News for September 21, 2018

News for September 21, 2018

This week, the children began learning about digits and place value, they asked research questions about bees and wrote (and shared aloud) cooperative stories.

In math, the class reviewed basic subtraction strategies and practised solving word problems using subtraction. The children began looking at groups of ten, by skip counting by tens (forwards and backwards), using “ten frames” and the “tens place” in a multi-digit number (e.g., the 4 in 43 means four groups of ten). The class also practiced skip counting by 2’s and 5’s as well as by 10’s. Skip counting is a great strategy for counting large groups of things quickly.

In language, the students reviewed how to recognize, read and write statements (“telling sentences”) and questions (“asking sentences”). Sentences are complete thoughts/ideas and must begin with a capital letter and end with a period (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!). The students work with partners to write cooperative fiction stories using a die to decide how many words each person can write on one turn. We then had a sharing circle on the carpet and children read aloud their crazy stories. The children also wrote formal letters to their parents to welcome them to our class on curriculum night.

In science, the class focused on insects this week. They learned the key characteristics of insects. They have 3 body parts (head, thorax, abdomen) and they have 6 legs. They learned the difference between a drawing and a diagram. (A diagram is a true picture, usually with arrows and words. The children drew diagrams of bees and used sticky notes to write down their questions about bees. The students asked some excellent questions! For example, “How big is the biggest bee in the world?” (It’s the Megachile pluto bee at almost 4 cm.) and “How many different kinds of bees are there in the world?” (There are over 20,000 different kinds of bees.) I shared with the students that many years ago, I knew the famous bee expert, Dr. Laurence Packer, when I was studying at the University of Toronto. The class helped to write a letter to Professor Packer (now at York University) to ask him to come to our school to talk about bees. Let’s hope he says “yes”! The class also had a chance to see how humans use honey and the honeycomb wax. People make candles and lip balm, for example, out of beeswax and of course, people eat honey! Children had a chance to eat delicious honey right from the wax honeycomb. This students also made a short video to present the results of their bee research. (This video can be seen in a separate posting.)

In art, the children took on a creative challenge to make art using the acorns they gathered last week. Using glue and an assortment of craft materials, they managed to make some beautiful pictures!

Finally, we had a chance to visit Ms. Mantello in the school library. The books are not on the shelves yet but Ms. Mantello read the class a story. Also, Ms. Francesca, our gym teacher, visited Room 222 to present “The Golden Shoe Award” to the class. The children in our class ran the most laps of the track the previous week, for the primary division. (The students are running laps in preparation for the Terry Fox Run on September 27th.) Well done!

Books read aloud this week:

The Honeybee Man by Lela Nagy

The Buzz About Bees by Kari-Lynn Winters

Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean

The Little Red Pen by Janet Stevens

The Bookshop Dog by Cynthia Ryland

Please Open This Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt