News for September 29
This week the students learned about direction words and the earth’s 7 continents, “counting on” strategies and began writing and rehearsing sock puppet movies!
On Thursday morning, our whole school remembered the Canadian hero, Terry Fox, who worked tirelessly to raise money to help find a cure for cancer. Did you know that Terry Fox ran an average of 42 kilometres a day across Canada for 143 days before his cancer returned and he had to stop? Thanks for all the donations to our classroom Terry Fox fund. We raised over $50!
In math, the students looked at numbers on a number line and how to “read” different kinds of number lines and place numbers on them. They also began to review and build on, what they know about addition. Adding zero or one to any number is easy. However, children at this age sometimes stumble with addition questions beyond 0 and 1. The answer to any addition question is called a “sum”. The students learned various strategies to add numbers. This week we concentrated on identifying the greater, or bigger number and then counting on or adding on the second, smaller number. The children can use their fingers, a 100 chart, a number line or drawing dots to help them determine the sum of two numbers.
The class learned a cooperative writing game called “The Dice Story Game”. Working in partners, the students wrote stories together. Each student had a different coloured marker and used the die to determine the number of words they could write when it was their turn. The class then sat in a sharing circle on the carpet and the partners read aloud their stories.
Each child chose a magazine photo to use for inspiration for writing a story. After taping the image into his/her journal, each students then, using proper sentences, wrote a story about the picture.
In social studies, the class learned about the four cardinal directions, north, south, east and west. They determined where these directions were in our classroom and we placed signs on the walls and each child created a compass “rose” for his/her desk. They also learned how humans have divided the land on earth into seven different areas called continents. They completed several activities to identify the seven continents, even a short song! The 7 continents are North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica and Africa.
In guided reading, the students worked in groups to read, discover and learn more about 3D images in books. Did you know that 3D glasses give your eyes two different images and tricks the brain into thinking a flat picture is three-dimensional?
The students learned more of the ASL sign language alphabet. The children now know the signs for the letters A to P.
The class discussed the parts of a movie: credits, characters and story. Each child made a sock puppet and are now working in small groups to create movies using their puppets as the characters. These movies will be filmed and posted next week.
In Library, the children checked out their first library books. Please make sure your child returns their library book each week. PLEASE DO NOT LOSE THE WHITE LIBRARY BAG! It has a barcode on it that is used to check out library books on the library computer.
Students now have the chance to borrow books each day from our classroom, in our BORROW-A-BOOK program. Each child has a clear ziplock bag to protect the book as it moves to and from our classroom. These books are chosen by the student and are meant to be motivating, high-interest books. Reading at home can be read to self, read aloud to an adult or read aloud by an adult to a child. At this age, all these types of reading are excellent age-appropriate reading experiences.
Books read aloud this week:
Young Helen Keller - Woman of Courage by Anne Benjamin
The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarone-Roach
Birthdays Around the World by Margriet Ruurs (illustrated by Ashely Barron)
Sizing Up Winter by Lizann Flatt (illustrated by Ashely Barron)
