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.