We haven't seen each other since LAST YEAR! It was an exciting first day back for the Gladiator Snails on Monday!
Thank you to wonderful helpers who have come in this week:
-Genevieve from the University of Ottawa volunteered
-Katie's dad, Jeremy; James' mom, Sue and Raphie's mom Alex all came in to help us with Language and Math
-we met some great guest teachers: Sara C and Mary B
-Nancy brought in her therapy dog, Merlin, to meet us!
Language
-students are becoming more and more comfortable using their Chromebooks and getting right down to their morning routine before French. Everyday, students fill out their "How Do You Feel Today?" survey at the start of the day and their "What Stuck With You Today?" survey at the end of the day.
-we spoke a little about New Years resolutions on Monday, stay tuned to hear more about our #onelittleword resolutions later this week!
-we are beginning small group Guided Reading with non-fiction texts. Students used evidence from the outside of their books (front and back cover illustrations and text) to make predictions about what their books will be about. We talked about how good predictions not only make a guess, but they also explain what evidence was used to make that guess.
-most students exchanged Library books - don't forget to bring in your finished books every Monday!
-we had a "Snowball Fight" where students wrote down information about their holiday (the best thing, a special visit, a gift they gave and a gift they received), then, we crumpled up our papers like snowballs and had a one minute "Snowball Fight". Students picked up a snowball near them and read the clues, then tried to guess whose story they were telling. We learned about a lot of great experiences!
-we will be selecting #onelittleword, a single word to guide each of us in our learning this year. Each student will come up with three reasons why that word is so important to them.
-we will be signing up for coach.me (formerly lift.do) so students can track their #onelittleword progress, as well as their Annual Learning Plan goals set with parents and teacher earlier this year
-ask your child about the book he or she is reading in our Guided Reading groups
-Guided Reading groups kicked off with the "Picture It: Making a Book into a Screenplay" group. We talked about our predictions, studied text features, took a "walk" through the book to make further predictions and began reading together. Students practiced summarizing what they had read to pick out the important details. Our other Guided Reading groups will start this week!
Math
-we are going to finish filming our Norman Math videos - stay tuned for those!
-we will have Hour of Code on Tuesday. I wonder how many lines of code we will write as a class!?--students enjoyed coding so much, that we took some more time on Wednesday to practice our coding (computer programming) skills. We realized that we can learn A LOT from coding. Some of the things we talked about are: perseverance, learning a new language (like Java or HTML), directions, problem solving, independent work AND collaboration and how to make a computer work for you!
-students are reviewing fractions and cardinal directions to help them understand statistics, facts and maps that they are seeing and hearing about in their Project Explorer work
-our friend, Genevieve, from the University of Ottawa is back as a volunteer in our class every Wednesday until March! We were so happy to see her and look forward to learning Math with her!
-On IXL, students are practicing creating and reading coordinate graphs and using data and graphs to extrapolate information. If they want to continue practicing at home, grade 3s are working through the category labelled "P" and grade 4s are working though "K" and "L"
-Students tried out a new online game called Free Rice. We did Math, Geography and Language tasks and for every correct answer, helped the World Food Program donate 10 grains of rice (which we learned is a staple food for much of the world) to people in need. Students were excited to see their rice piles grow in 10s, 100s and 1000s! Ask your child how many grains of rice he or she earned.
-we are working on mapping skills individually and in small groups. Using globes and maps, we are learning about the continents and oceans. We are figuring out shapes that resemble different continents and countries in order to remember and identify them. We are describing directions on maps using a compass rose. We are leaning to use directions to follow a route and solve puzzles. We are learning to use map legends and read map grids.
Social Studies
-we are exploring a website called "Project Explorer" and are going to be doing a lot with this website this month. We started our quest for global knowledge by reading and watching a video about Malaysia. We found Malaysia on our world map and added a pin so we can find it easily.
-we have an exciting Mystery Skype on Tuesday
Science
Phys Ed
-we will be using our space and time in Gym to explore the cardinal directions and the global distribution of resources this week
-of course, we are continuing to enjoy Go Noodle and like levelling up our newest Champ, Flappy Tuckler!
-Tom and Oyster led the class in a Gym game called "Q-Tip Hockey". We discussed the importance of monitoring ourselves in Gym and remember to: be brave, participate, cooperate, be safe, have a good idea and problem solve.
-We are starting a unit on Volleyball. We played a game called "Clean the Room" to be aware of our space and then played another round, practicing simple serves. We talked about some strategies to make the ball go high and far - hit with a palm, not a fist, follow through, aim your arm and body where you want the ball to go
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
-we learned about frostbite and how to keep ourselves warm, cozy and safe in this cold, cold weather!
-our new friend, Merlin, a therapy dog, came to visit us on Thursday. He's really special because he's trained to work with children and that means he's really, really kind and patient. We got to practice how to meet a dog and then many students got to snuggle with Merlin and read to him. He and his human, Nancy, LOVE hearing us read our stories!
Art
-we reviewed Colour Theory and talked about primary and secondary colours. Ask your child what three items we have in our classroom that are the secondary colours! Because we have a few students who are colour blind, we have had lots of interesting discussions about tints and shades and how we experience colour differently.
Drama
-students are practicing great puppetry skills so that Norman can be more animated and accurate during his Math lessons!
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 "Herb the Vegetarian Dragon"
-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
-we have a new class Muppet! It is an awesome orange monster type Muppet and is so happy to be our new friend. We learned that this friend doesn't identify as male or female, and prefers to be referred to as "they". We will be selecting a name this week!
NOTE: This post will be updated periodically throughout the week, check back often for more updates!
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