Skating Week...

The students were all very excited to spend time at the rink this week. They enjoyed skating with their peers and it was great to see a growth in their confidence. The students took part in free skate, tag games, and noodle hockey. A HUGE THANK YOU to all of the parent volunteers who joined us to tie skates and take part in the on-ice activities. We will have another week of skating in February.

In Language Arts, we read a few stories together as a class. We are so proud of the students and their willingness to read in front of their peers. They are becoming more confident as they work on their fluency and expression while reading aloud.

We used our weekly Word Wall Words to create detailed sentences. The students were asked to use one new word and one old word in each sentence. We were also checking for proper use of upper case letters and punctuation. 

The students also completed another "making words" activity. The mystery word was VIBRATION.

We read a really cute little story called The Snow Globe Family. There were 2 families in this story. The big family and the little family that lived inside the snow globe. The students discussed the story elements and then completed a summarizing sheet. The sheet outlined the main characters (somebody), what those characters want (wanted), what the problem was (but), how they solved the problem (so), what the resolution was (then). 

We continued to work on two digit subtraction. We practiced a lot of questions both as a class and individually. They were also given an assessment this week to ensure the class was ready to move on to three digit subtraction.

In Science, we continued to talk about the difference between pitch and volume. The students worked together in groups on an activity listening to different objects being dropped onto their desks. The groups were given ten different objects and were asked to compare the sound they heard, listening for high/low pitches and loud/soft sounds.

We watched a video called Sound Produced by Humans. The students then labelled a diagram. 

We also learned about the parts of the ear. We watched a few short videos which demonstrated how sound travels through the ear and how signals reach our brain. Then we labelled a diagram for our lapbooks.

We watched a video that classified instruments into either String, Wind or Percussion families. The students were then given 14 different instruments and had to decide which family they belonged in. 

In Art, we read a story called "Hairy Fellows. A Rabbit's Guide to Drawing". The students learned that all drawings are made by using simple shapes, such as squares, circles, ovals, wavy and straight lines. The book took the students through a directed, step by step drawing of a rabbit in a very entertaining way. They LOVED the book. At the end of the story, each student had there own creative interpretation of how a rabbit should be drawn using the simple shapes. Then they were all given their own "Sketch Book" and a book containing a variety of directed drawings for them to work through. 

Here are our super readers this week! Way to go!

Congratulations to our new Student of the Week!

Beach Day

This week, we started to head back into some warmer temperatures. The weather wasn't quite hot enough for shorts and flip flops, but our school decided to celebrate sunnier climates by having a "Beach Day".

In Language Arts, we finished our New Year's resolution projects which are now hanging in our classroom. 

We began a new writing assignment in our class this week. All About Me is a writing activity we will complete over the remainder of the year. The students will be writing detailed paragraphs on topics about themselves. They will need to use topic sentences, 3-5 supporting details and finish their paragraphs with concluding sentences. Once their rough copy is complete in their booklets, they will type them up in google docs and share them with us, so we can edit them together. The good copies will be printed, illustrated and compiled to make a booklet for their memory book binders. 

This week we read "Name That Tree" and "The Extraordinary Cat" from our Collections series. The students have been working on their fluency and expression as they take turns reading aloud to the class. We also stop throughout the story to talk about the characters, setting and events that are taking place.

We completed a "Making Words" activity. The students were given the letters f, s, s, k, n, l, a, e, o, w. They worked on their own to build 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words. Then they had time to work with a partner to share words and create new ones they hadn't built on their own. We compiled all of the words as a class and then the students tried to put all of the letters together to figure out the mystery word. It didn't take long before they figured out that SNOWFLAKES was the scrambled word. 

In Math, we worked on subtracting two digit numbers, with and without regrouping. We have spent a lot of time practicing questions as a class in order to increase their confidence before they start working through questions on their own. 

In Science, we spent some time discussing what we know about pitch, volume and how sound travels. We watched a video and wrote down notes about hearing and sound. This information was added to our lapbooks. 

We also worked through some vocabulary and drew sketches to help better understand some of the new words we learned this week.

We did a group read of a book called Sound All Around and then the students did an experiment to explore pitch a little more. They chose a partner and were given a ruler. The ruler was placed over the edge of the desk at 3 different lengths. They were asked to observe changes in vibrations as the length of the ruler changed. 

High and low sounds depend on how fast an object vibrates. The ruler was vibrating faster when we heard a high sound. When you make a low sound, the ruler was vibrating more slowly. The number of times an object vibrates in a given amount of time is called frequency. High pitched sounds have a higher frequency than low sounds. Their findings were that a longer ruler makes a lower sound and a shorter ruler makes a higher sound. 

We also completed the vocabulary section in our lap books. Together we came with the definitions for ~ sound, volume, pitch, frequency, vibration, eardrum, outer ear and sound waves. These have been added to a pocket in our lap books.

We finished our snowmen in Art. The students continued working on colouring, shading using chalk pastels and cutting out the final pieces for their project!

This week in Physical Education we worked on gymnastics skills. The students participated in a variety of balancing, locomotor and strength stations. 

 Way to go! The "Amazing Race" has proven to be quite successful in our classroom.

Congratulations to our new Student of the Week!