Merry Christmas!

Wow! What a fantastic five days!!! The students and I work very hard on a variety of things this week!

MATH

In math, we started working on double digit addition with trading. This is the first time that I have used Jump Math to teach this concept and I have to say, I was very impressed with how things were broken down. The part of the traditional algorithm that is tough for many students to understand is the reason for the "trading" when the sum of a column is a double digit number. Jump Math did a FABULOUS job explaining this to students. All of the students in 3C were able to add two 2-digit numbers with and without trading by the end of the week. In January, we will review this concept and practice adding multi digit numbers where trading is needed randomly.

LITERACY

In writing, I introduced the students to JoAnne Moore's writing program. We are working on a paragraph about life in a snowglobe.

The Christmas Countdown Is On!

Five more days until Christmas break....this week is going to fly by in a flash!

Last week was one for the record books! We pulled off a fantastic Christmas concert with the help of the most fabulous Mrs. Stanski! For those of you that don't already know, each year Mrs. Stanski writes her own Christmas concert script. She doesn't purchase a new one each year, like most schools do. She works on our custom concerts herself and chooses the lines and songs that will fit each class perfectly! She chose our class for the Elvis song because in her words, "3C's students are the COOLEST!" I couldn't agree with her more! One of the major differences between our Christmas concerts at RBES compared to those at other schools, is that our students enjoy the time spent practicing from the first practice to the last practice! My husband and I have both taught at other schools where this is not the case. The first practice is fun but after that, singing the same ol' songs gets tired and ragged...and by the time the concert night comes around, the kids do not want to sing that song one more time! I've never seen that happen with Mrs. Stanski's masterpieces! She approaches each class with such enthusiasm and encourages them to find their inner broadway self, and they shine...every time!

Unfortunately this week I was struck down by a nasty cold bug that stole my voice for a couple of days. The students had two very productive days with a substitute teacher. It's always such a treat coming back in after having a sub in and finding a note along with the sub plans telling me how fabulous the students were!

On Thursday, we worked hard through some tricky math focusing on regrouping/trading ones for tens, and tens for hundreds (in preparation for multi-digit addition and trading). We also focused on multi-digit addition when regrouping isn't required. I love how the Jump Math program is making a connection between the place value unit and the regrouping/trading in addition. It's important for students to see this connection to truly understand when regrouping is necessary. I am hoping that this encourages more success and deeper understanding in using the traditional algorithm method with addition (stack and add) for all students. In writing, I gave the students a sneek peek of the Joanne Moore writing program that we will be using for the rest of the year. We are working on writing a narrative paragraph about life in a snow globe. We are writing the paragraph sentence by sentence focusing on using a unique sentence starter each time along with some specific verbs. The students were amazed by their first sentence! Focusing on those two aspects when we are writing transforms student writing immediately! I love watching them as they reread their sentences for the first time...they are so amazed and proud of their work! We will share these paragraphs with you in a special way soon!

On Friday, we transformed ourselves into artists! I wish I could share more with you, but it's your secret Christmas surprise! I've never done this project before with students and it is turning out so well! We have a few finishing touches to do on Monday and then we will wrap it up to go under your Christmas tree at home! I sure hope you love it!

This week, we have so much to look forward to!
Here are the important highlights:

1) Chocolate pretzels
- students can bring in a toonie to purchase a chocolate pretzel on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday
- you can purchase more than one
- pretzels will be handed out in the afternoon on Wednesday

2) PJ, Stuffy and Movie Day
- Friday
- all RBES students will be going into the gym to watch a movie in the afternoon

3) 3C class party snack
- we will be having our party snack at 10:30 on Friday
- the students assigned to party food are:
Kaeden - Sausage/meat tray
Jessie - Cheese and crackers
Amberley - Sweets (cookies, cupcakes, etc)
Joslynn - Fruit tray
Tristan - Veggie tray
Anna - Chips
Mrs. Milson - plates, napkins, drinks

*If you are unable to provide your snack please let me know asap so that I can make other arrangements.

Heading into our last week of school in 2015, I take a minute to look back at the last four months that I have had the pleasure of spending with your children with a huge smile on my face! We have had so much fun and learned a ton! I look forward to our next six months together!

We are dancing our way through this week!

Due to the fact that the gym is being used for Christmas concert practice, we have been having gym in our classroom. As per Mr. Larson's suggestion, we are focusing on movement in dance this week. The students and I have been having a blast learning line dances and other dances that they are likely to come into contact with at a family New Year's Eve dance or wedding!

Here are a few links to some of the dances that we've been practiced if you wish to have some family dance time at home:

Boot Scootin' Boogie

Happy

The Twist (kids)

Crazy Santa and Reindeer Dance

Just Dance Crazy Christmas

Sid Shuffle Line Dance

YMCA


We have been practicing hard for our Christmas concert! The students are doing a fantastic job!
Below is a picture of our stage layout so you can choose the best seat for the concert to give you an excellent view! A reminder that the concert starts at 6:30pm. Students need to be at the school at 6:15pm.

Time flying by seems to be the theme of this school year!

Wow! How can it be that we only have 3 more weeks of school until Christmas break?!? We all know that these next 19 days are going to fly by!

Over the past two weeks we have been working hard in all curricular areas!

LITERACY

Our read aloud lessons have been focused on non-fiction lately as we have been reading books about the provinces and territories in Canada. Bringing Social Studies into Language Arts is a great opportunity to model reading strategies in "real life" situations. Reading conferences have continued to go very well with all of our students improving their independent strategy use! Great work 3C!

Our writing instruction has continued to focus on sentence and paragraph writing. Many of our students are still inconsistently writing complete sentences. Sentences often tend to run on or end abruptly. We are working very hard every day to improve our abilities in this area. if your child is writing at home, please assist them in correcting their work if they are not writing in complete sentences. One of the questions I often ask them is, "If I walked up to you and said (-----insert their sentence here----), would it make sense? Would you be left asking me, what? Or who?" If the answer is YES, then things need to be fixed up!

This week, we are going to write our letters to Santa! Next week, we will be writing a narrative paragraph about life in a snow globe!

NUMERACY

Recently, we have been working on writing numbers in a variety of ways, comparing numbers, adding and taking away 10 or 100 from a number and skip counting by 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 25 and 100. This week we will dive into addition of multi digit numbers with and without trading.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We have come to the end of our mapping unit. I am very proud of how the students worked hard to improve their knowledge of Canada's provinces, territories and oceans and the continents and oceans of the world. I will be handing back the recent tests by Tuesday. Our next unit will take us to India! I can't wait to explore this amazing country with the students!

SCIENCE

This week we will finish up our unit on rocks and minerals. We have recently learned about the role of erosion and weathering in shaping our surroundings. The students enjoyed a Bill Nye video and were able to answer several questions on a worksheet after the video! Our previous note taking has paid off! All of the students were very attentive throughout the activity! Students will bringing home their lapbooks that we have worked on throughout the unit to organize our learning.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Our Christmas concert is on Monday, December 7th at 6:30pm. Our dress rehearsal will be at 1:10pm on Monday. Students can wear whatever you want them to wear. If your child is unable to attend, please let me know ASAP.

We are still collecting donations for the Devon Christmas Elves. Donations of food and new toys are desperately needed. The committee has expressed an extra need this year due to the many families facing work lay offs. The grade threes are in charge of organizing the food that is donated this year as part of our Social Studies global citizenship project.

The grade threes are fortunate enough to be having a local author visit us tomorrow. Nickie Brook will be visiting us from 10:45am - 11:45am. Parents and grandparents are welcome to attend. We will be hosting Mrs. Brook in our classroom.

Book orders will be coming home tomorrow and will be due on Friday to ensure that they will arrive in time for Christmas. Please feel free to pay by CHEQUE or CREDIT CARD through the PARENT PAY system online.

PHOTOS

We all enjoyed getting to know our Star Student Miss J! She was a super Star Student!

We had a special visitor to our room the other day! My dog Tali came by to say hi! The students loved her crazy, silly, jumpy and lovey personality!

November Update

I can't believe that we are half way through November already! It's been a very busy couple of weeks with two nights of parent teacher meetings, fundraiser art projects and Remembrance Day!

As was mentioned in emails last week, Christmas card orders were due last Tuesday. It was so rewarding to see the students create such beautiful cards! They really took their time and were proud of their work. 

Last week, we also focused on the importance of Remembrance Day. We read one of my favourite books, A Bear In War by Stephanie Innes & Harry Endrulat. I encourage you to ask your child to retell you the story. All of the students lost themselves in the story and were moved by the fact that it is based on a true story. Many of them might ask you to take them to the Canadian War Museum to see the real bear if you are ever in Ottawa.



After reading the book, we had discussions, watched a video and looked at some pictures to help us understand our blessings as Canadians and who were need to be thankful to. Our class behaviour during the assembly was nothing but respectful. I was very proud of all of our students.

CURRICULUM UPDATE

Math

We have continued to work through our Number Sense concepts focusing on representing numbers in different ways. They have practiced writing numerals in words, in expanded form with numerals only (352= 300+50+2), expanded form with numbers and words (352= 3 hundreds + 5 tens + 2 ones) and with pictures (base ten blocks). We have also focused on the value of each of the digits (352 - 3 means 300, 5 means 50 and 2 means 2).

We have also continued to work on our number sense using How Many Ways.

Literacy

Words Their Way - We took last week off from WTW because it was such a short week. We will have new sorts for this week. Your child should be bringing their sort home on Mondays. If a sort sheet doesn't make its way home, please email me and I will make sure one comes home on Tuesday. Please continue to encourage your child to practice their sorts during the week. This practice shouldn't take more than 10 minutes each night and will help your child master the spelling rules each week. Thank you for your cooperation with this.

Word Wall Words - This week will be our first time having Word Wall Words (WWW). Each week your child will write 5 sight words in their agenda on Mondays. On Monday evening, please have your child read the words to you. If your child can read all of the words, their goal for the week is to be able to spell them correctly. If your child can not read the words, their goal is to be able to read them all on sight (no sounding out). On Fridays, in addition to their WTW tests on Spelling City, students will also complete a quick dictation test. During this test, I will give them a simple sentence to write down. They are expected to use proper mechanics (punctuation and capitalization). They are also expected to spell the WWW correctly. For those students who have been working on learning how to read the words, they will be expected to find the word on their portable word wall and copy it down correctly.

Read Alouds - We have been reading a variety of books during our read aloud time. I've brought in a few of my favourite picture books and we have also been reading some nonfiction. For the next couple of weeks, we are going to focus our read alouds on Canada. I will read about a different province/territory each day to help reinforce concepts that are being taught in Social Studies.

Home Reading - Due to our busy schedule on Fridays, I would like to change our home reading rewards day to Wednesdays. It is really hard to fit everything in on Fridays and moving this one activity to Wednesdays will help lighten the load for all of us. Thank you for your understanding.

Social Studies 

We are currently finishing up our study of maps, the continents and oceans and Canada. I would like to have a unit quiz on Monday. Students will be expected to be able to label a world map with the 7 continents and 5 oceans. They will also be expected to label a map of Canada with it's provinces and territories. Spelling will count on this test.

Science

Over the next couple of weeks, we will finish our unit on Rocks and Minerals. I am excited to guide the students through a final rock testing session as a unit wrap up activity. My husband is a science teacher at a junior high school in the city and has access to an amazing collection of rocks! He is letting us borrow them along with some actual porcelain plates to do the streak test with! The kids are going to be super excited!

Star Students

We have enjoyed getting to know two of our classmates even better! Thank you to Miss M and Mr R for being our fabulous Star Students!

A few other important reminders:

Tuesday - photo retakes
Friday - Fundscript Orders Due
Friday - Twin Day!

Halloween happiness!

Wow! Did we ever have a ton of fun in 3C today!!

Mummy Making Contest!

Thank you to all of the parents that sent in party snacks and treats!

Have a great Halloween weekend! See you all next week at Parent Teacher meetings!

What A Great Week!

We had five great days in 3C this week!

Literacy

Read Aloud- We continued to read The Trouble With Chickens last week and finished it today. We were thrown a few curve balls as we approached the end of the book! The students really enjoyed the ending of the story. They learned to closely listen to the narrator's voice when I was reading and appreciated JJ's wicked sense of humour!

Read to Self- I am super proud of 3C students for being such voracious readers! They enjoy their time reading each day which provides me with the opportunity to work with struggling readers one on one. During this time of targeted reading intervention, I am able to model and practice specific reading strategies with students. I have already witnessed positive change in their reading ability but most importantly, their reading confidence!

Words Their Way- Students had a successful week with WTW. During the week, we work with our word sorts each day at school and students are expected to complete the same activity at home. At home practice is necessary to ensure that the students are grasping the spelling patterns. Thank you for your cooperation with this each week!

Writing- After reviewing several journal entries and other samples of writing, I have formed writing conference groups. Similar to reading conferences, I will be targeting certain writing skills in a small group setting. We have also continued our focus on paragraph writing using our Back and Forth Communication activity in addition to other guided writing activities.

Numeracy

We have finished up our patterning unit with an abundance of SUCCESS!!! I have never, in my many years of teaching grade three, made it through the unit so quickly and with such amazingly high marks on the unit final! The JUMP Math program is proving itself daily in our class!

We have also been taking some time to work on our quick recall of basic facts. This past week, we focused on learning our DOUBLES. I taught the students some fun ways to remember these facts!
Ask your child to tell you and show you our doubles tricks!

We are going to continue onto our Number Sense Unit in math starting with a focus on place value.

Social Studies

This past week we worked on learning about the 7 continents and 5 oceans. We watched a very memorable video to help us remember the names of the continents!

How To Remember the 7 Continents for kids!

Art

Over the past two weeks, we created a spider web masterpiece using watercolour paper, white glue, watercolour paint and salt. The students did a fantastic job!

Gym

Recently in gym, we have been focusing on throwing and catching skills. Students have been practicing underhand and overhand throwing. Proper form has been reviewed and we are making gains for sure. Throwing and catching is something adults take for granted and don't think too much about. For kids, it's a whole other story! We have also been focusing on the progression to throwing and catching for sport. It isn't enough to be able to throw a ball...can you throw it so that the receiver can catch it? Did you get their attention before you threw the ball? Did you aim it properly? During gym class, we focus on these skills individually before trying them out in a game setting. The students quickly realize how important these skills are when they are trying to work together as a team.

Halloween

Due to a drumming presentation in the afternoon on Friday, we will be having our Annual Costume Parade first thing in the morning. Please have your child dressed and ready when they come to school on Friday. If you want to supply a change of clothes for later in the day, that would be great. Students often get tired and uncomfortable in their costumes all day.

Our party snack schedule was shared earlier this month. There is a copy on the blog under VIP.
We will be having our party snacks in the morning after recess at 10:30am. I will supply juice, plates and napkins.

On the schedule I have:

Madeleine - sausage/meat tray
Devon - cheese and crackers
Rachel - sweets
Kayden - fruit tray
Ryce - veggie tray

If there are any problems with these assignments, please let me know asap.

Parent Teacher Meetings

Parent Teacher Meetings are being held on Tuesday, November 3rd and Wednesday, November 4th.
Please use the following link to sign up for an appointment time.

Parent Teacher Meetings

There will be a book fair running in the library from November 2 to 4th.

Farewell to Mrs. Becker

We are having a special farewell assembly on Wednesday at 2:30pm to give the students an opportunity to say goodbye to Mrs. Becker. Parents are welcome to attend!

Fieldtrip to Tin Soldier

The students enjoyed the Alberta Opera's performance of The Tin Soldier! They were very impressed with the singing, quick costume changes and set design!

Weekly Update

The past two weeks have flown by in 3C!

We have been busy prepping and completing our SLAs in literacy and numeracy. Students enjoyed the digital sections that were completed on their Chromebooks. The written literacy component asked students to imagine their ideal school. They watched a presentation where a variety of examples were given, had time to chat in small groups about their ideas, had time to plan independently and then finally, had time to write their ideas down in paragraph form. During the written numeracy component, students were asked to figure out how many bikes (2 wheels), scooters (3 wheels) and skateboards (4 wheels) were at the skate park if there were 25 wheels in total. This problem was quite challenging for most students. Students were also asked to check a fictitious characters work and figure out where they went wrong. This problem was extra challenging for most students. Overall, I was happy with the results of both written components. There weren't any surprises as far as student performance goes. I think I speak for all of us when I say, that I'm glad that they are finished and I am looking forward to getting into some new routines for spelling, writing and word work. 

LITERACY

We have been hard at work during our literacy periods. We have started a new book during read alouds, The Trouble With Chickens. I enjoy reading this book to my students each year because it introduces to the concept of multiple narrators. This forces them to pay attention to the narrator and the voice that they are writing in. 

We have continued to work on paragraph writing during our writing periods. Many of you have already had the opportunity to read our Hero paragraphs. The class book of hero paragraphs is making it's way through all of the 3C homes. We ask that you give us some feedback on the back sheets...the students love reading your comments! We are also focusing on the proper mechanics of writing. Students are expected to use proper capitalization and punctuation while writing complete sentences. 

After noticing that many students are struggling with sounding out the phonetic spelling of words, I decided to give Making Words a try. Making Words is a hands on spelling activity where students are given a selection of letter cards to use to spell a variety of words. We start with small 3 letter words to get the students warmed up and then move on to longer and longer words. In the end, the students are expected to use all of their letter cards to spell the "mystery word". While giving the words for the students to spell, I encourage them to stretch the word sounds out to ensure that they are putting the letters in the correct order and I model this stretching out of the words (bake: b-a (long)- k). I was a little surprised how much our students struggled with this task. As we worked through our word list, I noticed that many students missed blends (st, tr, bl, br, cr, etc) and vowel sounds. I have rearranged my literacy schedule to allow for this activity twice a week to assist students in these skills as they are critical to encourage an improvement in their written work. 

Our Words Their Way spelling program is underway this week. Your child will be bringing home a note explaining the program tomorrow. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask at any time. Our Word Wall Words spelling program will start next week. I didn't want to overwhelm everyone with both programs at once. 

The students have continued to enjoy handwriting each week. We have covered more than half of the alphabet already! We are currently working on the loop letters!

NUMERACY

In math, we are just finishing up our patterns unit. Students have been practicing creating, extending and naming the pattern rule with increasing and decreasing number patterns. We have used t-tables to assist us in discovering the pattern in figure drawings. We will be having our unit test this week and then heading into our place value unit. 

SOCIAL STUDIES

Students have enjoyed learning about the different components of a map including the compass rose, the title, the key, symbols and the scale. We have also practiced reading maps. A mapping project will be coming home tomorrow with students and will be due on Monday. We are going to now start investigating our globe, the continents and oceans. 

SCIENCE

Our students are crazy about rocks! We have been looking at investigating the different properties of rocks. Using our own rock collections, we are paying close attention to shapes, light, lustre, smell, streak test, feel, hardness and magnetism. We are going to study each of these properties in greater depth over the next couple of weeks. 

Important Reminders

- fieldtrip forms are due ASAP for our fieldtrip on Thursday

- fruit orders are due on Friday (to support the grade 4 Drumheller trip)

* the fruit is delicious if you've never ordered it before

- hot lunch orders are due on Thursday for November lunches

- our art is on display in the foyer this month

We enjoyed getting to know Miss R during her Star Student week!

October Already?!?

I can't believe that it is already October 2nd! Where has the time gone?

In 3C we have been busy!

Language Arts

In writing we have been working on self monitoring/editing while writing. Students are asked to check for proper punctuation, capitalization, neat printing and complete sentences when writing. We have also started working on the concept of paragraph writing and staying on topic. Back and Forth writing is directed at this purpose; staying on topic about their week at school. We also recently wrote a paragraph about our heroes. Student paragraphs will be put into a book and the book will be circulated around the 3C families. Your child will have a chance to bring home the class book and I ask that you read through the students' work and then leave a little feedback on the pages provided. Please return the book the next day so that it can make it's journey to the next home. Thank you for your cooperation with this process.

We also started an exciting new year long project this week! Instead of me sending home a cd filled with class photos at the end of the year, the students are going to create their own personalized 3C Memory slideshow! We are using Google Slides to put together a few slides each month of our favourite highlights. I am sharing a photo folder each month with the students through Google Drive will all of our class photos. They will browse through the photos, choose a few favourites and create a slide including a title, the photo and a caption (2-5 sentences long). By the end of June, students will have their entire year digitally scrapbooked as a keepsake! We were all super excited working on this project today! I can't wait to see how they all turn out!

Reading instruction is given every day to every student during our read aloud time. Strategies are introduced and practiced at this time daily. For many students, that is all they need. They are already reading at or above grade level and have already developed many "great reader habits." Other students require additional support to be able to use strategies independently and to raise their confidence level. During one on one reading conferences, I talk to the student about their beliefs and feelings towards reading. We discuss what strategies they depend on and what they feel they need to work on. After listening to a student read for a few minutes, we discuss their strengths and areas that need some attention. We decide on a strategy or two to focus on for the next while and practice using the strategy together. During this time, I may dig a little deeper into a child's sight word vocabulary and phonological awareness. I have now read with each student at least once. This weekend I will be creating our conferencing schedule. Some students who require substantial support to reach their full potential as a reader will read with me up to three times a week, while others will touch base with me once or twice a month. Each student gets what time they need. 

Math

We have been working on figuring out the pattern rule in number patterns and extending those patterns over the past two weeks. Students are now able to extend increasing and decreasing number patterns. Next, we will be looking at extending patterns using figures after identifying the "core" or repeating portion of the pattern.

Students have also been working on "How Many Ways?" to work on their number sense with various operations.

Social Studies

Students have been learning about the different components of maps: the title, the key, the scale and symbols. We will practice reading a variety of maps and following directions. Students will be redoing a map of their bedroom now that they understand the different components of a proper map.

Science

The first lesson that the students learned about rocks this year is that "rocks are heavy!" Carrying a backpack filled with rocks up the Lion's Park hill was exhausting! For the record, we warned them not to take any more rocks than was necessary! LOL! 

After discovering a variety of rock treasures down at the river during our Rock Walk, the students are eager to start investigating their rocks. First we needed to discuss the term properties. We will be examining our rocks for many different properties over the next few weeks. We took the time to give our rocks a good wash so that we can clearly see their unique properties.

One of our students, Madeleine, has been generous enough to lend us her brand new rock tumbler and a variety of rock samples! The students were super excited to set the rock tumbler up and watch the transformation of the rocks! We loaded the barrel with 200g of rocks along with coarse grit and water. We tumbled the rocks for two days. Today we took a peek at the rocks after stage one...what a transformation! We can't wait to see what changes stage two will bring!

This was what the rocks looked like before we put them in the tumbler!

This is what the rocks looked like after two days of tumbling in course grit!

Our First Star Student

We had our first Star Student week this week! We really enjoyed getting to know Mr. J, a new student to RBES! We learned that he loves building with LEGO, martial arts and has a strong bond with his new dog. We enjoyed hearing from his Auntie about how awesome of a boy he is! All of his classmates describe him as nice, gentle, kind, hard working and fun!

If you have any questions about your child's Star Student week, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

A Big Surprise!

One last highlight of our week was getting our new desks! The students were so excited and surprised when they walked in on Monday morning! They eagerly found their new seats and quickly organized their pencils, erasers, markers and pencil crayons into their desks! To my surprise they weren't eager to move them out of rows and into groups or pods! They were all pumped to "finally be facing the front" that they've asked me to keep them in paired up rows! It's funny how we, as teachers, think we know what the students want...shared space in small groups...and what they really want is to sit in rows just like we did when we were kids! One of my favourite parts of my job is how much I learn from my students. Learning truly is a two way street in any classroom!

A Sad Goodbye

We were all sad to say goodbye to our little Mr. J today as he prepares to move to Newfoundland next week. The students and I prepared a little gift for him to show him how much we will miss him. 

We will miss you!
From OWL of us in 3C!

Up and Coming...

Stay tuned next week for the start of our home reading program (it would have started this week but our photocopier was broken and I couldn't print the booklets), our spelling program and our first book order (I never send them out in September because I know, as a parent myself, how expensive September is).

SUTP orders are due after the Thanksgiving weekend so you have just over a week to collect your final orders.

I hope you all stay warm on this chilly weekend!

Take care.

Rock Walk!

What does it take to be a hero?

In preparation for our guided writing project this week, the students and I did a little digging on the topic of heroes. We watched a video on Terry Fox and then another video on one of my heroes, Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. After some discussion, I asked an important question...

What does it take to be a hero?

The students' responses gave me goosebumps!

loyal

kind

thankful & thoughtful

loving

brave

helpful

risk takers

do more good for others than for themselves

determined

smart problem solvers

never give up

courageous

trustworthy

For homework tonight, I would like students to talk to their parents to discuss who their hero is and why. Students will be expected to write a paragraph this week introducing us to their hero and supporting their choice with the reasons why they are a hero in their eyes.

Busy bees in grade three!

Last week was another great week in 3C!

New Projector!

We were all extremely excited to try out our new interactive whiteboard this week! Instead of having to run to my computer all of the time, I can just touch my whiteboard and have control! The students have fun exploring adding fractions using the pen feature! We will continue to explore different ways to use this new technology to enhance our learning experience.

Science

Mother Nature definitely didn't cooperate with us this week! Having to cancel our Rock Walk was very disappointing for the students. We made the best of it and had a great day setting up our chrome books and doing some handwriting. We have rescheduled the Rock Walk for this Wednesday (with three possible rain out dates- just in case) and ask that you please fill out the new permission slip online before Wednesday morning. Thank you for cooperation and patience with this process.

Social Studies

The students continued their exploration of mapping this week by learning about the compass rose, cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) and intercardinal directions (NE, NW, SE, SW).

Math

We finished up our mini confidence building unit on naming and adding fractions and then started into our patterning unit. The Jump Math program pays attention to building students' skills in small steps in preparation for the end goal. This week we worked on discovering the "gap" between two numbers in preparation for figuring out the pattern rule and extending an increasing pattern. All students were successful with the concepts this week!

Literacy

This week our read alouds have focused around reinforcing the comprehension strategies check for understanding and go back and reread. I am using Skippyjon Jones books to illustrate the importance of these strategies. Skippyjon Jones books are hilarious but there is a catch! You have to make sure you understand the expressions that are in Spanish to fully get all of the funny bits! I demonstate our strategies throughout the read aloud and clearly show the students the value of using these strategies. The reward for using the strategies is huge...more laughs!

I have continued to read with students during our read to self time each day. At this time, I teach specific reading strategies that I feel will benefit individual students the most. It is so wonderful working with a group of students who are so eager to add to their reading strategy toolboxes!

Art

This week in art, I introduced the students to one of my favourite artists, Romero Britto! We learned a few things about him personally and then starting looking at his art. The students quickly recognized a few key features present in his work:
- dark black lines outlining his drawings
- bold and bright colours
- patterns that go in every "piece" of his picture

After grasping an understanding of his works features, I guided the students through a cat drawing. Once the drawings were complete, we practiced making patterns with a variety of shapes and colours. Students were excited to try out their new skills on their cat drawings and got to work right away. We listened to Brazilian music while we worked since Romero Britto is from Brazil. We didn't get to finish our masterpieces and will continue to work on them this week.

Important Dates

Library - Tuesdays
Hot lunch orders - due Wednesday
Rock Walk- Wednesday
Terry Fox Walk - Friday

As always, if at any time you have any questions or concerns please contact me at your earliest convenience.