Jan 19-23

Weekly Update on the Going-Ons in 
3FM Science & Social Studies

What a great week in 3FM!!! So much going on in Science and Social Studies. 
Students worked hard over the week presenting their instruments and writing a quiz in social studies.

Science

Much to the student's excitement, as well as mine, we continued our 
"Invent an Instrument" presentations. The students were so engaged in each 
presentation - and all of the students did a fabulous job presenting their instruments. 

I was impressed by their creativity and presentations.

Students needed to explain the process of making their instrument as well as give a
demonstration of their instrument in which they showed us how to control the volume and pitch. We even heard a few renditions of "We Will Rock You" played by some of our braver musicians.

Here are some pictures of this week's presenters (I had to draw names as they were all so excited that it was the only way to fairly decide the order of presentation!)

 Stay-tuned for next week's post for the rest of our creative instrument makers!

Social Studies

We started off writing a quiz on the terms that we have been learning about in 

relation to quality of life and culture.  

The rest of our classes, students continued to examine the cultures of each of the four countries as they worked in partners on an assignment to examine/research celebrations and traditions relevant to each culture. Students completed these assignments in Google Classroom. 

Google Classroom is a fantastic program that allows me to give the students assignments that they can complete using their Chromebooks rather than on a worksheet. It gives our students the opportunity to develop their computer skills while they complete their curricular requirements. It is important in today's world to incorporate technology in our learning. And the students love being able to use their computers - so it is win-win!

I hope everyone has a musical week! 

Drum Fit!!!

The students in 3FM have enjoyed a week of Drum Fit during gym class and will have a chance to further their drumming-dance skills for one more week!

Language Arts and Math News!

LANGUAGE ARTS - WRITING

 

This is my favourite time of year for writing! It's time to introduce the students to writing sentences with question word sentence starters and specific verbs! Using these two components transforms students' writing and that transformation inspires them to be more mindful of their word choices.

To clarify:

Question word sentence starters- Students will be taught how to start their sentences in a variety of ways (where, what, how (ly), how (ing), when and who). Instead of starting most sentences with I, the, a or my, students can write sentences like this: Into the rushing river the grizzly splashed! (where starter in italics)

Specific verbs- Students will brainstorm specific verbs to match a chosen noun. These specific verbs help show the reader what is happening in the sentence. Example; bear- lumbered, towered, snatched, slumped, grazed, devoured

Last weeks, I introduced where sentence starters and we brainstormed specific verbs for the noun bear. The students were amazed by how awesome their sentences were!

Deep in the forest, the grizzly bear lumbered to his den. 

In the river, the bear snatched a fish. 

In a cave in the forest, the bear munched his lunch. 

Behind a bush, the hunter hid from two grizzlies. 

Inside the house, the baby bear devoured the porridge. 

Over the next two weeks, I will introduce the rest of question word sentence starters to the students and we will then practice switching between the different types. 

LANGUAGE ARTS - READING

Last weeks read alouds reviewed comprehension strategies in addition to discussing the difference between reading fiction and non fiction texts. One on one reading conferences continued to refine student strategy use and adjusted student reading levels. One student used 6 different decoding strategies in one conference! Way to go!

LANGUAGE ARTS - SPELLING

This week, we are going to focus on our Word Wall Words (www) and our new Back and Forth email routines. In order to make time for this, we are going to take the week off from Words Their Way.  The second WWW dictation test came home on Friday. I just wanted to take a minute to clarify how I marked each sentence. Each sentence is out of 4 marks. One mark is given for a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence. One mark is given for proper punctuation at the end of the sentence (I make sure that I am super dramatic when I read the sentences out loud so that the students are easily able to identify the proper punctuation).  One mark is given for spelling the week's WWW correctly. One mark is given for spelling past WWW correctly. It is important for you to know that students each have their portable WWW in front of them for the duration of the dictation test. All past WWW and the week's new WWW are on their portable word walls. Therefore, the is absolutely no reason for a WWW to be spelled incorrectly. Any WWW spelled incorrectly on the dictation test will need to be written out 5 times correctly at home over the weekend. All dictation tests should be signed by a parent and returned to the school on Monday morning. I really appreciate your support with this process as I try to encourage the students to take more responsibility for their writing mechanics (spelling, capitalization and punctuation). 

MATH

We continue to work through our basic facts and mental math strategies in preparation for the challenging task of multi-digit addition. Many gains are being made by the students in this area! I am very proud of their focused efforts with these strategies!

INDIA DAY

AND finally...

...here are some of the pictures we managed to take during the activities 

we took part in on India Day. From what I have heard from the students - they really enjoyed

 learning about the culture of India - trying food, attempting rangoli (art), making chapatis, experimenting with henna and learning some Bollywood style dancing were among the activities.

Trying some of the clothing that was brought in.

Working on their rangoli and learning about henna, clothing and the importance of the bracelets.




Making chapatis (flat bread), trying henna and the finished rangoli art.

A big thank you to all who participated by donating their time and/or expertise. I would especially like to thank my dear friend, Preet, who not only spent the day with us, but who supplied henna, Samosas, and bracelets for everyone. It was a fabulous day of learning and having a guest in the classroom willing to share her culture and experiences with the students was invaluable.

It was a chaotic but awesome day. I would like to think it was a great success - and
I am already looking forward to the next cultural day!!!

Jan 12-16

Weekly Update

Science This Past Week

Students continued working on the Hearing and Sound unit - and what an awesome week it was. The excitement of the students was so contagious as they prepared to present their instruments. There are so many creative instruments and I love that each student was so engaged in each other's creations.

We will continue to present the rest of the instruments this week during science.

Here is a look at the first of our many creative musicians:

This past week we also had some fun in a sound center learning activity - where students 

became the scientists as they further investigated the following hearing and sound concepts:

P sound is caused by vibrations

P sound travels in sound waves

P faster vibrations create higher sounds (high pitch)

P slower vibrations create lower sounds (low pitch)

P sound can travel through solids, liquids and gases 

P sound travels best (fastest) through a solid

Social Studies This Past Week

This past week in social studies, students learned about the life of the student we are studying from Ukraine. We compared life in the city vs life in the country in Ukraine, and then discussed what we have learned about quality of life from the four different countries.

Students have determined that quality of life means how good your life is - including things that make you happy, comfortable, and give you feelings of safety (food, shelter, family, etc). They have also expressed that even though money is important - it is not necessarily a direct correlation to quality of life because quality of life is about how you feel.

This week we will be looking at the term culture in relation to the four countries.

Hope everyone has a fabulous week and has a chance 

to enjoy some of the warm weather while it lasts!!!

80s Flashback!

Wednesday was RAD in 3FM!

Students enjoyed dressing up 80s style for the day! During snack time, I introduced them to one of my favourite bands from the 80s (and 90s), New Kids On The Block! They enjoyed the music videos and were then able to understand my 80s attire (NKOTB concert hoodie, band member buttons and necklace)!

Welcome Back!

Happy New Year! We have plowed through this chilly first week back and I'm happy to report that although we are all a little tired, everyone still has smiles on their faces in 3FM!

We jumped right in first thing Monday morning and got to work!

LANGUAGE ARTS NEWS

New Words Their Way sorts were worked on this past week in addition to our 5 Word Wall Words. On Friday, students had their first dictation test using the 5 word wall words (WWW). The sentences read aloud are simple and often use past WWW to encourage review and accurate spelling. I will be watching for students to start each sentence with a capital letter, spell all WWW correctly. Students have access to their portable word walls during this activity, if required. I would prefer them to check their word wall and spell the words correctly rather than reinforcing incorrect spelling. After marking the first tests and discussing the results with Mrs Rothfos, I've decided to make each sentence worth 4 marks from now on. 

The marks will be awarded as follows:

1- this week's www spelled correctly

1- review www spelled correctly

1- capital letter at the beginning of the sentence 

1- punctuation at the end of the sentence

Tests will come home with your child on Fridays. Please sign them and return them to school on Monday. If your child has spelled the www incorrectly, I ask that they write it out 5 times on the bottom of the test paper for extra practice. 

This week in writing we are going to start our JoAnne Moore sentence structure unit where we are going to focus our attention on using specific verbs and varied sentence starters. I have always had great success with this program and am looking forward to watching the students continue to develop as writers. 

Last week during read alouds we focused on comprehension strategies. We focused on making several different connections with the text to encourage stronger comprehension (text to text, text to self and text to world). We also discussed strategies that make stories come alive in our minds. 

MATH

In math we have turned our focus to addition. I have broken the students into two groups. One group is working on mastering specific strategies to encourage mastery of the basic facts (doubles, doubles +1, partners of 10, adding 1,2 or 3 to a number, adding 10, adding 9 and touch math) while the other group is working on solving more complex single digit mental math questions (adding 4 single digit numbers, solving equations, etc). Over the next week we will be tackling double and triple digit addition! Watch for another blog describing the strategies that we will be using in the next week!

ART

Warm and cool colours is the theme for January's art projects. We are exploring how these two groups of colours interact with each other within a piece of art and how they make us feel. 

2015

Super Start to 2015!

Thank You!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who worked on or contributed to the kitchen renovation over the holidays! Wow - how absolutely beautiful. It is such a wonderful gift - and truly so appreciated. The RBES staff is so lucky to have the parents that we do - it is one of the reasons that I absolutely love working in this school. You can check out some pics of the reno on this link: http://www.rbes.ca/news.html


Happy to be Back! 

What a fabulous week back in 3FM! I didn't fully realize how much I missed everyone until I was back in the class this week... that being said - it was a little bit of an adjustment coming back after a couple weeks off. I'm not sure about you all - but my family is exhausted and looking forward to the weekend.

Science Update

We continued working on our hearing and sound unit this week. We 
discussed volume in a little more depth - brainstorming loud and soft sounds. Along with this we learned that sound can be measured using a sound meter and is measured in decibels. We performed a test - using everyday classroom sounds such a pencil dropping, students talking, clapping, and flipping the pages of a book - where we predicted which sounds we thought were going to be the loudest vs softest. We then used a sound meter to measure the sounds and compare with our predictions. We will continue this lesson next week as we look at our ears and how they work. 


Social Studies Update

Prior to the Christmas Break, we were introduced to the student from India 
who will help teach us about life in India. We compared life in the country with life in the city - and discussed the idea that quality of life is not just based on money - but on shelter, food, feelings of comfort and love. We reviewed this and we also had our very first cultural day today. It was a chaotic but absolutely awesome day. It really illustrated how lucky we are to have the bunch of students that we do - they were so well-behaved, engaged, inquisitive and excited to learn about another culture. 

Here is a sneak peak at the excitement of the students:

As soon as I get all of the pictures organized - I will make a special 
India Day post to share them all with everyone!

Enjoy your weekend!!!