November 26th Update Take Two!

Art

The students really enjoyed learning about Mark Rothko during Art class! We had a discussion about how certain colours evoke specific emotions in us and those emotions differ from person to person. Rothko expressed his emotions through his paint colour choice. The students used oil pastels to create their own Rothko pieces!

Star Student

We enjoyed getting to know Mr D a little better this week! We already loved him to bits...now we just adore him even more! We love his sweet and sensitive personality along with his fantastic sense of humour!

Student of the Week

Congratulations goes out to Mr. T and Mr. N! You make me so proud every day! Keep up the awesome work!

November 26th Update

We've had a busy and productive couple of weeks in 3C!

Literacy

We've started a couple of new activities during our Working with Words blocks over the past two weeks! 

Using Words You Know is a fantastic word study activity where students are given four heading words that follow a particular spelling/phonetic rule. We discuss these four words at the beginning of the lesson. Students are then given words visually, to start, and need to determine which heading they belong under. I have students volunteer to tell me how to read the word and where it belongs. After 10-12 of these visual words, I start giving the students words orally. They need to determine which column it belongs in and how to spell it. Here is a picture of a completed Using Words You Know lesson:

The Using Words You Know strategy is very useful in both writing and reading. When a student is trying to write a word that they aren't sure of, they can think if they know how to spell any words that are similar/that rhyme. In reading, if a student is stuck on a tricky word, they can look at it and ask themselves if they know any words that look like the tricky word. 

During the Using Words You Know lessons, we also review the difference between blends and digraphs. A blend is when you put two or more consonants together and you blend their sound. A digraph is when two consonants come together to create a new sound and you can't hear their original sounds. 

We have also started our Word Wall Words this past week. Each week, students will be given ten frequently misspelled words to learn. They will be written in your child's agenda on the lines in the bottom right hand corner. The number one priority is that your child can read the words. If they can't, please focus on practicing reading them for the week. The students have personal word walls at their desks that they can use to look up the word to copy it down. If they can read the word, they can find it on the wall and then they can practice writing it properly. If your child can read the words, their job for the week is to make sure that they can spell them independently. Again, they will have their word walls to double check their work if they are unsure.

I spoke to the students about the old saying, "Practice makes perfect." I told them that I don't necessarily agree with that statement. I personally believe that "Perfect practice makes perfect." Students very quickly get used to spelling words the wrong way. They write them down every day without hesitation thinking that it's right because it's how they've always written it. Cuz, wuz, peepl, sed...I see it all the time. I'm encouraging the students to make sure that they are writing their word wall words perfectly every time by checking their word walls. Perfect practice makes perfect.

During the week, we practice the word wall words daily in a kinesthetic (movement), visual and oral way. On Fridays, we will have our spelling test. I will give the students their ten words to spell. I do allow students to have their word walls out at this time. Students do not have to use their word walls if they don't want to when originally spelling their words but I do encourage them to double check their word walls to make sure that they spelled the words correctly. I know that this isn't the "traditional" way to give a spelling test but many studies show that traditional spelling tests do little to nothing to improve student spelling accuracy within writing. I am really trying to encourage good habits that will cross over into improving student spelling within writing. Some students wanted me to know whether or not they looked at their word walls so I told them that they could write a little note beside the word if they wanted to. The last portion of the test on Friday is the dictation sentences. This is an excellent activity to improve the students' working memories. Working memory is a cognitive system with limited capacity that is responsible for temporarily holding information available for processing. It's like a mental sticky note that we use to keep track of information until we need to use it. Working memory is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision making and behaviour. Hearing a sentence repeated a few times and then holding it in their memory, while writing the words down is a very active process for the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Dictation sentences are also a great way for us to keep track of student use of conventions like punctuation, capitalization and proper spelling within writing. Students are given a mark for the following:

• capital letter to start the sentence
• proper punctuation to end the sentence
• each word wall word spelled correctly
• sentence makes sense (written down properly and completely)

In writing, we have continued to work on organization within writing. This past week, we focused on using order words to help organize our writing. Using words like first, then, next and finally helped student keep things in the proper order. 

Our read alouds this week focused on non-fiction books. We were reading out of Brian Keating's Going Wild series. We focused on text features, using a glossary, asking questions and overall comprehension during our reading. The students loved hearing about Brian's adventures and were thrilled when we received a reply to a message that I sent Brian. I was lucky enough to spend an entire day with Brian Keating last year as we traveled from Calgary to Churchill to spend the day on the tundra with the Polar Bears. I have been fortunate enough to hear Brian speak many times at Teacher's Convention and he has become one of my favourite people. The students really like him now too! Little do they know, that I have another message from Brian to share with them tomorrow morning. You can hear Brian share his adventures on The Homestretch on CBC Radio.

Numeracy

We have continued our study of numbers over the past couple of weeks. We have been working on writing numbers in words with proper spelling and have started looking at comparing numbers. The students are all doing a fantastic job with the concepts introduced so far. Your child should have brought home a mini quiz on the first six lessons on Friday.

Science

We have continued our exploration of hearing and sound. We have been studying the science behind sound waves, frequency, pitch, volume and echos. The students are starting to understand how the shape of the sound wave indicates the pitch and volume of  the sound. 

This week, we will be doing an experiment where students will have an opportunity to see sound waves in action!

Global Citizenship - Social Studies

On Friday at the assembly, we kicked off our food drive for the Devon Christmas Elves. We told the school about the contest that we are starting. The class that collects the most items for the food drive will win an ice cream float party! Students are encouraged to bring in donations until December 7th. At the assembly on December 8th, we will be presenting our donations to the Devon Christmas Elves. After the assembly, we will be packing up the groceries and taking a bus over to the depot to deliver and help sort our donations. A permission slip will be popping up soon on PowerSchool for this field trip. We will write it in the agendas when it is live. 

While reading Brian Keating's book about his animal adventures in rivers, we learned a lot about elephants and hippos. The topics brought up in the book are especially relevant right now with conservation of elephants and the ivory trade along with President Trumps decision to lift the ban on importing elephant parts into the USA (which is thankfully on hold at this time). The timing seemed perfect, as the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is celebrating their 40th anniversary and just release a special video this week. We watched the video together and had a very thoughtful discussion. We talked about our own elephant Malkia and how I will be renewing my adoption of her in the next week or two. The students asked about adopting their own elephant and I shared with them that I have had students in the past that have asked for an elephant for Christmas! They all became very excited by this possibility! They had many questions so I answered them and showed them how to pick their own elephant, rhino or even giraffe on the DSWT website. Don't be surprised if your child has an elephant on their Christmas list!

Here is the 40th anniversary video that I shared with the students:

40th Anniversary Video

For information on fostering with the DSWT, see the link below:

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/fostering.asp

We spent Friday afternoon focusing on some citizenship work closer to home. One of Devon's RCMP officers, Cst. Garnier, was involved in a serious head on collision early in the morning on Thursday. He is recovering from serious, but thankfully not life threatening, injuries in the hospital. We decided to make Cst. Garnier get well cards to lift his spirits while he recovers from this horrible accident. The students were incredibly focused and hardworking with their cards. I was super proud of them! I took the cards over to the RCMP station. One of Cst. Garnier's colleagues was excited to take the cards to him. Mr A did an amazing job writing inside his card. Mrs. Horrocks loved it so much that she videoed it and posted it on the school's Facebook page! I included the link to the video under the picture.

Aiden's message for Cst. Garnier

I'm going to have to stop things there for tonight. I will finish the Star Student, Student of the Week and Art updates tomorrow!

Take care and have a great week!

November 13th Update

I hope this update finds everyone warm and rested after a chilly long weekend!

Remembrance Day

We had a few special read alouds this week to help introduce the topic of Remembrance Day. Each year, I enjoy sharing two of my very favourite books with my class. A Bear in War is based on a true story about the Rogers family from East Farnham, Quebec. Lieutenant Rogers, the father in the story, died in the Battle of Passchendaele as a medic trying to save the life of an injured soldier. The story follows the family in the months leading up to Lawrence Rogers joining the other soldiers fighting in WWI through to his death after four years overseas. The students often become emotional when we read the story and always express interest in visiting Teddy at the Canadian War Museum one day. I think for many of the students, it's the first time that they really grasp the sacrifice that the soldiers and their families made for our country. 

We also read the follow up to this story called Bear on the Homefront. This story catches up with the little girl in the story as an adult. She is working as a nurse serving on the homefront, welcoming children from British cities who were sent to live with Canadian families during World War II. 

 

Our library has both books if you are ever interested in reading them.

Mrs. Kloschinsky mentioned the Rogers family in her speech during our Remembrance Day ceremony. The kids eyes lit up as they realized that they knew what family she was speaking of. The ceremony was quite emotional for many of our students as they let the discussions of the past week run through their minds during the moment of silence.

We also completed a beautiful Remembrance Day art project that hung in the gym during the ceremony. The students enjoyed creating their crosses with painters tape and were thrilled to see their white lines appear as the peeled the tape off after painting the background with watercolour paint.

Literacy

When we weren't reading our Remembrance Day books, we continued to read through The Trouble with Chickens. The students have now heard from our second narrator Vince the Funnel and they don't like him one bit! We will be finishing up this chapter book this week.

Our writing lessons this week focused on organization. We learned about starting a story/writing project in a way that makes the reader excited to read more. We also talked about how the middle of your story needs to include details in a logical order. Lastly, we discussed how your ending needs to be complete and not just state "the end". The students used these tips during our journal writing this week.

Numeracy

We have started our Place Value unit and the students are enjoying it. The visual nature of this unit assists students in grasping the new concepts. We have been looking at the variety of ways that we can show a number:

1) numerals  

364

2) base ten blocks

3) expanded form using numerals

300 + 60 + 4

4) expanded form using words and numerals

3 hundreds + 6 tens + 4 ones

We've practiced reading numbers properly without the use of "and". Using the word "and" when saying a number signifies the use of a decimal place. We do not focus on decimal numbers in grade three so we should not be using the word and when we are saying our numbers.

Science

We have started our unit on Hearing and Sound. We read the book The Listening Walk and went for our own listening walk. We recorded what we could hear indoors and outdoors. Over the next few weeks we will be exploring how sound is created, how it travels and how we hear it physically. We will explore the science behind pitch, frequency and volume. 

Star Student

We all enjoyed getting to know Miss W this week! She is a real animal lover with so much enthusiasm! We all enjoyed meeting her Manx cat Bastet! She was a real sweetheart!

November 5th Update

The week flew by last week with the excitement of Halloween and the PD day on Wednesday!

Literacy

The students have continued to enjoy reading The Trouble With Chickens during read alouds. We have been tuning into some pretty interesting words in recent chapters: behoove, rendezvous, twilight. We have just met the villain of the story, Vince the Funnel, and the students are excited to learn more about him and his connection to the missing chicks!

On Halloween, I read one of my favourite books to the students! I should apologize in advance if you start to notice dirty, smelly socks being left on the floor near your child's bed. It was suggested in the book that the "Bogeyman" is allergic to smelly socks and is therefore very effective Bogeyman repellant! LOL!



Also on Halloween, the students completed a spooky Mad Libs activity where they were asked to give examples of certain parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc). In the end, the story is read aloud and always gets a few giggles!

Math

We continued to explore patterns this past week and will be wrapping up the unit on Monday and starting our new unit on Place Value. Many students have been struggling with the skill of counting backwards, making continuing decreasing patterns very challenging without the use of a hundreds chart. Any practice with this skill at home would be very beneficial. 

Social Studies

We are currently finishing up our unit on mapping and the world. Last week the students were amazed when we were comparing the population of Canada with the population of different countries and the state of California. 

Canada's population 36 million

California's population 39 million

USA population 323 million

India's population 1.3 billion 

We talked about how the amount of land you have and the amount of people that you have in a country affect many aspects of life in the country. For example, in Canada it is common for people to own houses with yards. In other countries, only the richest people have the luxury of owning a house on a lot. The students were amazed by the fact that we live in the second largest country in the world and we have such a small population, relatively speaking. 

We also discussed our government leaders in Canada. We talked about how we have a Prime Minister in Canada, not a president. I showed the students a picture of Justin Trudeau and explained, in grade three language, what he is in charge of as our country's leader. We talked about how our province has it's own leader, the Premier. I showed them a picture of Rachel Notley and explained, in grade three language, what she is in charge of as our provincial leader (education, health, etc). Most of the students knew that our new mayor in Devon is Ray Ralph. I showed them a picture of him and talked about what he is in charge of for our town. 

I enjoy taking the time at the beginning of the year to discuss these things with the students. It's amazing to see the wheels start turning and their eyes widen as they take their first steps into becoming a Global Citizen.

Halloween Fun!

Thank you to the parents who sent in party snack items for the students! They were delicious!

The students enjoyed a fun day with Halloween themed activities...especially our Minute to Win It challenges!

Student of the Week

Big shout out to Mr. D! Keep up the awesome work! I'm super proud of you!