homework is due on Friday, March 4th.

***Click on the image to see the full photo.***

News for February 26

News for February 26

The big news is that the grade 3 choir won first place at The Kiwanis Festival on Friday!

Well done everyone!

In writing, the students are working on writing long fiction stories using their sock monkeys as characters in their stories. They are now expected to edit their writing with pencil (find and correct mistakes) and to revise their writing with coloured pen (make good writing better by adding words like adjectives and adverbs).

The children learned more about how to use dictionaries. First they explored all the different information found in our classroom dictionaries. In the back there are pages of useful information like lists of different holidays and metric units. By using the "key words" at the top of each page, students can find the word they are looking for more easily. There are also special information boxes on some pages with cool facts. Did you know that "jeans" are called jeans because the strong cotton cloth that jeans are made of was first made in Genoa, Italy? So the word jeans comes from the city name Genoa.

In math, the class continued to practice working with money. They practiced writing value amounts as cents and as dollars, equivalent coin combinations and we began the tricky process of how to calculate change. (Grade 2's need to be able to make change from $1.00 and grade 3's are required to make change from $10.00.)

In art, the children created symmetrical art by writing their names in very large letters using cursive writing. Then they coloured in the spaces that were made by the lines and wrote reflections on what they thought the designs reminded them of, as well as, reflecting on the artistic process. These are now on display outside of our classroom.

The names of the students were randomly selected and put into small groups. These groups are now working on creating movies starring their sock monkeys. After planning the characters, setting, the problem and solution of these stories they started to rehearse. Each child recycled a Triscuit cracker box to make a house/vehicle/bed for his/her sock monkey. Next week they will be creating sets, credits and costumes for the movies.

The class learned about the civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and his amazing achievements. The class watched part of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, that he made to inspire everyone to help create a world where everyone is treated equally. Did you know that over 250,000 people came to Washington on to see and hear Dr. King on August 28, 1963?

On Thursday, the grade 2 students went to a personal safety presentation with Toronto Police Officer Jan. The grade 3 students joined Mr. Hinrichsen's class to listen to the grade four students in Ms. Sullada's class practice their speeches for the annual Speech Arts Contest. (Students in grades 4,5 and 6 participate in this contest each year.)

We discussed the various ways to tell a story and focussed on how movies tell a story. The students watched the movie Because of Winn Dixie and we discussed the various parts of the story as well as occasionally stopping and talking about predicting what will happen next and how sometimes the viewer knows information that the characters in the story don't know yet.

This week the students welcomed Ms. Reinelt as a guest on The Room 204 Interview Show. The video of this interview can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Sock Monkey Goes to Hollywood: A Star is Bathed by Cece Bell

Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys: Art, History and Business of the American Sock Monkey by Bonnie Kraus Connelly

Because of Winn Dixie (DVD) - based on the book by Kate DiCamillo

Martin Luther King Jr. by Mir Tamin Ansary

The Moccasin Goalie by William Roy Brownridge

The Room 204 Interview Show! Ms. Tiralongo

The Room 204 Interview Show! This week our guest was Ms. Tiralongo. She is a teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to teach an adult how to play the parts of speech game, Mad Libs. There is also a reflection sheet to be completed to write about how the lesson went. Finally there is a math review sheet on money concepts and a cursive writing practice activity.

Note to parents:

Library day is now on THURSDAY. Many children are still forgetting to return their books each week. Please help your child to remember to bring their library books in, on or before Thursday. Also, please keep the library book in the library book bag. (There is a bar code on the bag that lets each student check out his/her book independently.)

News for February 19

News for Febryary 19

Another busy, but short, week again!

In math, the class continued to practice the strategies to help them count money. We learned a bit about the history of money in Canada. Did you know that a few hundred years ago people used playing cards as money? They also practiced how to show a particular value of money in different ways. For example, 36 cents or $0.36 can be shown as one quarter, one dime and one penny OR three dimes and six pennies (plus many other combinations). 

The students learned the history of the Canadian flag and Flag Day, observed on February 15th each year. Did you know that the Canadian flag is 51 years old? The children also created their own Canadian flags. The official flag is twice as long as it is tall and the white centre is a square and the two red rectangles on each side are each one half of a square. Each child wrote a non- fiction story about Flag Day and most children chose to write their good copies in cursive. The writing and flags are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

The students are working hard to complete their sock monkeys. There are a lot of steps to make these stuffed animals and the children are getting very good at sewing! These monkeys will be the focus of several projects including non-fiction procedural writing, fiction writing and...movies!

The students each practised their cursive signatures and created a new cursive desk name card. They also continued to practise their lowercase letters to improve their speed at creating cursive writing.

In our guided reading groups this week, we continued to focus on the interpretation of poems. Because poems have many fewer words than other kinds of writing, the reader has to "read between the lines" to help them understand a poem.

The students learned about the main parts of speech in English. We focused on nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. The class learned how to play the game Mad Libs, which creates funny stories and helps children apply what they know about parts of speech.

After reading and learning about Chinese characters the students had a chance to try fortune cookies. But did you know that fortune cookies aren't Chinese at all? They are an American invention (based on a Japanese idea). Every year 3 billion fortune cookies are eaten!

On The Room 204 Interview show this week, our guest was Ms. Tiralongo. She is a teacher at our school. You can see the video in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Our Flag: The story of Canada's Maple Leaf by Ann-Marie Owens and Jane Yealland

Canadian Money by Elizabeth MacLeod

Only in Dreams by Paul Frank

The Glass Doorknob: a Sock Monkey Adventure by Tony Millionaire

The Pet Dragon: A Story About Adventure, Friendship and Chinese Characters by Christoph Niemann

The Room 204 Interview Show! Ms. Schneider

Here is the next episode of The Room 204 Interview Show! Our guest was Ms. Schneider. She is the vice-principal of our school.

The Room 204 Interview Show ! Mrs. Farrelly

Here is the first episode of The Room 204 Interview Show! Our guest was Mrs. Farrelly. She is the principal of our school.

Update from Ms.R

It was wonderful to meet with all the families this week and to discuss the amazing work done by the students. Thank you to everyone for making the time to drop by Room 204!

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework writing journal. The story must have something to do with Canadian money. Some ideas are: finding a magic coin, a superhero coin or a story about how a particular coin was designed (for example, why is there a polar bear on the loonie?) There is also a worksheet reviewing the lowercase cursive letters and beginning concepts about Canadian money. This homework is due on Friday, February 19th.

Here are the students in the library (with our chapter book display) after Author Day on Wednesday.

(Click on the photo to see the full picture.)

News for February 11

News for February 11

This four-day week was filled with special days: Chinese New Year, Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday), Author Day, Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school. Whew!

On Thursday, the class celebrated the 100th day of school! (Only 88 more days left in the school year.) The children counted out and strung 100 fruit loop cereal pieces, stamped 100 stamps, counted and organized collections of 100 (from straws to blocks to football cards) and excersiced for 100 seconds and recorded the number of exercises they managed to do. I also read aloud a book I wrote many years ago, The 100 Shirts of Mr. Lee. This story is based on a 100 project I did with a fellow teacher, Mr. Lee. 

The class learned the lowercase cursive letters: f, v, m, n, x and z. The students now know how to write all the letters of the alphabet in cursive. 

Each day the students recite the poem, "Salutation to the Dawn" as part of our morning routine. The challenge is for the children to say the poem without looking at the words.

In math, the class learned how to calculate elapsed time, or how to figure out the amount of time that has passed from one time to another. The students began the unit on Canadian money by reviewing the features of each the Canadian coins. We started to practice how to calculate the value of groups of coins by using what they know about skip counting.

As part of our poetry unit, the students have listened to poems read aloud and written different kinds of poems, so now they are working on reading and interpreting poems. Poems have fewer words than stories and so the reader must do a lot of "reading between the lines" in order to understand and make connections to the text.

The students wrote a detailed reflection on their artistic process. They each reflected on their artwork based on the painting we studied last week, The Persistence of Memory (1931) by the Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dali. 

As part of our celebration of year of the monkey for Chinese New Year, the children began to sew a monkey using socks! Everyone managed to sew the body this week and we'll work on finishing the monkeys next week.

The class learned and wrote about the history and traditions of "Pancake Tuesday". We also cooked and ate pancakes with real maple syrup as part of this celebration. Did you know that this day is also known as Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday)? It's a Christian tradition that marks the time of Lent, 40 days before Easter. It's a time of restraint and so, traditionally on this day, families would feast on butter and eggs, for example, to use up these foods before Lent begins.

On Wednesday, the class participated in a student "Author Day" in the school library. The children voted for the best chapter books written by their fellow students, and these children read aloud their books to three other primary classes. Congratulations to Salma, Jordan, Jack, Emma and Robina.

The students decorated Valentine's Day bags to collect their Valentine's Day cards. They also created Valentines for their families. We celebrated by eating treats and watching Pink Panther cartoons.

We officially started "The Room 204 Interview Show" this week by interviewing both the principal, Mrs. Farrelly and the vice-principal, Ms. Schneider. The videos can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (chapter book - finished)

Monkey World by Matthew Porter (poems)

The 100 Shirts of Mr. Lee by Nancy Rawlinson

Salutation to the Dawn

Here the students recite the poem, "Salutation to the Dawn" by the Indian Sanskrit poet Kalidasa. He lived around 400 CE (that's 1,616 years ago). The words teach us to enjoy life and to remind us to live each day the best we can. Here is the video:


 

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a fiction story using the Salvador Dali painting, "The Persistence of Memory" (1931), as the setting for the story. There is also a math worksheet reviewing analog/digital time and the relationship between units of time (for example, one year = 12 months). Attached to the worksheet is an outline of the Dali painting (suitable for colouring, if desired) to help the students remember the details of the painting and on the reverse, some cursive writing practice. This homework is due on THURSDAY, February 11th (due to the P. A. Day on Friday).

Tap or click on the image to see the full photo.

News for February 5

News for February 5

This week the children learned that February is a very busy month for holidays and traditions! There is Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day), the 100th day of school, Valentine's Day, Family Day, Canadian Flag Day and Black History Month (plus a P. A. Day and Student Author Day).

In math, the students continued to review how to tell and show time on analog and digital clocks, this time to 5 minute intervals. We also learned about the relationships between units of time (for example, one day = 24 hours) and how to use a calendar to find dates given certain information (for example, What is the date three weeks before May 5th?)

In writing, the students learned about words that rhyme, both how to recognize words that rhyme and how to generate rhyming words. After hearing the read aloud book, "My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes", the children used the pattern in the book to create their own versions of this rhyming poem. We then put all the poems together to create the class book, "Ms. R's Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes" using photos of my cat Iggy sitting, standing and sleeping in boxes.

The children also used their five senses to write riddle poems. After getting a slice of fresh orange, the students wrote down what the orange looked like, smelled like, felt like, sounded like and tasted like. This is a good introduction to simile and metaphor for the students are forced to compare the orange to other things (for example, "It looks like an orange smile" and "It tastes like sunshine").

The class finished their research books on simple machines. As a class the children learned about the history of the elevator. Did you know that at first people were scared to use an elevator as a people mover? Elisha Otis invented the "brake" that helps make the cable and pulley system safe. These little facts books were collected into a binder to create another class book. The students found out a lot about common objects and what kind of simple machine(s) they are. Did you know that the Louisville Slugger baseball bat is basically a lever and that it was invented by John A. "Bud" Hillerich around 1884, when he was only 17 years old?

In cursive writing, the students learned the lowercase cursive letters b, e, h, k and l. The class has now learned 21 of the 26 lowercase letters.

The class learned about the holiday and traditions of Chinese New Year. This holiday lasts 15 days from the first day of the lunar Chinese calendar. This year is called the year of the fire monkey. The children used "lai see" or lucky red envelopes and what they knew about the 3D geometric figure, the octahedron, to fold and staple together these fancy envelpes to create lantern decorations. These decorarations are now hanging in the hallway outside of our classroom. We also learned about the animals of the Chinese zodiac and figured out which animal each student birthday is linked to. It gets complicated because if the birthday is at the beginning of the calendar year, the Chinese zodiac animal is from the previous year. We will formally celebrate this holiday the week of February 15th.

In science, the class did a series of small experiments to learn about the force of static electricity. Using balloons, they created areas of static electricity by rubbing the balloons on their heads and trying to get the balloon to "stick" to their heads, hands or walls of the classroom. 

As a connection to our math unit on time, the children learned about the Spanish artist Salvador Dali's most famous painting, "The Persistence of Time" (1931) that features bent, floppy, melted analog clock images. They also saw photos of the artist, who is known for his fancy moustache. Dali was part of the surrealist art movement that took ordinary real things and made then look unreal or surreal. In the spirit of this painting, students collaged printed analog clocks to paper (upside down, cut up or with a Dali style moustache), then designed their own art using oil pastels. Later the students gave titles to their art and wrote a reflection on their artistic process. 

The class also had time to estimate and count the number of beads in a sealed bag of beads from the bead store. After counting out ten groups of 100 (1,000) and realizing how long it would take to count all the beads, I introduced the concept of using what they know about mass to help. So we used a digital scale to find out that 1,000 beads weighed 60 g and 100 beads weighed 6 g. Then we used this information to find out that there were 7,352 beads in the bag. A group of students was challenged to make a poster to show this information clearly (see photo in the next post). THEN, I showed a similar bag of beads to the students and asked how many beads they thought were in this bag...after some thought, they realized there would be about 7,000 beads because that was what they figured out from the other bag of beads. YAY! In this ad hoc project, the students showed applied math knowledge in various forms and their teacher was very proud of the class! 

Books read aloud this week:

Going Up! Elisha Otis's Trip to the Top by Monica Kulling

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton

Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes