Sunday, March 26, 2017

Update from Ms. R



I apologize for being absent for three days this week. I'm currently dealing with a family health issue involving my father. 
The homework for this week is to complete the social studies worksheet about immigration to Canada during the period 1780-1850. There is also a math sheet reviewing concepts learned about fractions. This homework is due on Friday, March 31st.
***Notes for Parents***
THANK YOU so much for practicing multiplication facts with your child at home. Each day we have a quick quiz to help students memorize the facts and we have already seen an improvement!
Mark your calendars! The 12th Annual 100 Books Party is on the morning of Thursday, April 13th. This is a big celebration of the reading and writing in Room 204 and if you are able to attend, even for a short time, it means a lot to the children.
Important Dates:
* NEW April 13 - Room 204's 100 Books Party! (morning) - more information to follow
April 14 - Good Friday holiday
April 16 - Easter Sunday
April 17 - Easter Monday holiday
May 22 - Victoria Day holiday
June 9 - P.A. Day (no school)
June 29 - Last day of school for the 2016-2017 school year.

News for March 24


News for March 24
This week the children learned about the seasons, fractions, weaving and much more!
In math, the class continues to practice multiplication facts and their application to solving word problems. For the next few weeks, we will be having quick daily quizzes to help the students retain their multiplication facts. On Thursday, the children began to learn about fractions, or how a whole of something or a whole set of something can be divided into EQUAL parts (fair shares). The students learned how to name these equal parts using words and how to write fractions using numbers.
The class created "Fraction Books". First they folded a large piece of paper into a book with eight pages, talking about the fractions and the shapes they created as they folded the paper. Then the children used squares of origami paper to show various fractions of a whole. By folding and cutting the paper squares they created two ways to show halves, one way to show thirds and three ways to show fourths (quarters) of a whole square. Finally they experimented with showing different fractions of a square (for example, eights, sixteenths). They also experienced first hand that it's easy to fold and cut fractions with an even number of equal parts but it's much more difficult to fold and cut fractions with an odd number of equal parts!
As part of our science unit on structures, the class began to create a city made out of Lego. First, they brainstormed the types of buildings found in a city (e.g., school, restaurant). Then each child chose a building to create. These lego models are now on the students' desks, but next week they'll be making a map with roads on which they can put their buildings. They also watched the "Under Construction - Structures" episode of The Magic School Bus.
In writing, the children wrote descriptions of their lego buildings and started to write fiction stories using their lego buildings as the settings for their writing.
The students talked about the four seasons and the science behind why they happen. Spring began this year on Monday, March 20 at 6:28 AM. This is also known as the "spring equinox". Each of the four seasons lasts for three months (12 divided by 4 equals 3). As an extension to this lesson, they learned about the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) who was inspired by paintings of fall, winter, spring and summer, to write music that "sounds" like the different seasons. The children listened to several excerpts of Vivaldi's Four Season violin concertos to "listen" to his interpretation of the seasons.
The class began the social studies unit about the history of Canada 1780-1850. The students started by learning how people lived their daily lives back then. Basically, anything humans had or used over 150 years ago had to be grown or made by them. We focused this week on one way that clothing was made. The class learned how wool from sheep is made into fabric. The process starts by shearing the wool off the sheep, carding the wool, spinning the wool, dyeing the wool, weaving the wool on a loom and cutting and sewing the fabric into clothing. The class watched how wool can be dyed from a natural white colour to pinkish-red using Kool Aid drink powder. They also looked at fabric to see the horizontal and vertical threads that make woven fabric. Each student also learned how to make a loom out of cardboard and put the vertical (warp) threads on the loom and how to weave the weft (horizontal) threads over and under the vertical threads to make a fabric bookmark.
The class also had a chance to learn about immigration to Canada over 150 years ago. At that time immigrants came mostly from Scotland, England, Ireland, Germany and the United States. 
There was no Room 204 Interview Show this week. The show will return next week.
Books read aloud this week:
Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow
Four Seasons in One Day - Vivaldi's Four Seasons by Jessica Courtney-Tickle


Sunday, March 12, 2017

The Room 204 Interview Show!

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

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal. The story should have something to do with March Break. Students can write non-fiction stories about what happened during March Break OR write fiction stories with March Break as part of the story. There is also a math worksheet reviewing multiplication concepts. This homework is due on Friday, March 24th, so the children have two weeks to complete and hand in their work.
***NOTE TO PARENTS***
Please have your child practise their multiplication facts at home (x0 to x10). Children who have quick strategies to figure them out or who have memorized their facts, do better at math in the upper grades. The reason is that they can use their mental energy to solve more complicated problems instead of getting slowed down by inefficient methods of fact recall. Practising 5 minutes a day with flash cards or purchased workbooks really helps!`
Mark your calendars! The 12th Annual 100 Books Party is on the morning of Thursday, April 13th. This is a big celebration of the reading and writing in Room 204 and if you are able to attend, even for a short time, it means a lot to the children.
Important Dates:
March 13 to 17 - March Break holiday
* NEW April 13 - Room 204's 100 Books Party! (morning) - more information to follow
April 14 - Good Friday holiday
April 16 - Easter Sunday
April 17 - Easter Monday holiday
May 22 - Victoria Day holiday
June 9 - P.A. Day (no school)
June 29 - Last day of school for the 2016-2017 school year.





News for March 10



News for March 10
This week the class wrote silly stories, practised multiplication and division and did some math and art challenges.
The class reviewed the four main parts of speech. Humans like to sort words into nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs! The students used this knowledge to help them play the game, "Mad Libs". This is a game where the players are asked to write down various nouns, adjectives etc. Then they write these words into the blanks in a pre-printed story. The results are very funny! The class played this game twice this week and shared their version of the stories with their friends.
Each child created their own multiplication facts chart. This chart is like a paper calculator for multiplication. The children are allowed to use this chart as they learn their "times tables". This fact chart will also help them with division facts because division is the "opposite" of multiplication. The class used what they knew to solved words problems involving multiplication and division.
On Friday, the class reviewed 2D and 3D geometry concepts. The students learned how to fold paper circles into tetrahedrons or triangle-based pyramids. This is a tricky procedure that requires learning and remembering 10 different steps. The children were challenged to make a lot of these modular units and create bigger structures, alone or with a partner by attaching them together geometrically. That is, taping the units together face-to-face, edge-to-edge and vertice-to-vertice. The class managed to discover and create hexahedrons, octahedrons, decahedrons, larger tetrahedrons and two different ways to make icosahedrons!
The class learned about the Indian holiday "Holi" or The Festival of Colours (March 12 and 13 this year). Did you know that Hinduism is thought to be the oldest religion on Earth? On this holiday families and friend celebrate the coming of spring by throwing brightly coloured powders and water on each other.
On March 17th, it's St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick was a man who went to Ireland 1,500 years ago to teach about the Christian religion. He used the common three-leaf clover to symbolize faith, love and hope. This is also called a shamrock. (The four leaf clover is a rare form of clover that is said to bring good luck.)
In one of our last formal discussions for our Traditions and Celebrations unit, the class learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Did you know that there is a holiday in the United States named after him?) He was a man who did an amazing amount of work to change the way people think about treating everyone equally. He managed to do this through his words and actions alone. He studied the great Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi, who taught that significant change can be made using non-violent methods. The class also discussed that sometimes when we study history, we have to learn and talk about difficult subjects, but that it's still important to know about these things, so that it never happens again.
In science, we did a class experiment to prove that water condensing on the outside of a cold container come from water in the air. The children learned the basic part of the "scientific method" (purpose/materials/method/observations and conclusions) and wrote about the experiment and what they learned.
The class also had a chance to watch two episodes of the children's science program, "The Magic Schoolbus". They watched episodes related to our science unit about air and water in the environment.
The class was given a "paint chip" challenge. The challenge was to creat art using a paper strip of related paint colours. It was interesting to see the different ideas the children had. Some created flat pictures, some made sculptures and others even made rooms in boxes! The students were then asked to write about their artistic process in their writing journals.
Our guest this week on the Room 204 Interview Show was Ms. Ceneda. She is a teacher at our school. This video can be seen in a separate posting.
Books read aloud this week:
The Twelve Dancing Princesses (in the Fairytale Princess anthology from last week)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears - A Tale Moderne retold by Steven Guarnaccia
One Grain of Rice - A Mathematical Folktale by Demi
The King's Chessboard by David Birch
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day by Mir Tamsin Ansary




Sunday, March 5, 2017

News for March 3


News for March 3
This week the class started learning about multiplication, they made and ate pancakes, finished learning all the cursive letters of the alphabet, wrote funny stories with a partner and much more!
In math, the children began discussing multiplication. Multiplication is a very complex set of understandings, but we began with the idea that multiplication speeds up repeated addition. For example, 2+2+2+2+2=10 becomes 5 groups of two equals 10 or 5x2=10. The class learned about "arrays" or arrangements of things into rows and columns, which help to figure out multiplication number sentences. For example, in a package there are 2 rows of muffins with 3 muffins in each row, or 2x3=6, so 6 muffins in the package.
The students played our classroom's popular cooperative writing game using a die with a partner. We discussed what makes a story that others want to read. Things like an catchy first sentence, lots of adjectives and humour all work together to help the reader enjoy a story. All the stories were shared orally with the rest of the class. These "dice" stories will be typed and put in a binder as a class book for the children to read during independent reading time.
The children also continued to work on their retellings of fairy tales in their writing journals.
On Tuesday, the class learned about the history and traditions of the Christian holiday, Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. The children learned about how Christians, in the time before refrigerators, would use up perishable food like eggs and butter on Pancake Day before fasting in the days leading up to Easter. The students helped to make pancakes in class and ate them with maple syrup (that they learned about last week). Did you know that it takes 40 litres of maple tree sap to boil (and evaporate off the water to concentrate the sugars) to make 1 litre of maple syrup?
The students read about different "tooth traditions" around the world. Did you know that in Mexico and Spain, a child who has lost a tooth gets a present from a mouse? The students also had a chance to write about what happens in their families when a child loses a tooth.
In science, children shared a read aloud book about saving water and energy and discussed the importance of being kind to the Earth by keeping water and air clean. Then, after reviewing the parts of a good poster, each child created a poster to communicate the importance of clean water and saving energy.
The class learned the final four cursive letters, "m, n, x, z". The students expressed interest in learning the cursive capital letters as well, so a worksheet was included in the homework. The children are now allowed to using printing or cursive writing for all their work.
The students practised writing their first names in cursive. Then they wrote their cursive names really big plus the reflection of their names on paper and coloured in the spaces. Finally, they considered what the lines looked like (many look like aliens or insects) and wrote about the process of making their art.
We filmed the last Reader's Theatre play this week. This video can now be seen in the Reader's Theatre posting from last week.
Our guest this week on the Room 204 Interview Show was Ms. Harnick. She is a teacher at our school. This video can be seen in a separate posting.
The children also made a "get well" card and video for our school's principal, Mrs. Farrelly.
Books read aloud this week:
Rapunzel (from the book, The Fairy Tale Princesses) retold by Su Blackwell
The Bremen Town Musicians retold by Ilse Plume
The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson
Jack and the Beanstalk retold by Susan Pearson
Saving Water and Energy by Philip Steele


Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is for each student to write a cooperative story with an adult, then write about the teaching experience. There is also a worksheet to practice cursive capital letters and a math sheet reviewing multiplication concepts covered this week. This homework is due on FRIDAY, MARCH 10th.
***NOTE TO PARENTS***
Our library day is now on TUESDAYS. Please help your child to remember to return his/her library book to school each week.
Please help your child to hand in his/her homework every Friday. This is a regular weekly routine and many children are not handing in their work on time. Weekly homework reviews concepts and teaches students to be responsible for their own work. If your child is unsure of the weekly assignment, you can check the class blog, ask a friend or email me.
Mark your calendars! The 12th Annual 100 Books Party is on the morning of Thursday, April 13th. This is a big celebration of the reading and writing in Room 204 and if you are able to attend, even for a short time, it will mean a lot to the children.
Important Dates:
March 13 to 17 - March Break holiday
* NEW April 13 - Room 204's 100 Books Party! (morning) - more information to follow
April 14 - Good Friday holiday
April 16 - Easter Sunday
April 17 - Easter Monday holiday
May 22 - Victoria Day holiday
June 9 - P.A. Day (no school)
June 29 - Last day of school for the 2016-2017 school year.



The Room 204 Interview Show!

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