The Room 204 Interview Show!

This week our guest was Ms. Reinelt. She is a teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story of the student's choice (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal. Some possible topics we discussed were aliens (always a favourite), a story with a sock monkey AND glovetopus in it or Police Officier Jan's visit (grade 2) or the Kiwanis trip (grade 3). There is also a math sheet reviewing money concepts. (Some grade 2 students finished this worksheet on Friday.) This homework is due on Friday, March 4th.

***Click on the image to see the full photo.***

News for February 26

News for February 26

The big news is that the grade 3 choir won first place at The Kiwanis Festival on Friday!

Well done everyone!

In writing, the students are working on writing long fiction stories using their sock monkeys as characters in their stories. They are now expected to edit their writing with pencil (find and correct mistakes) and to revise their writing with coloured pen (make good writing better by adding words like adjectives and adverbs).

The children learned more about how to use dictionaries. First they explored all the different information found in our classroom dictionaries. In the back there are pages of useful information like lists of different holidays and metric units. By using the "key words" at the top of each page, students can find the word they are looking for more easily. There are also special information boxes on some pages with cool facts. Did you know that "jeans" are called jeans because the strong cotton cloth that jeans are made of was first made in Genoa, Italy? So the word jeans comes from the city name Genoa.

In math, the class continued to practice working with money. They practiced writing value amounts as cents and as dollars, equivalent coin combinations and we began the tricky process of how to calculate change. (Grade 2's need to be able to make change from $1.00 and grade 3's are required to make change from $10.00.)

In art, the children created symmetrical art by writing their names in very large letters using cursive writing. Then they coloured in the spaces that were made by the lines and wrote reflections on what they thought the designs reminded them of, as well as, reflecting on the artistic process. These are now on display outside of our classroom.

The names of the students were randomly selected and put into small groups. These groups are now working on creating movies starring their sock monkeys. After planning the characters, setting, the problem and solution of these stories they started to rehearse. Each child recycled a Triscuit cracker box to make a house/vehicle/bed for his/her sock monkey. Next week they will be creating sets, credits and costumes for the movies.

The class learned about the civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and his amazing achievements. The class watched part of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, that he made to inspire everyone to help create a world where everyone is treated equally. Did you know that over 250,000 people came to Washington on to see and hear Dr. King on August 28, 1963?

On Thursday, the grade 2 students went to a personal safety presentation with Toronto Police Officer Jan. The grade 3 students joined Mr. Hinrichsen's class to listen to the grade four students in Ms. Sullada's class practice their speeches for the annual Speech Arts Contest. (Students in grades 4,5 and 6 participate in this contest each year.)

We discussed the various ways to tell a story and focussed on how movies tell a story. The students watched the movie Because of Winn Dixie and we discussed the various parts of the story as well as occasionally stopping and talking about predicting what will happen next and how sometimes the viewer knows information that the characters in the story don't know yet.

This week the students welcomed Ms. Reinelt as a guest on The Room 204 Interview Show. The video of this interview can be seen in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Sock Monkey Goes to Hollywood: A Star is Bathed by Cece Bell

Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys: Art, History and Business of the American Sock Monkey by Bonnie Kraus Connelly

Because of Winn Dixie (DVD) - based on the book by Kate DiCamillo

Martin Luther King Jr. by Mir Tamin Ansary

The Moccasin Goalie by William Roy Brownridge

The Room 204 Interview Show! Ms. Tiralongo

The Room 204 Interview Show! This week our guest was Ms. Tiralongo. She is a teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to teach an adult how to play the parts of speech game, Mad Libs. There is also a reflection sheet to be completed to write about how the lesson went. Finally there is a math review sheet on money concepts and a cursive writing practice activity.

Note to parents:

Library day is now on THURSDAY. Many children are still forgetting to return their books each week. Please help your child to remember to bring their library books in, on or before Thursday. Also, please keep the library book in the library book bag. (There is a bar code on the bag that lets each student check out his/her book independently.)

News for February 19

News for Febryary 19

Another busy, but short, week again!

In math, the class continued to practice the strategies to help them count money. We learned a bit about the history of money in Canada. Did you know that a few hundred years ago people used playing cards as money? They also practiced how to show a particular value of money in different ways. For example, 36 cents or $0.36 can be shown as one quarter, one dime and one penny OR three dimes and six pennies (plus many other combinations). 

The students learned the history of the Canadian flag and Flag Day, observed on February 15th each year. Did you know that the Canadian flag is 51 years old? The children also created their own Canadian flags. The official flag is twice as long as it is tall and the white centre is a square and the two red rectangles on each side are each one half of a square. Each child wrote a non- fiction story about Flag Day and most children chose to write their good copies in cursive. The writing and flags are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

The students are working hard to complete their sock monkeys. There are a lot of steps to make these stuffed animals and the children are getting very good at sewing! These monkeys will be the focus of several projects including non-fiction procedural writing, fiction writing and...movies!

The students each practised their cursive signatures and created a new cursive desk name card. They also continued to practise their lowercase letters to improve their speed at creating cursive writing.

In our guided reading groups this week, we continued to focus on the interpretation of poems. Because poems have many fewer words than other kinds of writing, the reader has to "read between the lines" to help them understand a poem.

The students learned about the main parts of speech in English. We focused on nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. The class learned how to play the game Mad Libs, which creates funny stories and helps children apply what they know about parts of speech.

After reading and learning about Chinese characters the students had a chance to try fortune cookies. But did you know that fortune cookies aren't Chinese at all? They are an American invention (based on a Japanese idea). Every year 3 billion fortune cookies are eaten!

On The Room 204 Interview show this week, our guest was Ms. Tiralongo. She is a teacher at our school. You can see the video in a separate posting.

Books read aloud this week:

Our Flag: The story of Canada's Maple Leaf by Ann-Marie Owens and Jane Yealland

Canadian Money by Elizabeth MacLeod

Only in Dreams by Paul Frank

The Glass Doorknob: a Sock Monkey Adventure by Tony Millionaire

The Pet Dragon: A Story About Adventure, Friendship and Chinese Characters by Christoph Niemann

The Room 204 Interview Show! Ms. Schneider

Here is the next episode of The Room 204 Interview Show! Our guest was Ms. Schneider. She is the vice-principal of our school.