April 20th Update

The last two weeks have been extremely busy at RBES! The Celebration of the Arts, Floor Hockey for the boys and The Culture Wheel presentation have all been wonderful additions to our regular curriculum work!

LITERACY

Students have been doing an amazing job utilizing the skills introduced through JoAnne Moore's writing program! As a pre-story writing activity, students wrote their animal paragraphs and did a fantastic job!

After a long cold winter the fox wanted for the snow and ice to melt. Onto the pile of fluffy snow he went. Easily the fox fell asleep and dreamed about spring. One little fox woke up happily and it was spring. Spring is here! The fox ran up and through the grassy field.

By Sammy

Two black bears,the mom and baby were walking in the forest. Timmy, the baby climbed up the tree to get a better view of the photographer. In one minute he looked at his mom and saw her angry scowl. Down on the ground the mom roared at her baby to come. Storming, the baby climbed down and walked away with his mother.

By Payton

The baby fox needed a kiss from his mom. Tiptoeing he moseyed over to her. Softly he gave his mom a kiss. At that moment he felt pure love. On a pile of leaves they curled up together for a nap.

By Liam M

The black wolf woke up hungry and energised. Luckily he quickly spotted some deer. Suddenly he started stocking them. Zooming he chased the deer. Behind the mountain he swiftly caught his prey and devoured it.

By Aiden

After completing our animal paragraphs, we started studying Stuck Stories. We read a variety of Stuck Stories and noticed how each author had used the same "recipe" to plan their stories. The "recipe" for a Stuck Story is:

• Setting - where and when the story is taking place
• Characters
• Motive - what the character wants or doesn't want
• Stuck - how the character is kept from immediately getting what they want
• Failed attempts - attempts that do not work
• Success - an attempt that helps the character satisfy their motive
• Motive carried out - show the character carry out their motive

After taking apart a variety of stories into the parts, we took on the challenge of planning our own story as a class. The students worked together and planned a fantastic story! Now, we are writing the story one part at a time. Each component of the story gets its own paragraph, with the exception of character and motive...they are combined into one paragraph. Each paragraph takes one day to write and it "good copy" ready by the end of the day. Breaking down the task of story writing this way has many benefits, such as:

• decreasing the pressure on students to sit down and write a story from start to finish --> which often leads to student burn out and a shortened, quick ending
• reduces the chance of being overwhelmed by the task of editing an entire story. As we edit each paragraph, students learn from mistakes in one paragraph and tend to not repeat the same mistakes throughout the story (which leads to so much frustration).
• allows me to model each step of the story writing process and gives the students the opportunity to practice these skills immediately after instruction
• no one gets left behind!

For the next week and a bit we will be super focused on our story writing project!

During read alouds, students continue to enjoy Wonder. We have met a August's sister Via now and have had the chance to hear Summer's side of the story. The students are so excited to meet Jack next week!

NUMERACY

In math, we've been working on multiplication. The students are seeing the relationship between repeated addition and multiplication. They are able to:

• draw a picture to match a multiplication sentence
• draw a picture to match a repeated addition sentence
• write a multiplication sentence to match a repeated addition sentence
• write a repeated addition sentence to match a multiplication sentence
• use skip counting and repeated addition to figure out the answer to a multiplication sentence

The students are LOVING this math unit!

SOCIAL STUDIES

The students in 3C are falling in love with Tunisia! They have focused on what houses are like in the different geographical regions of Tunisia and what services are available to the citizens of Tunisia. The students have been absolutely blown away by the issue surrounding getting water for all Tunisians. We have had so many amazing discussions about the water crisis in countries like Tunisia! Miss Strawson even shared that in Canada we have communities that struggle to provide their citizens with clean water. The comments and questions that have been coming out of your childrens' mouths have blown us away!

"Why don't people stop turning off the news and pay attention to this water crisis! There are people that need our help!"

"If Canada is such a water rich nation, why don't we export our clean water to other countries to help them?"

"Why don't the governments of the other countries use their money and power to make sure that all of their people have water that is safe to drink and bath in? They need their help!"

It has been such a great experience for Miss Strawson to see the passion that she has struck in the students about this global and Canadian issue!

Celebration of the Arts!

We had the most amazing week celebrating the arts at RBES! The students LOVED working on their special Van Gogh projects and were so proud of the feedback that they received! Miss Coleman and Mrs. Stanski did an amazing job pulling the special events of the week together! We are so blessed to have such passionate teachers at RBES! Click on the link below the photo to experience the week!

Celebration of the Arts Photos

April 8th Update

Welcome to Spring?!?! It sure doesn't feel like April but the calendar says it's so! LOL! We got right down to business in 3C this week after a great Spring Break!

LITERACY

I'm super excited to start focusing on story writing with the students! It's my favourite time of year! Our timing is perfect with having an extra set of hands around with Miss Strawson! In preparation for our big story writing project, we have started by writing a showing not telling, action packed paragraph about an animal photo by my favourite wildlife photographer, Jason Leo Bantle.

Students were asked to choose a photo from his website. They needed to come up with five things that took place in the moments surrounding the image. The action in the photo would be #3 on their list. They would then have to turn back the clock to the two things that happened right before the photo and then turn the clock forward to the two things that happened right after.

Here's the example that we created together as a class:

• owl felt hungry
• spotted the mouse
• swoops down to get the mouse
• missed the mouse
• flew away still hungry

From here, the students are going to write a paragraph using our sentence starters. They are only allowed to use each sentence starter once. Students will also be focusing on using specific verbs for their particular animal. Here is the paragraph that we constructed as a group:

The great grey owl felt outrageously hungry. Luckily, he quickly spotted a mouse. In a flash the owl swooped down to snatch his prey! Clawing at the furry creature, he missed! Up in to the sky, the owl flew off still hungry.

Students will be typing their good copies into a google doc that has their picture at the top. If you want to check out Jason's website, you can find the link here: http://bantlephoto.com/Home

Once we complete our animal paragraphs, we will be going on to plan and start writing our stuck story projects! Due to this focus on writing, we will be minimizing our time spent on Working with Words and Word Wall Words for the next couple of weeks.

During our read aloud of Wonder, the students are enjoying hearing from our second narrator, Via. Via is August's older sister. Like August, Via starts at the beginning when August was born. The students have been amazed by how understanding she is of her little brother's needs and how independent she is because she's had to take care of herself a lot of the time. Via is also starting at a new school and is experiencing a few bumps along the way. In the last chapter we read, Via came home after a disappointing first day of school. She was stressed and cranky. August was pretty worn out from his first day of school and he was a little stressed and cranky too. As we can imagine, their mom had been worried about both of them all day and she was a little stressed and cranky. What we witnessed after school in their kitchen was very relatable. They were snippy with each other, which isn't how they usually are, children went storming off to their rooms wanting to be left alone, parents tiptoed in to see how their day went and if they were ready to talk yet. After reading this chapter we had a great discussion about why they were acting the way they were and what they could have done differently to make the evening go a little bit smoother. The students had so many great suggestions! We all agreed that if you're having a grumpy moment/day, it's best to tell the people that are around you so that they understand and they give you some space. That way there will be less friction and you can settle down a bit quicker.

NUMERACY

The students are very excited because we have started our multiplication unit! The students are learning about equal groups and how we can do repeated addition or multiplication to find out our total.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Miss Strawson is teaching our new Social Studies unit on Tunisia. She is doing an amazing job and the students have been very engaged in her first two lessons. In the first lesson, they learned when Tunisia is and what it's geography is like. They learned about the three main geographical regions: the coastal plains, the desert and the mountains. They learned about the climate, the population and wildlife. The second lesson took a closer look at the geographical regions and the main cities. Through graphs, photos, videos and discussion, Miss Strawson is reaching all of the students in 3C. We are so lucky to have her with us this month!

ART

Miss Strawson is also leading our latest art project...with a focus on Van Gogh. The students are creating their own The Starry Night piece using plasticine! First, Miss Strawson read the students a book about Van Gogh. Then, they got to work warming up their plasticine. The pieces are still a work in progress and will be done and on display on Thursday evening during our Art Gala!

Hope to see you all on Thursday evening between 5-7pm for our Art Gala!

Have a fantastic week!