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!

Welcome to 2017!

We would like to wish you all a Happy New Year! The students were all excited to share with us what they had done over the two week break.
Unfortunately, we returned to school with some very chilly temperatures. Indoor recess for most of the week made it a bit hard to get back into the routine but the kids made the best of it and were excited to spend time with their friends.

This week in Language Arts, the students wrote a lot in their Journals about Christmas and the rest of their holidays.

We learned another handwriting letter...Tt.

We also worked on a New Year's resolution project. We started by reading "Squirrel's New Year's Resolution". The students had an assignment to brainstorm and plan all of the goals they would like to work towards in 2017. They thought about things they would like to change, books they would like to read, new foods they would like to try and places they would like to visit. They used all of their ideas to write a paragraph about their goals for the year. This project will be published and displayed in our room. We will post pictures of the completed projects next week. They are going to be VERY cute!

In Math, we continued working on adding three digit numbers by regrouping the ones and tens. We started working on addition word problems and the students also wrote a short quiz this week. This week we worked on our +6 for our Mad Minutes. The kids love seeing how they improve throughout the week. 

We have finished learning about the culture in India. The students took home their "Travel Journals" this week and a study guide for their "SHOW WHAT YOU KNOW" poster. They were required to draw one picture and write a brief description for each of the five topics on the study guide.

In Science, we started our new unit called "Hearing and Sound". We began with a KWL chart. As a class, we brainstormed all of the things that we already KNOW about hearing and sound, as well as all of the questions we have about what we WANT to know throughout the unit. We will be completing a lapbook during the unit, which will contain all of the information we learn through experiments and research.  We read the book, "The Listening Walk" and the students went on their own short walk throughout the school to listen for indoor sounds. Their homework this week was to listen to outdoor sounds so that we could fill in the chart together as a class. Thank you to all of the students who completed their homework and were able to give us sounds that they heard outside after school that evening.

In Art, we read the book "All You Need for a Snowman". We talked about perspective and began working on a snowman project which is an aerial view, or view from above. The students were required to do a lot of tracing and cutting. These snowmen will be finished next week and will be displayed in the hallway.

The students worked on gymnastics skills in Phys.Ed this week. They worked on strength, balance and locomotion.

Way to go! We are so proud of our eager readers.

Congratulations to our new Student of the Week!