This week, our spirit animal was a Snowshoe Hare. We tried to work as quietly as they look!
Special volunteers this week:
Thank you to Sue, Alex and Donna who came in to help out in the classroom this week!
Thanks to Alex, Carrie, Theresa and Michael for joining us on our field trip to the Art Gallery this week!
Thanks to our awesome Ottawa U friend, Genevieve for coming in and volunteering on Wednesday and teaching us a Math lesson! She did a great job teaching her first lesson to us and we were happy to give her feedback!
Language
-Guided Reading groups will continue this week with each of our five groups having their first meeting with me!
-we discussed how to make our "What Stuck With You Today?" surveys even more reflective and descriptive. Keep checking the blog to see how our reflections develop!
-students are working one on one with Shauna to do 3 minute reading assessments.
-we started to work on our #OneLittleWord projects. Students are coming up with personal lists of things they are good at and things they are working on. Then, they are looking at all those words and selecting one word that summarizes them and will work as a target for them all year. We made up #OneLittleWord for Norman - "Positive". Then, students are writing three steps that will help them reach this one little word target. Finally, we are creating beautiful art works to represent our #OneLittleWord. Come by the classroom to see these in progress!
Math
-we are going to finish filming our Norman Math videos. We promise! - stay tuned for those!
-students are working on their coordinate mapping and cardinal directions
-if you're practicing IXL at home, make sure grade 3s are working on "P" and grade 4s are working their way through "K" and "L". Don't forget, if you're logging on at home, you need to add "@churchillps" to your username!
-students are working individually and in small groups to practice their mapping skills. Today, we discovered that when someone says "Vancouver Island is ________ of Newfoundland", we have to carefully read the question to find out what it is asking. In this case, the "of" means we start in Newfoundland and talk about the relative direction to get to Vancouver Island.
-we realized that maps look different when they're up on the wall, on the floor and on a globe. It's important to figure out which way North is and then we can figure out the rest.
-Genevieve taught us strategies and tricks to help us tell time. We even became a huge clock and acted out different times.
Social Studies
-we are continuing to explore a website called "Project Explorer" and are going to be doing a lot with this website this month.
Science
-Baby Léo is now 8.5 months old. We've been studying him since he was only 5 months old and it's exciting to make predictions about how he will change and then to test and observe. On Monday, we did some research about what milestones we expect an 8 month old and a 9 month old baby to have reached. We tested to see which ones Léo had met and which ones he was still working towards. It was great to see how interactive he is getting and how much he seemed to enjoy his time with us this week!
-we are collaboratively working on a document to track Léo (and Alice)'s progress. Check it out.
-We watched "Shauna's News Show", which is Shauna reading news from the New York Times. We learned about a spacecraft that is getting close to Pluto - which is 3 billion miles away! It's taken nine years to get there - that's as long as many of us have been on this planet! We also learned about rising water levels due to global warming.
Phys Ed
-students were thrilled to have some time with Shannon to learn a new type of Volleyball.
Health
-Gillian's class continues to join us for Mindful Eating and we are becoming real pros at experiencing and enjoying our food using our five senses. In fact, our classroom has become a very exclusive restaurant called "209"! Ask your child how we manage to get reservations each day!
Art
-we are visiting the National Art Gallery this week to learn about sculpture and even create sculptures! We'll be in small groups with our Reading Buddies, who are so excited to get to spend a whole day with us!
-we had an amazing day at the National Gallery, touring around and looking at sculptures. We practiced noticing what we see, wonder and feel. We learned about the three main types of sculpture: statues, busts and relief. Finally, we got to make relief sculptures out of clay.
-our clay reliefs came home with us on Thursday - we tried to pack them up carefully, but students were reminded to be cautious when taking them home!
-Grace consolidated her learning by becoming our teacher about Inuit art, which grabbed her interest at the Gallery. She showed us "Walrus with a Broken Tusk" and some sculpting materials she had, as well as a
Tree Families
-our theme this month is integrity. Our big idea is: stand up for what you believe in
-we'll be meeting with our Tree Families on Wednesday to read "Mookie the Monkey"
-remember, parents are welcome to join Tree Families! You can join your child in a multi-age group every Wednesday morning for read alouds, discussions and activities!
Other News
-Don't forget that Friday is a PD Day - that means a day off for kids and a day of work (but with no fun kids) for teachers!
NOTE: This post will be updated periodically throughout the week, check back often for more updates!
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