LITERACY
We've started a new topic for our writing mini lessons, WORD CHOICE! This topic is always an exciting one because with just a little bit of extra thought, student writing is transformed. This week we really focused on the use of specific verbs and how by choosing the perfect verb we communicate so much to our reader.
For example, in the sentence,
The car went around the track.
the reader has no idea what's going on at the track.
Is there a race? Is the car winning or losing the race?
If we just change the verb, we can transform the picture in the mind of the reader.
The car raced around the track.
Compared to,
The car sputtered around the track.
Changing the verb that we use is so effective and so much more fun!
We also looked at the use of adverbs to help paint a clear picture for our readers.
NUMERACY
This week we finished up with rounding and estimating sums and differences and moved into multiplication! The students were very excited to start exploring the connection between repeated addition and multiplication.
For this picture, if you were trying to figure out how many marbles are in each bag, you could:
ADD 3+3+3+3
or you could
MULTIPLY 4 x 3
When students write the multiplication sign I get them to say, groups of.
We also started practicing our skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s. We will also start working on skip counting by 4s.
SCIENCE
The students thoroughly enjoyed their time with Mr. Caron building bridges! Mr. Caron is a curriculum superstar! He covers so many of our curricular objectives in his 90 minute workshop! On Friday, the students worked on a slideshow reflecting on their time building bridges and all of the things that they learned!
PINK SHIRT DAY
We were so busy on Pink Shirt Day that I didn't get a single photo of us in our shirts! I couldn't believe it when the bell rang and it hit me, I didn't take a picture! UGH!
Just like Orange Shirt Day, if I'm asking students to wear a pink shirt, we are going to dedicate some time to the subject. I prepared a presentation for the students that contained some interesting facts, great videos and fantastic conversation starters.
I shared my family's personal struggle with bullying with my oldest son, Elliot. The students already knew that we were dealing with some issues because I was away last Tuesday because my husband and I had to take personal days off of work to go to Riverview to deal with a bullying situation. Using a real life example and talking about it openly, hopefully made our discussions more meaningful. I'm a strong believer in the fact that there have to be positive outcomes from negative situations.
We focused on defining bullying. Sometimes the word bullying is overused, calling any type of rude interaction between students as bullying. We defined bullying as having three specific characteristics:
- targeted (only happening to you or a small group of people)
- hurtful (either physically or emotionally)
- repetitive (it keeps happening even after you've asked them to stop/someone has told them to stop)
Some of the facts that hit the students the hardest were:
- 75/100 people say that they have been affected by bullying
- Bullying can cause serious harm:
- Children who are bullied can suffer from headaches, depression and anxiety.
- Children who are bullied and who bully others have an increased rate of suicide.
- Children who bully are more likely to be involved with criminal activity.
- 6 out of 10 boys that bully others in school have a criminal record by the time they are 24 years old.
We also talked about what we can to stop bullying. We discussed a variety of options to ensure that everyone could find one strategy that felt comfortable to them. We did some role playing in small groups to practice our new skills.
At the end of the day, the students designed their own Pink Shirt Day shirts with some of their new slogans and ideas in how to stop bullying. It was such a fantastic day!
If you are interested in further exploring this topic, I encourage you to look at the videos put out by Brooks Gibbs. His approach to bullying was recommended to us by a psychologist and it did prove to be quite empowering for our son.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS
- Mar 5 - BOKS Starts again
- Mar 9 - RBES Girls Floor Hockey Tournament
- Mar 13 - Student Led Conferences
- Mar 14 - 20 - Raga Revolution
- Mar 22 - PD Day No School
- Mar 23 - April 1 SPRING BREAK
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