Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the 3D geometry review sheet and the reading comprehension worksheet. This homework is due on Friday, February 1st.

Parent Notes:

On Wednesday, February 6, our class will begin attending swim classes. Swim lessons for our class are on Day 2. Currently, Day 2 falls on a Wednesday. However, after February 18, Day 2 will fall on Fridays. Please help the swim instructors by having your child practise changing into and out of his/her swimsuit independently. Also, please put your child's name on the OUTSIDE of his/her swim bag. This helps to identify swim gear without having to pull wet items out of the bag.

Important Dates:

February 1 - School Spirit - Backwards Day
February 12 - Term 1 report cards go home.
February 14 (evening) and February 15 (morning) - Teacher/parent interviews
February 15 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
February 18 - Family Day - no classes on this day
February 25 - Kwanis Festival trip - Primary Choir members ONLY
March 1 - School Spirit - Beach Day
March 11-15 - MARCH BREAK
April 19 - Good Friday - no classes on this day
April 22 - Easter Monday - no classes on this day
May 20 - Victoria Day - no classes on this day
June 7 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
June 27 - Last day of classes for the 2018-2019 school year

News for January 25

Well, despite school bus cancellations and many student absences, we managed to have fun learning about 3-D (three dimensional) geometry, sewing glovetopuses and planning and starting to write chapter books!

In math, the children learned about 3-D figures, prisms and pyramids, cylinders, cones and spheres. The three basic attributes of these figures are vertices (corners), faces and edges. The children practised identifying the figures by name and counting the various attributes. Later in the week the students built their own figures using toothpicks and plasticine and wrote about the figures and the process of creating them.

The children wrote poems about the 2-D polygon art they created last week. The artwork and poems are now on display on the bulletin board in our classroom.

The students created the main characters for their next writing projects. Using a pair of gloves, each child stuffed the fingers and sewed on button eyes to create a gloves+octopus=glovetopus stuffie. The class discussed how authors do research before writing books and we read a book and looked online for facts about octopuses that the students can use in their stories. Did you know that an octopus has 3 hearts and has blue blood? After reviewing the stages of the writing process, the class planned their stories and started to write the rough copy of their chapter books.

In our small guided reading groups, the learning goal was to practise how to "read between the lines" in a story help understand the story and to predict what will happen next. Reading the book, "That's What Friends Are For", the children used their prior knowledge and information in the text to predict the next part of the story.

The students painted the the posters of the words from the poem, "Salutation to the Dawn" that the class discussed last week. These posters will be displayed around the classroom for the children to read each day to help the class memorize the poem.

At the end of the week, the children had an opportunity to use discarded yogurt tube boxes from the snack program to design and make something for the glovetopus characters. Some children made houses, others cars and rocket ships.

Due to many children being away this week, we were only able to film one of the three groups performing the play, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". Please look for all the videos to be posted next week!

Books read aloud this week:

Mmm, Cookies by Robert Munsch
Martha Speaks by Susan Meddaugh
Martha Calling by Susan Meddaugh
Martha Blah Blah by Susan Meddaugh
Martha Walks the Dog by Susan Meddaugh
Octopus - My Favourite Animal by Victoria Marcos
That's What Friends Are For by Florence Parry Heide

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the worksheet reviewing the week's word wall words and geometry vocabulary. This homework is due on Friday, January 25th.

Important Dates:

February 12 - Term 1 report cards go home.
February 14 (evening) and February 15 (morning) - Teacher/parent interviews
February 15 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
February 18 - Family Day - no classes on this day
March 11-15 - MARCH BREAK
April 19 - Good Friday - no classes on this day
April 22 - Easter Monday - no classes on this day
May 20 - Victoria Day - no classes on this day
June 7 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
June 27 - Last day of classes for the 2018-2019 school year

News from January 17

News for January 17

The last two weeks had the children learning about two-dimensional geometry, growing borax crystals and rehearsing Reader's Theatre plays. We even welcomed a new student to Room 222!

The children learned about two-dimensional (flat) geometry. Shapes that are flat, with straight sides and many sides, vertices (corners) and angles are called polygons. The students learned how to draw polygons, how to create different polygons using elastics and geoboards and how to transfer their polygon designs on geodot paper. Circles are technically not polygons because they are considered to have an infinite number of sides and vertices, they are considered to have zero sides and vertices. The class also went on a polygon hunt in the classroom and found that some polygons are very difficult to find (e.g., pentagons) and some were extremely easy (e.g., rectangles).

The students learned about an ancient puzzle called the tangram. There are 7 pieces or "tans" in a set of tangrams. The challenge is to use all seven pieces to solve puzzles. The children improved so much that most could solve tangram puzzles in less than 30 seconds. The students also designed their own puzzles and then solved each other's designs.

The children created "polygon art" using pattern blocks. First they made a repeating border around the paper and then a shape design in the centre of the paper. The challenge was to make a design by tracing pattern block polygons only.

The class concentrated on reading and writing poems this week. The students learned that poems are a type of writing where the usual writing rules do not apply. They wrote concrete (shape) poems, list poems, 5 senses  and acrostic poems. The class even got to smell, see, touch, hear and taste a piece of fresh lemon to help them write their 5 senses poems.

Our class word wall from term one has 119 words on it and there is no more room! So, each child created a "personal dictionary" to hold these words, so that the word wall can be cleared to hold the word wall words for term two.

In science, the children reviewed what they learned about liquids and solids by "growing" borax crystals. First the students dissolved borax powder (a laundry detergent booster) in cold water, which did not work very well. Then, after adding hot water, the solid powder dissolved more easily because there were more "spaces" between the water molecules due to the heat (energy) in the water. When the water cooled the borax came out of solution and settled on the pipe cleaner as large cube-like crystals.

The children chorally read aloud the Reader's Theatre play "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". Then the students chose the roles that they wished to play and they were divided into three theatre groups. The groups rehearsed all week, making signs and choosing costumes. These plays will be filmed and posted on this blog next week.

At the end of the week, the class read aloud the poem (originally written in Sanskrit), "Salutation to the Dawn" by the ancient Indian poet Kalidasa. It is a tradition in my class for children to memorize this poem, which reminds the reader to live a good life. In order to help the students learn this poem, each child chose a short phrase from the poem, and began creating a large poster with those words. These will be hung around the classroom for the children to practise reading each day.

Books read aloud January 7-17

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (chapter book)
The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns
Wabi Sabi - A Story With Haiku Poems by Mark Reibstein
My Very First Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes edited by Rosemary Wells
Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire

Photos January 11

Well, I apologize for not posting the news for last week. I was very sick with cold/flu. Honestly, it was the first time in the ten year history of this blog that I missed a week! So, here are some photos from the first week of January...