Rock Walk...

We lucked out this week and had a beautiful day for our Rock Walk. We headed down to the Lion's Park where we stopped for a picnic lunch and had a bit of time to play on the playground. Then we walked to the boat launch area and began looking for rocks. The students had certain properties to look for. For example, a rock that was speckled, a rock that was smaller than a marble, and a rock that was shiny. After filling their egg cartons, and backpacks, with their collection of rocks, we headed back to school. We will be keeping the rocks at school for the next couple of weeks for some experimenting and investigation.

Thank you to our wonderful volunteers who joined us for the afternoon!

3B had their first Library block this week. They were really excited to borrow books. Our Library block is every Monday. Please remind your child to return their books so that they are able to borrow three new books every week. 

We worked on our weekly Journal entry. The students have been given personal dictionaries. These booklets include common words that they use in their writing everyday as well as blank spaces for us to help them with words they may not know how to spell yet. 

We started Spelling this week. To "Show What They Know" and introduce this weeks words we practiced on white boards.

Throughout the week, the students will be involved in a variety of activities to work on the spelling words. We talk about short vowels and rules associated with the long vowel sounds. This week they worked in their duotangs and wrote sentences using the spelling words. 

Together we read, "Roses for Gita" from our Collections series. Then they were split into two groups to reread the story and find words ending in "ed" and "ing".

For Math this week, we continued to work on decreasing patterns. We looked at a hundreds chart and used it to see the number patterns in the rows, columns and diagonals. The students then used this knowledge to extend a given pattern rule.

In Social, we talked more abut mapping and using a key when reading a map. The students did an activity where they had to take information from the map, using the key, to answer questions. The students also had to make a key using the map information they were given.

We talked about how maps show different landforms. The students were introduced to 6 landforms. Please ask you child to tell you about each one - lake, river, plateau, mountain, valley and plain.

 The students also figured out how to use a scale on a map. During this activity, they used a ruler to figure out the distance from one landmark to another.

We went outside and used a compass to work on our directional skills. We talked about and recorded landmarks in relation to the school. 

In Science, we started creating our Lap Books to organize our learning of Rocks and Minerals.

For Physical Education this week, we continued working on locomotor skills with a game of Sharks and Dolphins. The students loved playing this game!

We also enjoyed the outdoors, with a game of soccer, while the weather is still beautiful. 

As mentioned in an email sent home to all Grade 3 parents earlier this week, the students will be involved in Student Learning Assessments. This week, we practiced the digital portion of the literacy and numeracy tests by completing some of the questions from 2014.

We learned a new letter in our cursive duotangs. The students were excited to put "D" and the "A" they learned last week together to spell some words at the bottom of their page!

At this weeks assembly, our class was one of the classes chosen to win the "Golden Garbage Can Clean Award". We definitely have some very helpful students who like to make sure our classroom is left tidy at the end of the day!

Our Friday afternoon was spent enjoying the beautiful weather on our Terry Fox run.

 

Congratulations to our first Student of the Week! We will email you the week your child is chosen to receive this award. The award is presented at Friday's assembly by Mrs. Kloschinsky and we welcome you to attend, if possible.



Rock Talk...

The Rock Talk sessions started this week. Students have been invited to bring in special rocks to share with their classmates. This is a popular activity in our class!

We started discussing what the word "properties" means, when describing certain objects. We played a game called "Eye Spy" to get the students thinking. After playing, we started to brainstorm what the different properties of rocks might be and how they could be sorted.

 In Language Arts, the students worked on their first Journal entry. It gives the students an opportunity to write freely on a weekly basis. Sometimes they are given a topic to help them but they will also be given the choice to write about what they want.

After brainstorming adjectives that describe ourselves, students picked their favourite and added them onto their artwork from last week.

For Word Work this week, the students played a game called Word Shapes. They took turns rolling the alphabet dice and making words that fit into the shapes on their game board. This is a great review of the word families.

The morning message this week had 22 errors in it! The students enjoyed making math statements to reflect this number. 

We also read from our Collections series. After reading "Our Home Is the Sea", the students worked on a word scramble.

The students worked on acrostic poems after reading, "Brothers and Sisters".

 Our class also had the opportunity to start buddy reading!

This week in Math, we continued working on extending and creating patterns. We also started identifying and extending increasing number patterns. Students used their knowledge of skip counting to figure out different number patterns. 

We also started decreasing patterns.

In Social, we have been looking at direction and the compass rose. The students did an activity where they had to give the N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE or SW direction from one location on Pirate Island, to another.

For gym classes this week, the students worked on locomotion skills. They rotated through a variety of stations which worked on different skill development.