Team 3C: November 24th Update

LITERACY

We finished up Dinosaur Cove during our read aloud time this week and the students really enjoyed it! Many Dinosaur Cove books were checked out during our library period this week! We also read a couple picture books this week, Roxaboxen and The Story of the Little Mole That Knew It Was None Of His Business.

Image result for the story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business

I love sharing laughs with my students...but I have never in twenty years, laughed to the point of tears. Well, that all changed on Friday during a surprising read aloud! Before the assembly, we had a class meeting about tattling. We talked about when you need to tell the teacher about something and when you need to ignore certain behaviours from others. We talked about the difference between bullying and someone just being rude or inconsiderate. It was a good talk. When it was time for our read aloud, I grabbed a book off my shelf that seemed to fit with our little topic of the morning (The Story of the Little Mole That Knew It Was None Of His Business). The students all settled in to listen and we started the book. Well, what happened next, had it been recorded on video...could have broke the internet! I launched into the story...having never read it before...having just judged the book by it's cover...and boy was I in for a surprise!

After the first two page spread, I had a feeling this story was going in a direction that I hadn't expected. But, we were already in it...and I had to keep going! As soon as I turned the page, I knew I was in trouble! LOL!

As you can imagine, all twenty five of us burst into laughter! This wasn't going to be a book about minding your own business...this was a book about poop! Well, we were committed by this time and so we just carried on and laughed and laughed and laughed...until there were tears! It was hilarious!

Mrs. Dewar kept saying, "I should be recording this!" as it reminded her of the Scottish grandma reading The Wonky Donkey.

For those of you who are curious, here's a video of someone else reading the book! I'm sure the students would like to hear it again...this time with some pretty funny sound effects! There's never a dull moment in 3C! LOL!

The students also did some journal writing and some working with words this week!

NUMERACY

This week we finished up comparing numbers and did a little quiz. Marks have been posted to PowerSchool. For the rest of the week we focused on strategies for adding two single digit numbers (basic facts). We brainstormed the different tricks that we each use and discussed them.

After discussing the strategies, I introduced a new strategy called Touch Math. Here's a short video of me introducing the strategy to you!

I love Touch Math for so many reasons! Many times the students that struggle with their basic facts also struggle with switching between addition strategies and knowing which strategy to use for each question. Touch Math works for EVERY QUESTION!!! No need to stress about which strategy to use! I also love how once you've mastered it for addition, you can just count backwards to use it for subtraction! The students were all super happy with the strategy and reported that it made things much quicker and less stressful for them!

SCIENCE

We've started our new Hearing and Sound unit in science this week! The students enjoyed going on a listening walk both inside and outside the school. They recorded all of the different sounds that they heard on our journey.

Later in the week, we talked about how we make sound. We learned about how our lungs, trachea, voice box, vocal cords, mouth and nose all work together to create sound. We watched the following videos:

The students also learned that the faster the vibration the higher the pitch of the sound and the slower the vibration the lower the pitch of the sound. Over the next couple of weeks we will explore more about how sound is made and heard.

3C IS HELPING OTHERS!

A couple of our students made an important announcement at the assembly:

The Grade 3 classes, as part of their Global Citizenship unit in Social Studies, will be organizing the Christmas Elves food drive - doing the collection, delivery, and sorting of the food that is donated.  The food needs to be delivered to the Christmas Elves on December 8th so we are asking that all donations be brought to the school by December 5th. 

 This year,  the students can begin bringing in donations to their classrooms on November 26th. We will have two special days, on November 29th and 30th, where students can trade in donations for tickets. These tickets will be put into a draw giving their family the chance to win the Comfy Couch for one of the Christmas Concert performances.

 We have been in contact with the Christmas Elves and this is their food “wish list”.  These are just some of the needed food items but any food donation is greatly appreciated.