News for January 19

News for January 19

This four-day week had the students beginning to write chapter books, creating social studies research posters and making decorations for Chinese New Year!

In math, the children continued to answer daily survey questions and practise interpreting the results. Did you know that the children in Room 204 mostly wear velcro shoes? The class reviewed horizontal and vertical bar graphs, pictographs and learned about pie graphs (also called circle graphs). At the end of the week, the students began to draw their own bar graphs.

The students finished the good copies of their penguin stories, written as if the penguin was telling the story. The final versions were decorated with the origami penguins the children folded last week. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

The children each created a new stuffed character to star in the next writing project. A "glovetopus" (glove + octopus) was made by each child using a pair of gloves, stuffing and buttons for eyes.

The class began a new project...writing chapter books with a glovetopus as the main character! The students discussed how to plan for a three (or more) chapter book. They also learned that an author often needs to do research to help him/her with the details of a story. So they listened to a read aloud book containing facts about octopuses. (Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?) The children also started to create illustrations for their books.

Each student wrote a letter to me, outlining his/her goals for the rest of the school year. The children reflected on goals for writing, rules and routines and interacting with other students.

In social studies, most children have finished their country research and are now writing the information directly on their posters.

The class learned about the holiday and traditions of Chinese New Year (January 28). In preparation for our celebration next week the students used red "lucky" envelopes to create lanterns for decorations. Actually, folding and stapling the envelopes was a great way to review some geometry...

Finally, the children learned the cursive letters "d, c, g" this week.

Books read aloud this week:

Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith

My Favourite Animal - Octopus by Victoria Marcos

Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (chapter book)