School Info from the Office

We hope you have a great summer and we look forward to seeing everyone again in September!  You will receive an email from your child’s new teacher in August.

The first day of school is on Tuesday, September 4.  This will be a full day. Please call the school if your child is going to be absent that first morning. This is very important as we juggle changes in our registration numbers on that first day.

School supply information can be found on our website at    http://rbes.blackgold.ca/parents/school-supplies/   You can order packages throughout the summer, however, there is an additional charge of $5 afterAugust 1, 2018.

Additional Summer and September Information can be found on our website on our home page.

During the summer, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Principal, Mrs. Kloschinsky, by email: kathy.kloschinsky@blackgold.ca

Final Update

Wow! And like that...it's over!

Thank you to everyone for an amazing year! I loved coming to school each day to work with your children! Their personalities kept me smiling, their struggles kept me working hard and sharing in their successes made me endlessly proud!

To see the rest of June's photos, or to look back on the year in photos, you can open this link. It will give you access to every months' photos organized into folders. You can copy and take photos from this link if you would like to print them or save them.

Team 3C 2017-2018 Photos

Congratulations to our super-responsible-with-their-school-supplies Pencil Challenge winners!!! Way to go!!!

Congratulations to our Top Home Reading minutes winner and our Most Improved Reader!!! I couldn't be more proud of you two!!!

Some of the students were excited to follow me and my family across Canada this summer on our road trip. I will be posting regularly, as per my mom and dad's request, to both Instagram and Facebook. Feel free, if you want, to follow me on either social media form so your child can travel on this journey with me! On Facebook, I am listed as Jolene Miller Milson and on Instagram, I am listed as jomilson.

Have a great summer! Take care!

June 22nd Update

Wow! Time is flying in 3C! We have been so busy, finishing things up and having so much fun! I can't believe that we just had our last Friday together! This time of year is so bittersweet! In some ways, the students are right where I want them...but at the same time, I can feel that it's time to pass them on to another teacher for another amazing year of learning and growing.

LITERACY

After a few months, we are enjoying the final chapters of Wonder. We are hearing from the "villian" in the story, Julian. We have had so many interesting conversations about why Julian makes the choices he does...why he is a bully. The students still all agree that he isn't a likeable character and that there are no good reasons to justify his choices...but they understand him a bit more. I am going to give the students a little homework assignment over the summer...similar to the one that Mr. Browne gives to his students at Beecher Prep. The students can send me a postcard or note that tells me their favourite precept. I will include a note with their report card to explain this "assignment" in further detail.

Students have finished illustrating their stuck stories and are excited to share them with you. Make sure that you look on the last page for their About The Author paragraphs! They are the cutest!

NUMERACY

Math has been a flurry of activity lately! Fractions, measurement, 3D objects and 2D shapes...luckily these units are fun and the students love them! The students blew me away on their fractions unit test! They did AMAZING!!! Grade three is the first grade that introduces standard units in measurement. No more measuring a pencil by lining up paperclips or unifix cubes! The students enjoyed learning about the following units:

• linear measurement - cm, m, km
• time measurement - seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years
• mass measurement - g and kg

SCIENCE

We released our beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies and enjoyed watching them fly away! As always, the students were amazed by the metamorphosis! Such an unbelievable transformation takes place...it's like a miracle! We will be watching Flight of the Butterflies this week and I know that the students are going to LOVE it!

Butterfly Release Photo Album

SOCIAL STUDIES

Peru is a pretty interesting place to learn about and it was a great end to a wonderful year of research and discovery in Social Studies! We enjoyed our afternoon celebrating Peru on Friday! The students tried a variety of local fruits and treats...we avoided the delicacies of Guinea Pig and Ceviche, for obvious reasons! LOL! The students loved the mango, banana chips, oranges, chocolates, brownies with Peruvian chocolate and their famous beverage Inca Kola! To pass the time, students fell in love with bracelet making using a simple friendship bracelet pattern. They will be coming home this week when they are finished.

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE'S DAY

We were so lucky to participate in our first National Indigenous People's Day celebration at RBES! It was AWESOME! The students gathered in the gym for a presentation by one of our parents and her children along with two elders. We then gathered outside in a circle for a Round Dance that was led by students from Ben Calf Robe School in Edmonton. What a fantastic celebration of a beautiful culture! 

National Indigenous People's Day Photo Album

OTHER CELEBRATIONS

The students earned a Silent 30 reward so we took 30 minutes to play a game of charades/pictionary! It was so much fun! 

YEAR END ACTIVITIES

Things don't seem to wind down during the last days of grade three...we seem to try and pack in as much as possible! Here's a run down of the activities for this week:

Monday

• math (finishing up the last unit)
• catch up work (finishing up slideshows, book illustrations)
• pack up and take home school work/extra supplies (if there's time)
• swimming (11:10-11:50)
• Fun Day (all afternoon)

Tuesday

• Catch up work
• pack up and take home school work/extra supplies
• swimming (10:20-11:00)
• yogurt parfait party
• Flight of the Butterflies (afternoon)

Wednesday

• clean up
• reading awards
• pencil challenge awards
• class party
• swimming (10:20-11:50)
• Year End Slideshow in the gym

That's all for now! Must run and proof read report cards so that I can print them out tomorrow!

June 10th Update

How can it be that I only have 13 more days with your kids!?!?!

We have been so busy in 3C! There is so much going on!!!

LITERACY

We almost at the end of Wonder and will be on to the extra Julian Chapter soon! The kids are really excited to hear "the bully's" side of the story! We've also been doing some reading comprehension work. Reading a nonfiction passage on caterpillars/butterflies, highlighting the important information and then looking back to answer questions. The students were quickly able to distinguish between important and not important details. They also quickly realized that rereading a passage a couple times really helps with their comprehension of the material.

NUMERACY

Wow! The kids amazed me with their work through the fractions unit! The curricular objectives in this area are very limited. Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding of fractions by:

• explaining that a fraction represents a part of a whole
• describing situations in which fractions are used (fair sharing)
• comparing fractions of the same whole that have like denominators

This week we are going to work through our measurement unit. I always leave the hands on units for the end of the year because they are easier for students to understand, have limited curricular objectives and are fun!

Students are doing very well on their multiplication challenge! I am super proud of their efforts! We will be working on x5 this week!

SOCIAL STUDIES

Students are loving learning about Peru. I try and do each country in a different way to expose the students to a variety of learning styles. For Peru, we are working through a note taking package that focuses on a National Geographic Kids website! They are really enjoying learning about the Inca people that lived in Peru over 600 years ago! They build a capital city called Cusco and the very famous Machu Picchu. The students have loved going on video tours of both cities! I think Peru is now on all of their travel bucket lists! We have also talked a lot about how Peru is a rich country in terms of natural resources but due to the fact that they don't harvest those resources, they are one of the world's poorest countries. This has brought up some interesting discussions about the negative impact on the environment when countries do harvest their natural resources, the benefit of being able to export resources to other countries and the balance that needs to be achieved to harvest resources responsibly.

I've said it so many times this year...to parents, to colleagues, to the kids themselves...I have never been blessed with such a curious and thoughtful group of global citizens. They use words like export, import and population density as comfortably as they use words like soccer, bike riding and cookies! It's been so much fun watching them blossom into such mindful world citizens!

SCIENCE

We have butterflies!!! We were in the middle of a science/social studies talk about an amazing plant that grows in Peru when Noah spotted our first butterfly! It was super exciting! So exciting in fact that our poor first butterfly, John, fell from the top of the enclosure. His wings weren't fully inflated yet, so he could not stand upright. I quickly put my hand it, he grasped my finger and hung upside down. The two of us held that position for 45 minutes until his wings were good to go! The students were amazing! They got out their chromebooks and worked independently so that I could stay still and help John out! It was quite an afternoon!

On Friday, two more butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. We may have some more butterflies when we get to school tomorrow! This is such an exciting project for the students...and me too!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

• The Bake Sale is on Tuesday and Wednesday during morning and afternoon recess!
• Permission slips for the U of A Botanic Gardens need to be filled out ASAP!
• Permission slips for the three free swims days during the last week of school can now be filled out!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!