GO OIL KINGS GO!!!

Well, the week started off with a very exciting event...

Thank you very much to the "Reading, Give it a Shot" program for such a wonderful opportunity. It was an awesome night!!! We were very lucky to take such a great group of students to cheer on the Oil Kings!

 LOOK!!! We are famous!

 Awesome, front row seats!

 CHUCK A PUCK!!!

Thank you to Trevor, one of our 

great volunteers for purchasing a puck for each

one of our students!

YAY!!! They finally score!!!

Thank you to our parent volunteers!

A VERY LATE NIGHT BUT ONE THAT WILL BE REMEMBERED!

The students wrote their "Patterns and Relations" unit test this week. We have started our second unit in Math, "Numbers". The students have been working on counting a large collection by grouping them into 10s or 100s. They have also been representing place value...ones, tens and hundreds.

We finished  our novel study, "Freckle Juice". The class was very excited to take the book home with them this week to read with you. Please take some time over the weekend to read with them. We have asked the students to bring their books back on Monday so that we can return them to the library. If you need to borrow the book for an extra day or two, please let us know in their agendas.

In Science, we continued to talk about the difference between a rock and a mineral. We also discussed and reviewed the 8 properties to test minerals... colour/streak, hardness, odor, lustre, smell, magnetism, shape, light, and feel

In Social, the students came up with many questions that they would like answered before we pack and board our plane to India. We compiled their questions and the class spent an afternoon researching answers on their Chrome books.

Here are a few of the questions our students had...

What languages do they use?
What kind of food do they eat?
What clothes do they wear?
What kinds of animals do they have as pets?
What kind of money (currency) do they use?
Where can we stay? Hotel?
How long does it take to fly there?
What are their schools like?
What sports do they play?
How warm does it get?
Do they have electronics?
How many religions are there?

The students will be more than prepared for their trip!

Thank you, Benjamin, for researching the Taj Mahal and presenting this to the class.

This week, all of the classes are decorating the hallways for next week's Halloween Celebration! Our class worked on a project called, Scream Blow Painting. We read the book, "Monster Mama" and then the students began working on their screaming self portrait.

After reading the book, "Dream Weaver", we made spooky spider webs which are dangling from the hallway ceiling.

Congratulations to our new Special Student...

At Friday's assembly, we sang "Things We Are Thankful For", with our buddy class 1K. This song reflects the Monthly Character Trait we selected...Gratitude!

A Short Week...

Although this week was short, it was busy!

We spent a couple mornings doing the digital portion of the Math and Language Arts SLA tests. We are done!! Unfortunately, Freckle Juice did not come home this weekend.  We were not able to finish it this week with the SLAs. 

The students have now completed their math review for our Patterning Unit.  The final test will be on Monday, October 20th.  We have spent some time this week playing math patterning games.  the kids really enjoyed these!

Our pet rocks were painted last Friday and this week they completed a write-up about their rock friend. These are on display outside our classroom.

We have now completed our Social unit on Mapping and will be flying to India next week!!!










Thank you to our Special Student this week, who caught us up on a few current events.

Just a reminder...We will be performing with our Grade 1 buddies at the assembly on October, 24th. You are more than welcome to come watch!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

A good portion of our week was devoted to the "Student Learning Assessments" (SLAs). On Wednesday, the students wrote the Literacy portion of the test and on Thursday they wrote the Numeracy. Next week we will have the students write both the Literacy and Numeracy online tests. Then the students will be done!!! :) If you would like more information about this, please go to...

http://education.alberta.ca/media/7561878/slainfobulletineng.pdf

http://education.alberta.ca/department/ipr/curriculum/student-learning-assessments.aspx

Math review will continue next week. We will be sending home their review assignment along with all of the work they have completed so far for "Patterns and Relations". We hope to have the unit test during the week of the 20th. The date will be sent home in your child's planner next week, as well as an email.

We will be finishing our novel study, "Freckle Juice". All of the students have enjoyed reading this book. They will be bringing it home next weekend to read with you. 

We are wrapping up our Social Studies Mapping unit. We have taken a quick look at the continents and are now learning the provinces in Canada in relation to where we live. We hope to fly to India very soon! I am sure the students are getting excited to "pack their bags". 

Student's finished their "Rock Hound" assignment, online. We will be testing minerals next, looking at properties such as hardness, lustre and texture. 

This week in Art, the class painted pet rocks! 

Throughout the month of October, the Robina Baker students have been learning about GRATITUDE during the Character Ed assemblies on Friday. Our class, along with 1K, will be performing a song about GRATITUDE during the assembly, on Friday, October 24th. Parents are more than welcome to attend!

Please go onto Power School in order to give your child permission to attend the Oil King's game. There is also a small fee for the bus that needs to be paid. We realize the students will not get home until very late after the game. It will be after everyone's bedtime, including ours! :) This is a wonderful opportunity for the students to celebrate as a class. They have all worked sooooooooo hard on their home reading and we are proud of all of them. 

Just a reminder that there will be no school on Monday or Tuesday. Monday is Thanksgiving and Tuesday is PD day for teachers. We will see you all back at school on Wednesday. Since it is a short week, there will be no Spelling for our class. 

We wish you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Social Studies Mapping Assignment...

Wow! A lot of effort was put into this mapping assignment and we are very proud of our class. We have such a creative bunch of students. It was nice to see a variety of different maps, showing us what their "Perfect Place" to live would be. We had maps full of candy, beaches, favorite fruit trees, raceways, arenas, and fishing spots. Awesome job, 3FT!!

OUR LAST WEEK OF SEPTEMBER...

We have almost completed our "Patterns and Relations" unit in Math. The class has been describing, comparing, extending and creating both increasing and decreasing patterns. We will be finishing the last lesson in this unit next week and spend a bit of time reviewing. The review assignment will be sent home after it is completed in class so that you are able to go over it with your child. The students will have a unit test within the next two weeks. We will send an email with the details closer to the date.

In Language Arts, we continue to work on weekly spelling activities. If your child is struggling with practicing these words, please try using the Spelling City website. There are some fun activities that may motivate your child to practice these words on the computer. 

Every morning when the students arrive, they participate in a Morning Message activity. The Morning Message, which we display on the SMART Board, is full of spelling mistakes, missing punctuation and capitalization. They are asked to copy our Morning Message into their scribblers and correct any mistakes we have made. We go over this together, which usually generates discussion about how proper sentences are formed, capitalization rules or spelling patterns. The class also likes to count the number of errors we have that day and then all of a sudden it turns into a Math lesson as the students come up with how many ways they can make that number. 

We have just finished Chapter 4 of our novel study "Freckle Juice". If you are interested in reading this book with your child at home, please send us an email or note in his/her agenda and we would be more than happy to send a copy home with your child for an evening or weekend.

We are still working on our "All About Me" project. The students are learning the parts of a paragraph and have been working hard on writing topic, supporting and concluding sentences.

"Read to Self" continues to be part of our daily routine. The students have started "Reading Logs" after each session in order to make them accountable and ensure they are using their reading time wisely. They have been asked to write down the title of the book they have read in class that day with a short description about what they read.

This week in Science, the students have been working on an assignment using the Chrome Books. Students were asked to visit a website and explore the 3 different rock types, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. They read about how each rock is made and watched an animation about this process. They were also introduced to different kinds of rocks in each of these categories.

If you would like to visit the website, you can go to...

http://learn.fi.edu/fellows/fellow1/rocks/create/index.html

In Social Studies, we read a book called "Mapping Penny's World". This story is about a little girl who makes a variety of different kind of maps including a map of her bedroom, directions to her house and even a map of her dog, Penny's, buried treasures. After reading this story, the student's were given a homework assignment to create a map of their "Perfect Place". Students were asked to include a title, key with symbols and compass rose. The class was very enthusiastic about this project and we look forward to seeing what they have created.

In Art we read the story "Pumpkin Town" to introduce our new project. 

We then looked at how a pumpkin looks when light is shining on it. 

We talked about the different shades on the pumpkin to show the effect of light. The students then sketched a drawing of their pumpkin and began to explore shading using chalk pastels. 

We went to visit our Buddies today! We played a dice game called "Race to the End". The Grade 1 class also surprised the Grade 3's with special thank you cards for the rainbow loom bracelets they made them last week. Our students have decided to do a Bucket Filling project every month...the rainbow loom was their September project.

Thank you to Doyle for bringing in some VERY cool items from his trip! The student's thoroughly enjoyed hearing about his adventure.