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.

THIS WEEK!

September 22-September 26

We spent an afternoon sorting our rock collections. The students were asked to compare samples and identify similarities and differences.

 3FT sorted the rocks into different categories...here are a few sorting rules that they came up with.

-One colour and many colours
-Bigger than an apple
-Rocks that colour and rocks that don't
-Smooth and rough
-Bumpy and smooth
-Speckled
-Smaller than a marble
-Jagged edges
-Rocks with two colours
-Spotted
-Shiny
-Pretty and not pretty


The students were all very excited to finally try out their chrome books.

We have finished working on increasing patterns and have started looking at decreasing patterns using manipulatives and numbers.

As we continue to learn about "Rocks and Minerals", the students look forward to our daily "Rock Talks". It is so wonderful to see how enthusiastic this class is to learn about rocks.

We have started to look and test different properties of rocks such as... colour, lustre, texture, hardness, and the presence of carbonates (using vinegar).

For our Mapping unit in Social Studies we took our compasses outside. We found the direction of landmarks around our school.  We had a lot of fun with this activity!

On Friday, all of the students from Robina Baker School took part in the annual Terry Fox run. The students enjoyed the walk...even in the rain!