News for May 19

News for May 19

This week the students reviewed math concepts, wrote and drew comics and wondered about what was happening to the caterpillars inside their chrysalids.

In math, the grade 3 students continued to review all the math units covered in class since September, in preparation for the EQAO testing next week. The grade two students did independent review math sheets. On Wednesday, the children did two math challenges using old grade 3 EQAO questions. They worked with a partner to solve the word problems and the each team did a brilliant job. This was especially impressive since half the children are in grade 2!

In writing, as a connection to the school visit by author/illlustrator Mike Deas, the class learned some tips on how to plan and draw comics/graphic novels. Using a pre-printed sheet of blank panels, the students planned their stories and started to draw and write their comics. Mr. Deas gave a presentation of his work in the gym on Tuesday. I also brought out the large collection of "Archie" comics that belonged to my sons, for children to read and see how a story is written in this style.

The children are finishing up their good copies of their treasure jar stories. The students are showing amazing creativity on how to solve the problem of attaching the storybook to the jar. Some are rolling up the story to store inside the jar and some are making little books to attach to the outside of the jar. As book designers, they are showing a range of ways to keep the treasure jar and story together.

On Thursday, the author Elizabeth MacLeod came to our class and gave a presentation to the students of Room 204 and Room 208. She has written 60 non-fiction books for children! She amazed us with her knowledge of Canadian historical events, famous Canadians and even Canadian dinosaurs! 

In science, our caterpillar/butterfly project is now at the halfway mark. Almost all of the caterpillars are in the "pupa" stage of the insect life cycle and have now formed chrysalids (1 chrysalis/2 chrysalids) and these have been placed in a "butterfly cage". The students continued to ask questions to guide our research. Did you know that it takes 10-14 days for a caterpillar to transform into a butterfly inside the chrysalis? The children each wrote down his/her hypothesis about how this transformation happened. Then they learned that scientists know that the caterpillar breaks apart to form a liquid inside the chrysalis, making a "caterpillar soup". The adult butterfly is made from the parts in the "soup". I even managed to wrap up the star student in paper to give the class an idea of how little space the caterpillar has to change into a butterfly!

The grade 3 children from Ms. Ceneda's class joined our grade 3 students for 6 periods this week to prepare to write the standardized EQAO test over 4 days next week. Everyone worked very hard to learn the "tricks" to writing this kind of test and to review how to read questions properly and to answer questions completely and correctly. The grade 2 students went to Ms. Ceneda's class during this time.

Finally, the children began to make symmetrical butterfly art by putting blobs of paint inside folded paper and squishing the paint around to create colourful, patterned, symmetrical wings. The class will continue this activity next week.

Books read aloud this week:

Helen Keller: A Determined Life by Elizabeth MacLeod

My Family Vacation by Dayal Kaur Khalsa

Cowboy Dreams by Dayal Kaur Khalsa

Green Cat by Dayal Kaur Khalsa

It's Too Noisy! retold by Joanna Cole

Little House on the Prairie (DVD): The Circus Man