Last Week of April!

We are heading into a couple of very busy weeks at RBES! This week during gym class, students will be doing DrumFit! We have done DrumFit in gym class before and the students LOVE it! Feel free to click on the following link for a short video on DrumFit! https://www.drum.fit/schools/

On Friday afternoon from 2-3pm, we will be participating in a 4Cats painting workshop! If you would like to join us, let me know! We are going to be focusing on the work of Edgar Degas. More than half of Degas pieces represent dancers, usually ballerinas, as he enjoyed depicting movement in his art. He also created a variety of sculptures and paintings of horses. We will be completing a painting of a horse for our study of Degas.

 

We have our second MindUp session with Mrs. Kehoe tomorrow. The students thoroughly enjoyed our first session with her. I'll update you on what Mrs. Kehoe teaches the kids later this week!

Highlights Of Last Week

Language Arts

We have continued to work on our stuck stories. We have only two paragraphs left and then we will be DONE!!! The students have been working on publishing their stories in Google Slides as we have worked from paragraph to paragraph. They are doing a fantastic job implementing everything that they have learned about sentence starters, specific verbs, showing instead of telling and sensory imagery. I can't wait to see the finished products!

Math

We have almost finished up our measurement unit in math. After finishing up our last lesson on mass, we will have a quick unit test. Our next topics will be rounding, estimation with addition and subtraction and then we will head back into multiplication and onto division. 

Science

The students and I have enjoyed the numerous challenges that we have been working through in our Survivor Building Challenge! We are going to finish up the remaining challenges this week and then move on to our next Social Studies unit!

Physical Education

I've recently taken a two day course in Leduc with an amazing Children's Psychologist and I learned so much! One of the things that she stressed was getting children outside as often as possible because it has so many positive benefits. She shared a very powerful video with us about the amount of time children in North America spend outside. You can view the video below:

Since taking the course, I have made a mindful effort to get the students out as often as possible. She also stressed the importance of unstructured play for children so I've been encouraging students to come up with their own ideas of what they want to do outside. I offer to grab a handful of equipment from the gym storage room, but after that, they are on their own to organize, problem solve and PLAY! It has been amazing!

This Thursday, we did play a structured game and we had a blast! It's a large version of Tic-Tac-Toe! Students are broken into two teams per tic-tac-toe board and are given three pinnies of their teams' colour. The goal of the game is to win Tic-Tac-Toe and there is a lot of running involved! Here's a quick video showing you how to play:

I think that this would be such a great game to play with friends and family when camping this summer, at birthdays or bbqs, family reunions...so much fun!!!

Upcoming Events

Don't forget...we are presenting a song on honesty at the assembly on Friday!
Tuesday - library
Wednesday - read for beads
Friday - 4Cats from 2pm-3pm
PaintNite tickets ON SALE NOW!!!

Mind Up!

Today Mrs. Kehoe from Riverview Middle School came in to teach our students about Mind Up! This was the first of three lessons. The students learned all about how their brains work when managing stress and how to settle down when they are getting caught up with intense emotions. They learned about their amygdala (Guard Dog), their prefrontal cortex (Wise Owl) and their hippocampus (Happy Hippo).

Here are a few of the links that the students wanted me to share with you!

Just Breathe

Book: Moody Cow

Is it honestly April 17th already?!?

Wow! I can't believe two things right now:

#1 - We only have 49 days left in this school year!
#2 - That it is warm enough on April 17th to have the kids in bathing suits and the sprinklers on!

This year is flying by way too fast! I have enjoyed the last 7.5 months with your children so much! This year has been a big change for me, working full time for the first time in 10 years and teaching Science and Social Studies. I have enjoyed it all so much more than I would have expected! Teaching Social  and Science is so much fun! Speaking of Science....

Science

I would like to introduce you to the tribes in 3C!

 The Black Island Tribe

The Navy Tribe

The Blue Dragon Tribe

The Unknown Tribe

The first thing that the students needed to learn was what it takes to make a fair scientific test and the importance of keeping everything the same except for one variable. Once they had a strong grasp of these concepts they were ready for their tribal challenges. 

Within their tribes, students have been given challenges with testing a variety of building materials. Their first tree mail challenge asked them to determine what shape supports more mass, a square or an arch. 

The students quickly determined that the arch is a very strong structure. We discussed the reasons behind this surprising strength...no one part of the arch supports more mass than another.

Tree mail #2 arrived the following day and asked the students to test the strength of different beam shapes. There were three beams to test: an acordian beam, a rectangular beam and a box girder beam. Within the first moments of testing we came across a bit of a snag in our plans. Our beams were much stronger than we expected, therefore measuring their strength using unifix cubes as weights wouldn't work. We quickly darted to the library to grab some proper weights. More lessons were learned on their way as we worked through this experiment:

#1 When the teacher asks you to record the mass that your bridge can hold on the sheet provided, you should listen to her and do it. There is no way you will remember the different masses at the end of the experiment. 

#2 Once a beam collapses, you can not use it to retest its strength because it has a significant weak point.

Due to the various lessons learned during this challenge, we are going to retest our hypothesis this week as a whole class so that we can confidently come to a conclusion about each beams strength.

In addition to testing our scientific beliefs, we are also testing our ability to work cooperatively with our tribe mates. Students are being encouraged to listen to all tribe members ideas, voice their opinions respectfully, stay on task for the duration of the challenge and  solve problems that arise as a team.

We are all looking forward to our next week of Survivor Science!

Numeracy

The students have continued to enjoy our unit on measurement! We have worked through measuring in km, comparing units of measure and measuring perimeter. The students are mastering the learning objectives with ease!

Literacy

I can't wait to have your children share their stuck stories with you!!! They are turning out so incredibly well! One of our students read their first three paragraphs to Mrs. Kloschinsky and Mr. Larson and they were amazed by the word choice and detail that the student included! As students are finishing up each paragraph, I am checking in with them and making sure that everything makes sense and that the proper punctuation, spelling and capitalization is in place. I am also monitoring sentence starters and word choice. Once given the all clear, students are typing their paragraphs into a google slides document and creating an e-book of their own. They are so excited about "publishing" their stories!

Students have continued to enjoy Wonder. We have been reading the Via (August's sister) chapters and the students have really enjoyed getting to know her. Their questions and discussions have been so thoughtful, genuine, curious, empathetic and insightful. They have grown so much as active participants in their reading!

Special Events

The students enjoyed Crazy Hair Day!

One of our classmates participated in the Viking Cup floor hockey tournament at Caledonia Park this weekend! He played three fantastic games earning a spot in the gold medal game! The final game was a nail biter against Leduc Estates. We were down 3-0 with two minutes left and the Raptors didn't give up! They ended up scoring 2 goals in those final minutes and walked away with a silver medal around their necks and the pride in knowing that they didn't give up until the final buzzer sounded! I was lucky enough to be able to cheer from the stands for all 4 games! Way to go DJ D! I was super proud of you this weekend!

On Thursday, the remaining boys floor hockey players will participate in an action packed tournament in Beaumont! I can't wait to cheer our 3C students on along with my oldest son, Elliot!

Upcoming Important Dates

Thursday, April 21st - Beaumont Floor Hockey Tournament

Friday, April 22nd - PD Day

Friday, April 29th - 4 Cats Degas Painting (2-3pm)

Monday, May 2nd - Friday, May 6th - Education Week

Monday, May 2nd - Zumba in Gym

Wednesday, May 4th - Hats on for Mental Health

Monday, May 9th - Spring Photos

Monday, May 9th - RBES Celebrates the Masters (art show) (approx. 4 - 6pm)

First Week Back!

What a fantastic week! We picked up right where we left off before Spring Break!

LITERACY

We moved on to our next paragraph in our story, focusing on introducing the character and motive. In order to have the character introduce their motive, we had to explore the concept of using dialogue within our stories. The students have done a fantastic job using these new skills! This week we will focus on getting our characters stuck and writing our attempts to get them unstuck.

Here are the guidelines for using dialogue:

We have continued to enjoy Wonder together each day! It truly is an amazing book! I love the discussions that it brings up! The students have been very mindful, thoughtful and wise throughout the reading so far. Things did get a little emotional this week when one character really disappointed us by hurting August. Ask your child what they think is going to happen to the relationship between Jack and August.

Last week, I completed the final tweaking of our WTW groups. It is a LONG process! I like to make sure that students are in the best group for them, which means that I assess their WTW assessment as well as their day to day writing. I look to see who understands the spelling rules with long vowels, who understands the r controlled vowels, etc. New groups have been formed and we will continue WTW this week!

NUMERACY

Last week we moved our focus to Measurement in math. We have started by investigating linear measurement. We have worked through several lessons dealing with measuring distances in centimetres, metres and kilometres. This week we will continue the study of kilometres and then focus more on choosing the appropriate units and then continuing on to work with perimeter.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Last week we finished our study of Tunisia by creating concept maps on the chromebooks that show the availability of services in Tunisia. Some students were then able to compare the access to services in Tunisia compared to that in India.

SCIENCE

This week we are going to start our study of building with a variety of materials and testing materials and design. To make things more interesting, we are going to participate in a Survivor challenge! The students will be divided in to 4 tribes, each with their own unique name and coloured buff (handkerchief). The tribes will work through a variety of challenges as a team. The challenges will give them the opportunity to experiment with the use of different materials and types of design to accomplish a specific task. Stay tuned for Tribe photos tomorrow!

MENTAL HEALTH DAY!

On Friday, students enjoyed a morning filled with sessions that encouraged mindfulness. Some stations included: Star Wars yoga, guided relaxation, Smashbooks Journals, drumfit, breathing for relaxation, drama, collaborative and physical activity. The students came back to the classroom excited to share everything that they had learned in their sessions! The BGRS CAP team was out to help run the sessions.

We will be having Mrs. Kehoe from Riverview in our classroom in the coming weeks to teach us the MindUp curriculum. Chatting with my grade one son this weekend was mind blowing when he started to tell me all about how his brain works! He told my husband and I all about the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala! We were blown away! I can't wait to get our class started with this amazing program! For more information about the Mind Up program, please see the following link:
What is Mind Up?

Important reminders:

• Paint Nite fundraiser tickets are now available! Buy yours now before it's sold out! https://paintnite.com/events/1059011.html
• Tuesday, April 12 - School Council/Fundraising Meeting @5:30pm in the staffroom
• Wednesday, April 13 - Staff Appreciation Lunch
• Thursday, April 14 - Crazy Hair Day