News for December 16

News for December 16

This week the students spent a lot of time preparing for their performance at the school's Winter Concert on the evening of December 20th. Learning the lyrics to the songs and the dance moves takes a lot of time and practice to get it just right.

The students have finally finished their "good copies" of their opinion writing comparing the book "The Iron Man" and the movie "The Iron Giant". There is now a display of the writing on the bulletin board in our hallway, decorated with aluminum foil "iron men".

The class has started a unit looking at snow. The children learned about "Snowflake Bentley" the first person to photograph snowflakes over 100 years ago. The students learned the science behind the formation of the ice crystals in snowflakes. The class then learned how to make hexagonal-shaped snowflakes, which are more scientifically correct that the usual ones people make that are based on an octagon.

In the computer lab, the students visited a site to cut virtual snowflakes:

http://www.funny-games.biz/external/create-a-snowflake.html

In math, each day the children reviewed an aspect of measurement (mass and capacity, linear measurement, time and money) and on Friday, both grades wrote the unit test.

The grade three students continued to work on their paper chain project and have almost made it to the gym. The chain is now attached to the hall ceiling and travels from our class (almost) to the gym. This project shows a real-life application of non-standard unit measurement and estimation and how to use new information to update estimations.
The students also had an opportunity to try making a "house of cards" (this is mentioned in the Firework song the students learned for the concert). They also had a chance to watch the original 1969 cartoon, "Frosty the Snowman" based on the song from the 1950's.

Books read aloud this week:

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino

The Secret Life of a Snowflake by Kenneth Libbrecht

Update from Ms. R

Only two weeks to go until the Winter Holidays...

The homework for this week is to teach an adult learner how to make an "iron man" out of aluminum foil and then write a reflection on the experience. The students are also asked to learn the lyrics for the two songs the class will be performing at the concert on Tuesday, December 20 (7:00 -8:00 PM). The sheets for these activities were sent home with your child on Thursday.

News for December 8

News for December 8

It was a short, 4-day week, but the students in Room 5 were busy as usual.

There was a lot of music in the class this week. First, the students are learning the two songs for our concert performance on the evening of December 20. Second, the students wrote a song (more on this below). The children have copies of the lyrics and are asked to practice learning the songs. Here are two links to help the sing-a-long process:

"What A Wonderful World"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3yCcXgbKrE

"Firework"

(This link features Ms. Fletcher on guitar.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdcmucgdvfU&feature=youtu.be

The students finished watching the DVD story of The Iron Giant. Each child used a Venn diagram to compare the book and the movie, looking at what parts of each story were the same and which parts were different. The class learned about opinion writing and began to write their opinions of the book and movie, remembering to use information from the stories to back up their opinions. The students also learned how to create his/her own "iron" man figure, using aluminum foil.

In math, the students learned about capacity (the amount an object can hold) and the standard units of litre (L) and millilitre (mL) as well as mass (the amount of "stuff" in an object) and the standard units of kilogram (kg) and gram (g). They all used the reference points of a litre bottle of water and a one kilogram bag of sugar to help them understand these standard units better.

The class went to see a play by The Dufflebag Theatre called "The Three Muskateers". In this very funny retelling of the classic story, many students from our school were actors in the play. Our own Haleigh was asked to play the role of "Constance"!

Ms. Fletcher helped the students work together to write a song this week. They used the tune of a song familiar to our class called "All Star" and work in partners to write new lyrics to show what they know about rocks and minerals. The song was a great success and a video of the students performing this song can be found at the end of this posting. The class said "good bye" to Ms. Fletcher this week as she will be at a different school next month. We all wish her the best of luck in her role as a teacher!

The students continued to learn more about the brain. We read a book that talked about what it means to be a genius and during our computer time, the children visited a website that has games that challenges you to use your brain differently:

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/braingames/braingames.htm

Books read aloud this week:

Train Your Brain To Be A Genius by John Woodward

Zero by Kathryn Otoshi

Room 5 - Trip to the ROM

Here are some photos of our trip to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM):

Update from Ms. R

Our trip to the ROM was a success! The children all had a great time. Thanks so much to Carson's mom Sherry and to Doron's mom Rodica for volunteering on the trip.

The homework for this week is to complete the review worksheets on money and cursive writing.

Important Dates:

December 9 - Federation Day - no classes on this day

December 20 (evening) - Winter Concert - Our class will be performing. Please note: Due to our school's increase in student population, this will be our ONLY school concert performance this year.

December 24 to January 8 - Winter Holidays

News for December 2

News for December 2

This week the big news was our trip to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). We spent all day there and we did a lot of different things. First, our class met Ian, our ROM teacher, and he took us to a special classroom were the students got to see, touch and do experiments with different rocks and minerals. Next, the class went to the Rocks and Minerals gallery and saw a piece of a meteorite! There were lots of samples of different rocks and gemstones too. Then, we went downstairs to eat lunch. Then, the children went upstairs to see the David Hockney exhibit where he made pictures on iPads and iPhones. Finally, the class went to the Dinosaur exhibit where we saw lots and lots of dinosaurs!

In class, we continued the unit on Canadian money with a focus on counting money and making change. The students also learned the game "Roll to $1.00".

The students finally finished their posters explaining their jellybean art. They included the letters that they wrote to Kina and Greg and photos of the art. These posters are now on display in the stairwell by our classroom.

In preparation for Multicultural Night, the students began working on a puzzle of flags of the world. The students also created lots of flags to decorate the gym. In order to learn to identify flags, the class visited two sites to help them learn:

http://www.guesstheflag.com/

http://www.chevroncars.com/games/world-flags/

We began our new unit on Canada by learning the names and positions on the map of the 10 provinces and 3 territories. We also learned a song to help remember the order of the provinces from east to west.

We finished the read aloud book, The Iron Man, this week. This book was adapted into an animated movie and the class began watching the DVD in order to write a comparison/opinion essay on both the book and the movie.

Update from Ms. R

The children are very excited about our field trip to the ROM on November 30. However, I have no parent volunteers for the trip! Please if you are able to join us let me know as soon as possible. Thank you.

I apologize for the delay in posting the student movies. I'm having trouble with the movie maker program and I hope to have these posted soon.

Homework for this week is to write a story about the Lego sticker in the homework writing journal. This homework is due on Friday, December 2.