BRRRRRRRRRR!

This week in Language Arts we read a few selections from the "Collections" series, Billy's World and The Day They Saved Her Majesty. The students wrote "Free Verse" poems about Winter. Students were asked to use descriptive words to help the reader visualize what they love about the season. They also practiced the weekly spelling words by making word searches for their classmates. We continue to work on the "All About Me|" project. Most of the students are working on publishing their writing.

In Math, we used coins to skip count by 5s, 10s, 25s, and 100s. They were also required to use coins to represent the same number in many different ways. Practicing with money at home would be very beneficial. Example...Collect coins of different amounts and ask your child to show you three different ways to make $3.25. You can also ask them to count coins for you and tell you the amount it adds up to.












We have been learning about customs and traditions in India. Students have learned about different clothing that is worn by both women and men. We also talked about the different festivals and holidays celebrated in India. Instruments were a part of this discussion and we had the opportunity to learn how to play the "Singing Bowl".

We have started our new unit in Science, called "Hearing and Sound". Student worked on their title pages this week. They were asked to draw and label three of their favorite sounds. We also read a story called "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers. Students were then asked to complete an assignment while doing their own "listening walk" inside the school. We will complete the "listening walk" outside, when the weather warms up next week.

In Art, we are working on a special, top secret project. Sorry, we can not give any information or add pictures of our art this week!

We have taken a pledge to be a part of the Energize Oil Country program, put on by the Edmonton Oilers. Students have pledged to complete 60 minutes of activity every day. Most of this will be done at school through recess, Healthy Hearts and Phys Ed. Students have been asked to keep track of their activity at home, to make up for minutes we do not complete at school. They are responsible for filling in and keeping up with their activity logs. The grand prize is class tickets to an Oilers game in March. We are competing with around 200 classrooms around the Edmonton area. Every two weeks, the Oilers will send us a special challenge. If we complete it, our names will be placed into a draw for additional prizes. The first challenge was to send a picture of our class signing the pledge poster. Here we are...we painted an Oiler's sign, wore our class Energize Oil  Country t-shirts and we are ready to play floor hockey. Don't forget to check out our Student of the Week as our class goalie. :)

Congratulations to our new Student of the Week!

REMINDERS FOR NEXT WEEK!!! Our Christmas Concert is next Tuesday at 7pm. Your child can come directly to our classroom when the doors open at 6:45. You can also meet them in the room after the concert. Next Wednesday is early dismissal and next Friday is PD day! There will be no spelling next week.

Our Week....

We completed our "birds-eye-view snowmen".  They look great!!

In Language arts, we have been reading stories from the "Collections" series. We read 2 poems and compared our reading in a venn diagram. The students enjoyed organizing what they had read and had pointed out great comparisons.

Students also read the story "Ivan and the All-Stars" with a partner. They were asked to stop reading at certain points during the story to make predictions.

Our class was excited to start learning cursive writing. We are learning the letters in a particular order according to how they are formed in handwriting. This week, we worked on the letters a and d.

In Math, we have been working on counting forwards and backwards by 5s, 10s, 25s and 100s, using any starting point from 1 to 1000. They have been using charts to 1000 and creating number lines to help them with their counting. A sample question would be...Start at 421 and count backwards by 10 until you reach 321.

We reviewed our Rocks and Minerals unit in science. The students played a variety of games on the SMARTboard, chrome books and with flashcards to review what they had learned in this unit.  Our next unit in science will be Hearing and Sound.

We are still emailing Sean and learning more about India through his experiences. We look forward to his pictures and we always have lots of questions for him. We decided that we needed to send him a picture...so we headed out for a quick photo in the warm, slushy snow. Our weather is definitely different than what he is enjoying!

In Art, we worked on our decorations for the Christmas palm tree which will be placed in the Gym for the week of the concert. We decorated ukuleles with hibiscus flowers to represent the songs 3FT has been working on for the Christmas Concert theme this year.

Congratulations to our new Student of the Week!

A Short Week...

On Wednesday, we wrote in our journals about our extra long weekend.  The students all had lots to share, as they filled the pages in their journals. 

In Language Arts, we have been working hard on our "All About Me" paragraphs.  Some students have finished their rough copies and have begun typing their good copies, using the chrome books. When the written/typed portion of this project is complete, the students will illustrate each topic and it will be coiled into a keepsake booklet. 

In math, we have been comparing and ordering 3-digit numbers.  The students have been using place value to compare and order and they have been using < and > symbols appropriately. We did a fun, whole class activity where we all came up with a 3-digit number.  As a class, we ordered all 17 numbers from least to greatest.  This sparked a discussion about using place value to determine how to order numbers that were all in the 900's.  

In science, we did an experiment to compare soil samples.  We used a sample taken from the backyard of a house in Devon and our second sample came from a mixture of the garden soil, sand, clay, peat moss and oil sand that we looked at last week in class.  The samples were put in separate jars, water was added and they were covered with a lid.  We shook the samples and left them to sit overnight.  We compared the layers in each of the samples and recorded our observations.

 

We observed that the clay, dirt, shells and bits of rock sink and settle down to the bottom.  We discussed that Over the years, the pressure of the water and mud compress the bottom layers until they change into rock.

In social, we caught up on our emailing with Sean.  We enjoy hearing about his adventures and seeing all the pictures he sends to us! We also took our 19 hour flight to India and started our Travel Journal using information from our social text book.
 

In art, we created "birds-eye-view" snowmen. This ended up being a little math mini lesson too, dividing their scarf circle into 8ths or 16ths to make a radial design. Our snowmen aren't quite complete yet but they look great so far!

 

CONGRATULATIONS to our new Student of the Week!!

This week!

In Language Arts the students wrote paragraphs about their Halloween. They worked on a sloppy copy and we then sat down to edit them together. The good copy paragraphs were typed up on their Chrome books and will be published for their year end memory portfolios.

Read to Someone is part of the Daily 5 program and we love to incorporate it into our daily routine. It is wonderful to have extra volunteers in to read with our students. Reading out loud to others helps the students hear themselves. They are able to sound out words, as well as work on expression and fluency. If you ever have some free time and would like to come and read with a few students in 3FT, we would love to have you. Thank you to Mrs. Weir and Mrs. Cross for coming in this week!

In Math, we continue to build numbers with base ten blocks. This week the students were showing 3 different ways to make one number. They have been demonstrating their understanding of regrouping, using manipulatives.

Sean has arrived in India safely and has been emailing the students some pictures and information about India. The students look forward to his emails and have had a lot of questions for him so far.

In Science we learned about weathering and erosion. We have also been looking at and comparing different soil samples.