Terry Fox

On Friday, students, teachers and many parents participated in a walk for Terry Fox and cancer research.  It was the perfect day to enjoy the outdoors. After the walk, all participants were treated to a hot dog, apple and granola bar. A HUGE thank you to the Town of Devon and Lion's Club for providing the snacks! Thank you also to our wonderful parent volunteers for joining us! 

Last week we talked a lot about Terry Fox and wrote paragraphs about our heroes. The students had the opportunity to share the paragraphs they wrote. We were very impressed with their confidence in presenting to their peers!  

This week we completed our scarecrow art that we had started last week. Their first job was to use a crayon to add the straw details. We talked about watercolour paints and how to blend, making colours either darker or lighter.  

In Language Arts we read "The Lonely Scarecrow". After reading the story we brainstormed and made a list of words that could be used to describe a scarecrow. The students were asked to write a descriptive paragraph about the scarecrow they painted for art. 

This year the students will be asked to type some of their work. They were shown how to use a Google document for typing. They will continue working on typing their "sloppy copies" next week. 

In Math, we reviewed increasing patterns and started working on extending decreasing patterns. We have also been working on our basic math facts. Your child brought home a graph on Thursday, showing their results for our timed +4 basic facts for the week. The students should see growth over the course of the week. They will either have more facts completed correctly or they will have improved their time (recorded below each bar graph) to finish the facts. The same graph will be coming home every Friday, as we work through our basic facts (increasing by +1 each week). 

We have also connected the kids to Prodigy. It is an online game with a math focus. The students have "chanllenges" that are math questions, which they need to correctly answer to advance in the game. We are able to direct the questions based on what the students are learning about in class. We sent home their usernames and passwords on Friday, so they can connect at home. 

This week in Social, we learned about the countries in North America and the oceans surrounding that continent. The students used a legend to colour a map showing the United States, Mexico and Canada. 

We also talked about how distance is measured on a map. We used a scale of 1cm=100kms to determine how far various places were from each other. 

We have many students flying to new countries as their Home Reading minutes are adding up! Your child should be around 300 minutes to be meeting our class goal for a months worth of reading. 

Our students were super excited to have their first Dojo shopping day! They received their money for the week and then they got to decide what to spend it on. Some purchased a treat, others purchased a privilege and MANY donated to a whole class reward! 

Congratulations to our first Student of the Week!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musical Ride!

The students had an amazing opportunity to watch the Mounted Troop of the Lord Strathcona's Musical Ride. Each class had a 15 minute presentation to learn about their horses and then met one of the members. After meeting with them, they put on a 45 minute show for the entire school. Each student was then given the chance to have a picture with one of the horses. Our class could have stayed out in the school yard all day visiting with the troops. 

In Launguage Arts this week we focused on heroes. While reading about Terry Fox, we stopped and talked about characteristics to describe heroes. 

The students had a few evenings to think about a hero in their life. Then they were given a writing assignment to describe their hero and give reasons why that person is a hero to them. 

Then the completed a good copy which they will share next week with their classmates. 

We also started building our classroom Word Wall. Each week the students will be presented with seven new words. These words do not necessarily follow a specific spelling patterns, so they are words the students should be memorizing. 

We also did another "Making Words" activity. This is a great game to do at home with the family. Ask your child to explain how it works. 

We completed another letter in our handwriting duotangs. We now know how to write a Gg. 

In Math, we continued to work on increasing patterns. The students have now had the opportunity to describe, extend and create using shapes and numbers. They have also been challenged with finding "mistakes" in patterns and correcting them. 

We continued to learn about compasses in Social. The class watched a short video about how a compass is made and how they work. Then they went outside to practice using a compass and name landmarks in relation to the school. 

We also did a little more work to help us understand maps and create "Keys". 

We talked about how maps show us different landforms. We followed directions to create a coloured map indicating valleys, plains, mountains, plateaus, rivers and lakes. 

We then continued on in our Mapping Unit and read a great book that introduced us to the continents and oceans in our world. 

In Art this week we did a step by step drawing of a scarecrow. They did a fabulous job following the directions! Next week we will use watercolour paints to finish the project. 

Every Friday the students will get to turn their Dojo points into cash. Their job is to figure out which bills they need to cash their points in. They are responsible for their money and will be able to buy class rewards at the end of each month. 

Congratulations to a few more students for reading 600 minutes and flying to Canada!