News for September 14, 2018

News for September 14, 2018

It was another busy week in Room 222. The children began to study their weekly word wall words, they reviewed and practiced addition strategies and they even went outside to collect acorns to study!

In math, the children made their own 100 charts by writing the numbers 1-100 in a 10x10 grid. The students can use this chart help them to do addition (and later subtraction) and they used their homemade charts as game boards to play “Race to 100” using two dice. The children reviewed and practiced skip counting forward and backward by tens. The children also reviewed and practiced the “make ten” facts or which pairs of digits make 10 (e.g., 4+6=10 or 6+4=10), “double facts” (e.g., 7+7=14) and “double plus one facts” (e.g., 7+8=15).

In writing, all the students have now finished writing their fiction stories about the paintings they created last week. Each child edited his/her story with me and then I typed up the stories. These stories will be put on display with the artwork in our classroom. The students also wrote in their journals about our trip outside to gather acorns and wrote a bit about what they observed about acorns.

The class studied the first “word wall words” (spelling words) for this year. The children practise these words in a variety of ways, such as clapping, stomping and writing on chalkboards. At the end of each week, there is a small spelling “quiz” and the word cards are moved to the class WORD WALL. This word wall is like a big class dictionary and can be referenced when needed.

The class practised their “reading for learning” strategies this week by learning how to use a highlighter to look for important words in sentences. The class chorally read a short non-fiction passage about ants, highlighted important information and then answered some comprehension questions. Did you know that ants are a kind of insect because they have 6 legs? 

In art, each student now has his/her own art journal to keep in his/her desk. This is a spiral-bound book of blank paper that they can use to draw or write in at their discretion. I introduced the class to our bin of “how to draw” books. These books help children learn how to draw everything from cats to trucks to dinosaurs.

In science, the children complied their facts about squirrels and we now have a display of their squirrel research on a bulletin board in our classroom. Each student drew a picture, wrote out a squirrel fact and had his/her photo taken with “Frisko” the squirrel puppet. The class also went outside to collect acorns from two trees near the school. Squirrels love to eat acorns! The students learned how to use magnifying glasses and used these to look closely at the acorns and discuss what they noticed about them. We determined from the shape of the leaves and the shape of the acorn that the trees are White Oak trees. Did you know that a squirrel nest is called a “drey”? Did you know that the science word for the cap of an acorn is “cupule”?

When I was walking outside this week new the school I found a Monarch Butterfly on the ground. The children were intrigued! I brought it into the class to help us learn more about insects for our animal science unit next week.

On Wednesday, there was a whole school assembly in the auditorium, when the two Vice-Principals, Ms. Macina and Mr. Culakovski talked to the students about school rules. The children also went to the pool area and learned about pool safety and rules with Ms. Feng and Ms. A.

Books read aloud this week:

Squirrelly Gray by John Kochalka

What Pet Should I Get? By Dr. Suess

A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock

I Wish I Had Duck Feet by Dr. Suess

The Big Honey Hunt by Stanley and Janice Berenstain