Sunday, April 30, 2017
Update from Ms. R
The homework for this week is to complete the Social Studies worksheet and the math sheet reviewing concepts covered in class during the week. This homework is due on Friday, May 5th.
Parent Notes:
Please check the weather and the outside temperature before leaving for school in the morning. Many children are coming to school without appropriate coats/sweaters. Children must go outside for recess in the morning, at lunch and in the afternoon. It's better to have a jacket and wear it unzipped than to not have a jacket at all. Thanks for your attention to this matter.
Important Dates:
May 18 - Author Elizabeth Macleod visits our classroom! She will talk about the books she has written about Canadian history and First Nations people.
May 22 - Victoria Day holiday
May 23 to 26 - EQAO testing - grade 3 students only.
June 1 (afternoon) - Scientists in the School visit
June ? - Trip to the Gardiner Museum with Ms. Ceneda's class - date to be announced.
June 9 - P.A. Day (no school)
June 15 - SPRING CONCERT (evening) - Our class will perform during this event! Please mark this day on your calendars.
June 21 - Pioneer Day - We will pretend it's June 21, 1817 in Room 204 all day. We will be preparing lunch in class that day, so children do not need to bring their lunches.
June 29 - Last day of school for the 2016-2017 school year.
News for April 28
News for April 28
Room 204 learned about probability, the artist Andy Warhol, how to cork (knit) and much more!
In math, the children talked about probability, or the chance of an event happening. Using the key words certain, likely, equally likely, unlikely and impossible, the students worked very hard to use these words correctly in their math work and their everyday conversations. (We even have a chart on our door to record the proper use of these words with tally marks. So far, the word "impossible" is the most popular probability word...) The class used what they know about fractions to help determine the probability of an event happening, they flipped two-sided counters, rolled dice, picked coloured cubes out of a bag and used spinners to play games and decide if games are fair or unfair.
In social studies, the children discussed how the Aboriginal Peoples (also known as First Nations Peoples) helped the pioneers to find food, shelter and medicine when they arrived in what we now call Canada around 200 years ago. They taught them how to grow vegetables that grow easily here. Corn, beans and squash were called the "3 sisters" because these plants, when planted together, helped each other while they were growing. The corn was tall and served as something that the vines of the bean plant to climb on. The squash plants have large leaves to discourage weed growth and keep moisture in the soil. We also talked about how the Aboriginal Peoples taught the pioneers to hunt, trap and fish to get food for their families. The children looked at parts of corn on the cob with magnifying glasses and we even cooked the corn on the cob to eat and we even ate popcorn as a snack when watching an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" about farming corn!
In preparation for our "Pioneer Day" in June, the students planted lettuce seeds and a class pot of mint seeds. We will harvest our lettuce to eat for lunch that day and use the mint leaves to make mint tea to drink with our lunch.
The TDSB character trait for May is "integrity". Our vice-principal, Mme Robertson challenged
all the students to write definitions of integrity and give them to her to read on the morning announcements. Our class discussed the idea of integrity as "doing the right thing even when no one is watching" and then wrote letters to her. She even mentioned on the morning announcements about how impressed she was with the integrity letters she received from Room 204!
The children started to look at the things they have collected in their treasure boxes since the beginning of the year. They used their treasures to help give them ideas to plan and write a story. All the students have finished planning their stories and are now working on their rough copies of their writing.
In art, the students learned about the modern artist Andy Warhol and his famous paintings of Campbell's Soup cans. When he first exhibited this art, people thought he was crazy! But now, did you know that his single painting of soup cans is now worth over $11 million dollars? The children used his soup can paintings as an inspiration to draw and paint their treasure boxes (made out of empty jars of Dole peaches). Using thick watercolour paper and watercolour paints the students created excellent paintings of their jars. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom. Also the children started to write art reflections on creating this art and these essays will go on display by the paintings when they are finished next week.
Every child in the class finished making a corker and began to use it to "cork" a knitted tube. (This is also called "French knitting.) In the pioneer days, people often had to made their own tools and toys and corking was a traditional pastime for children. We even used wool yarn that we dyed ourselves!
This week on The Room 204 Interview Show our guest was Ms. Janetos. She is an ESL teacher at our school. The video can be seen in a separate posting.
Finally, I should mention, that it was unlikely, but not impossible, that their classroom teacher, me, would teach the class gym this week. Ms. Francesca was away on Monday morning, so, much to the surprise of the students, I taught the class gym. They were unsure at first, but we had fun playing cooperative games!
Books read aloud this week:
My Museum of Me by Emma Lewis
Andy Warhol - Pop Art Painter by Susan Goldman Rubin
Derek the Knitting Dinosaur by Mary Blackwood
Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep - A Yarn About Wool by Teri Sloat
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett
Little House on the Prairie - Money Crop: Corn (DVD)
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Update from Ms. R
The homework for this week is to write a reflection on our 100 Books Party, using the worksheet sent home with your child on Friday. There isn't a math sheet because all week the students reviewed math concepts related to our 100 books. This homework is due on Friday, April 28th.
Parent Notes:
THANK YOU...THANK YOU...THANK YOU...for your support on Friday! Our 100 Books Party was a great success. We had 237 guests come through our classroom to see the reading and writing activities that the students had on display. Well done, Room 204!
Important Dates:
May 18 - Author Elizabeth Macleod visits our classroom! She will talk about the books she has written about Canadian history and First Nations people.
May 22 - Victoria Day holiday
June 5 - 9 - EQAO testing - grade 3 students only.
June ? - Trip to the Gardiner Museum with Ms. Ceneda's class - date to be announced.
June 9 - P.A. Day (no school)
June 15 - SPRING CONCERT (evening) - Our class will perform during this event! Please mark this day on your calendars.
June 21 - Pioneer Day - We will pretend it's June 21, 1817 in Room 204 all day. We will be preparing lunch in class that day, so children do not need to bring their lunches.
June 29 - Last day of school for the 2016-2017 school year
News for April 21
News for April 21
During this four-day week, it was all about preparing for our 100 Books Party! See more photos and a video in a separate posting.
In math, the students applied their math knowledge to solve several math challenges involving the 100 books. They weighed the books (33 kilograms), measured how tall they were all piled up (81 centimetres) and how long they were when arranged in a line down our hallway (27 metres and 42 centimetres). Did you know that's longer that the height of our school? The students also collected data and graphed the results on the number of fiction/non-fiction/near-fiction books, the number of male/female authors, the number of hardcover/softcover books and finally the total number of pages in all 100 books (4,266 pages). Did you know that if you read one page a day, it would take you almost 12 years to read that many pages?
The children worked as a class to collect a lot of this information, then they worked in smaller groups to create short presentations to communicate the various results. Videos of these presentations are in the party video and can be seen in a separate posting.
The students worked hard to prepare for the party. They had to finish many writing projects. Then the children created displays on their desks including book reports, Lego City stories, colour story books, world famous structure research books and handwoven bookmarks! They made bookmarks to give to our guests as thank you gifts. They rolled up the carpet, moved it out of the classroom and then brought it back in after the party. They cleaned up, put things away and even had a turn at sweeping the floor! It's a lot of work to prepare for a party, but it was worth it. Well done, everyone!
The class went outside to create two mosaics with recycled items with Madame Cenac and her grade 5 class. We also went to an Earth Week assembly on Tuesday morning and to the Used Book fair on Thursday. These activities were all a part of our school's Earth Week celebrations.
The Room 204 Interview Show returns next week!
Books read aloud this week:
A Lion in Paris by Beatrice Alemagna
The Soda Bottle School - A True Story of Recycling, Teamwork and One Crazy Idea by Laura Kutner and Suzanne Slade
Tiger, Tiger is it True? - Four Questions to Make You Smile Again by Byron Katie
13 Buildings Children Should Know by Annette Roeder
Little House on the Prairie - Town Party, Country Party (DVD)
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)