News for March 2

News for March 2, 2018

This week the children celebrated the Quebec winter holiday called “Carnaval”, did math probability experiments and they even had a gym class with me as their teacher!

Writing

Our glovetopus chapter book project is almost finished. Each child has finished the rough copy of his/her book and now the children are working on editing and revising their work and creating illustrations. (I will be typing the good copy of these chapter books.)

The children learned how to write the cursive letters b, k, l and e. Only six letters to go!

Reading

This week our read aloud books focussed on the lives of cats and lions. The children learned about the life cycle of a cat. Then they learned the true (non-fiction) story of a lion in England who was kept as a pet in London, but eventually returned to Africa. The students then saw a video of the real Christian the lion reuniting with the young men that helped raise him. 

Here is the video: https://youtu.be/Sju3kSTAzdI

Finally, the children heard the read aloud book “A Lion in Paris”. It is a fiction story about a lion who leaves Africa to go and live in the city of Paris.

Math 

In math, the children did a variety of probability experiments to determine which outcomes were more or less likely to happen. They flipped coins, rolled one die, rolled two dice and even “peeked” into a sealed mystery box to predict the number of different coloured cubes in the box. Flipping a coin to get heads or tails is equally likely. Rolling one die to get 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 is equally likely. The class found that when rolling two dice, it is more likely to get a roll of 6, 7 and 8 (because there are a number of different addition combinations to make each of those totals) but less likely to roll a 2, 3, 11 and 12 (because there is only one combination to make each of these totals). 

Science

The class continued to learn more about an odd English language tradition of animal collective noun words or names for groups of animals. Did you know that it was started hundreds of years ago as a parlour game for very rich people to make up the most creative name for a group of animals? The children learned the collective nouns for their research animals, for example, an “ambush” of tigers or a “raft” of penguins. They also each created a drawing to illustrate their animals collective nouns to be included on their research posters.

The class also learned, in detail, about the life cycle of a cat. Did you know kittens lose their baby teeth before they get their adult teeth, just like humans?

The children wrote sentences using the science facts they researched about different animals. They are now writing the “good copy” of these sentences on their research posters.

Social Studies

The class learned the traditions and history of “Le Carnaval de Quebec” or the Quebec Winter Carnival. The traditional colours are blue and white, as these are the colours of the Quebec provincial flag. The mascot is a large snowman figure called “Bonhomme Carnaval”. Did you know that the celebration lasts for 17 days and over a million people visit Quebec City to celebrate Carnaval every year?

Here is a short video about Carnaval: https://youtu.be/HzG9TbY53nI

On Thursday, the children celebrated Carnaval at school by attending a magic show, playing outdoor games, going to face painting and eating pancakes.

Oral Communication and Media Literacy

Our guest on the Room 204 Interview Shows this week was Ms.Comor. She is a grade 3/4 teacher at our school. Please see this video in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

How Things Grow: From Kitten to Cat by Sally Morgan

Christian the Lion by Anthony Bourke and John Randall

Curious George Makes Pancakes by Margaret and H. A. Rey

A Lion in Paris by Beatrice Alemagna

Compilations of Animal Collective Nouns (four books) by Patrick George