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
3642) 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!
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