INDIA DAY

AND finally...

...here are some of the pictures we managed to take during the activities 

we took part in on India Day. From what I have heard from the students - they really enjoyed

 learning about the culture of India - trying food, attempting rangoli (art), making chapatis, experimenting with henna and learning some Bollywood style dancing were among the activities.

Trying some of the clothing that was brought in.

Working on their rangoli and learning about henna, clothing and the importance of the bracelets.




Making chapatis (flat bread), trying henna and the finished rangoli art.

A big thank you to all who participated by donating their time and/or expertise. I would especially like to thank my dear friend, Preet, who not only spent the day with us, but who supplied henna, Samosas, and bracelets for everyone. It was a fabulous day of learning and having a guest in the classroom willing to share her culture and experiences with the students was invaluable.

It was a chaotic but awesome day. I would like to think it was a great success - and
I am already looking forward to the next cultural day!!!

Jan 12-16

Weekly Update

Science This Past Week

Students continued working on the Hearing and Sound unit - and what an awesome week it was. The excitement of the students was so contagious as they prepared to present their instruments. There are so many creative instruments and I love that each student was so engaged in each other's creations.

We will continue to present the rest of the instruments this week during science.

Here is a look at the first of our many creative musicians:

This past week we also had some fun in a sound center learning activity - where students 

became the scientists as they further investigated the following hearing and sound concepts:

P sound is caused by vibrations

P sound travels in sound waves

P faster vibrations create higher sounds (high pitch)

P slower vibrations create lower sounds (low pitch)

P sound can travel through solids, liquids and gases 

P sound travels best (fastest) through a solid

Social Studies This Past Week

This past week in social studies, students learned about the life of the student we are studying from Ukraine. We compared life in the city vs life in the country in Ukraine, and then discussed what we have learned about quality of life from the four different countries.

Students have determined that quality of life means how good your life is - including things that make you happy, comfortable, and give you feelings of safety (food, shelter, family, etc). They have also expressed that even though money is important - it is not necessarily a direct correlation to quality of life because quality of life is about how you feel.

This week we will be looking at the term culture in relation to the four countries.

Hope everyone has a fabulous week and has a chance 

to enjoy some of the warm weather while it lasts!!!

80s Flashback!

Wednesday was RAD in 3FM!

Students enjoyed dressing up 80s style for the day! During snack time, I introduced them to one of my favourite bands from the 80s (and 90s), New Kids On The Block! They enjoyed the music videos and were then able to understand my 80s attire (NKOTB concert hoodie, band member buttons and necklace)!

Welcome Back!

Happy New Year! We have plowed through this chilly first week back and I'm happy to report that although we are all a little tired, everyone still has smiles on their faces in 3FM!

We jumped right in first thing Monday morning and got to work!

LANGUAGE ARTS NEWS

New Words Their Way sorts were worked on this past week in addition to our 5 Word Wall Words. On Friday, students had their first dictation test using the 5 word wall words (WWW). The sentences read aloud are simple and often use past WWW to encourage review and accurate spelling. I will be watching for students to start each sentence with a capital letter, spell all WWW correctly. Students have access to their portable word walls during this activity, if required. I would prefer them to check their word wall and spell the words correctly rather than reinforcing incorrect spelling. After marking the first tests and discussing the results with Mrs Rothfos, I've decided to make each sentence worth 4 marks from now on. 

The marks will be awarded as follows:

1- this week's www spelled correctly

1- review www spelled correctly

1- capital letter at the beginning of the sentence 

1- punctuation at the end of the sentence

Tests will come home with your child on Fridays. Please sign them and return them to school on Monday. If your child has spelled the www incorrectly, I ask that they write it out 5 times on the bottom of the test paper for extra practice. 

This week in writing we are going to start our JoAnne Moore sentence structure unit where we are going to focus our attention on using specific verbs and varied sentence starters. I have always had great success with this program and am looking forward to watching the students continue to develop as writers. 

Last week during read alouds we focused on comprehension strategies. We focused on making several different connections with the text to encourage stronger comprehension (text to text, text to self and text to world). We also discussed strategies that make stories come alive in our minds. 

MATH

In math we have turned our focus to addition. I have broken the students into two groups. One group is working on mastering specific strategies to encourage mastery of the basic facts (doubles, doubles +1, partners of 10, adding 1,2 or 3 to a number, adding 10, adding 9 and touch math) while the other group is working on solving more complex single digit mental math questions (adding 4 single digit numbers, solving equations, etc). Over the next week we will be tackling double and triple digit addition! Watch for another blog describing the strategies that we will be using in the next week!

ART

Warm and cool colours is the theme for January's art projects. We are exploring how these two groups of colours interact with each other within a piece of art and how they make us feel. 

2015

Super Start to 2015!

Thank You!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who worked on or contributed to the kitchen renovation over the holidays! Wow - how absolutely beautiful. It is such a wonderful gift - and truly so appreciated. The RBES staff is so lucky to have the parents that we do - it is one of the reasons that I absolutely love working in this school. You can check out some pics of the reno on this link: http://www.rbes.ca/news.html


Happy to be Back! 

What a fabulous week back in 3FM! I didn't fully realize how much I missed everyone until I was back in the class this week... that being said - it was a little bit of an adjustment coming back after a couple weeks off. I'm not sure about you all - but my family is exhausted and looking forward to the weekend.

Science Update

We continued working on our hearing and sound unit this week. We 
discussed volume in a little more depth - brainstorming loud and soft sounds. Along with this we learned that sound can be measured using a sound meter and is measured in decibels. We performed a test - using everyday classroom sounds such a pencil dropping, students talking, clapping, and flipping the pages of a book - where we predicted which sounds we thought were going to be the loudest vs softest. We then used a sound meter to measure the sounds and compare with our predictions. We will continue this lesson next week as we look at our ears and how they work. 


Social Studies Update

Prior to the Christmas Break, we were introduced to the student from India 
who will help teach us about life in India. We compared life in the country with life in the city - and discussed the idea that quality of life is not just based on money - but on shelter, food, feelings of comfort and love. We reviewed this and we also had our very first cultural day today. It was a chaotic but absolutely awesome day. It really illustrated how lucky we are to have the bunch of students that we do - they were so well-behaved, engaged, inquisitive and excited to learn about another culture. 

Here is a sneak peak at the excitement of the students:

As soon as I get all of the pictures organized - I will make a special 
India Day post to share them all with everyone!

Enjoy your weekend!!!

Tuesday Fun Day With our Grade 1 Buddies

Here's just a quick post to let you in on some of the fun that we had today with our grade 1L buddies. As one of the older grades in the school, it is very important for our grade 3s to model appropriate behaviour and to show the grade 1's what it looks like to be a good buddy. We are so lucky because our students in 3FM take their roles as a buddy pretty seriously and in turn, model an important part of being a good citizen - volunteering their time to help others - and doing so in a respectful, thoughtful manner. It is so important to be able to work with other students - and I am so proud of 

this class during our buddy activities.

Here are a couple pictures from this afternoon:

Although at times, I did have to remind them to put a little more candy on their houses and less in their mouths...J...

they did an absolutely fabulous job being helpers 

to our buddies!!!

 A great time was had by all the students!

Awesome job today 3FM! 

The Final Countdown!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1!!!

The kids are on the countdown but I am still working them pretty hard!

As I mentioned in my email last week, we are keeping super busy in 3FM!

Most of our "desk time" this week has been spent working through our place value unit. Students are dong extemely well and can now:

- identify whether a number is in the hundreds, tens or ones place

- identify the value of a digit in a three digit number (eg, the 4 in 245 is worth 40)

- increase or decrease a number by 10 or 100

- write a number in words

- write a number in base ten form

 (3 hundreds 2 tens 6 ones)

- write a number in expanded form

( 300+ 20+ 6)

- represent a number using base ten blocks

- determine which number is greater or less than another number

- place numbers in order from greatest to least or least to greatest

Phew! No wonder we have been feeling a little tired over the past ten days! We have been working so hard! 

We have focused our writing around Christmas, writing letters to Santa and a paragraph about life in a snowglobe! The students are really finding their voice when writing! I love when their personalities shine through their work!

Our last three days are action packed!

Wednesday- Work, work, skate for the morning! We will finish up our Christmas art in the afternoon!

Thursday- Assembly performance first thing followed by a little bit of work time! No skating!

Friday- PJ day, skating first thing in the morning, party food for a special Christmas brunch, fun Christmas activities, lunch and then movie in the gym!

Thank you to the parents who have been coming out to tie skates and spend time on the ice with the students! We REALLY appreciate your help!!! 

I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your family the merriest Christmas wishes! I hope your holiday time is filled with love and laughter!

One Week Left Until Christmas Holidays!

It's almost the most wonderful time of the year... 

I think everyone is looking forward to Christmas holidays - it is such a busy 

time of the year... so much to do and so little time! That goes for in the classroom, too.

We have been working hard, although at times we are battling the build up of 

excitement that the season often brings.  Something else that comes during this 

time of year is cold/flu season. It's a great time to remind your child about proper hygiene - things like keeping their hands out of their mouths, noses, etc., proper hand-washing, covering their mouths when coughing - anything we can do to try and prevent the spread of those nasty germs!

Science Update

We continued to work on our Hearing and Sound unit this week. I introduced our unit by reading the book, "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers. Check out the picture below to see our
class brainstorm efforts on the many different sounds that we hear.



We then took time to listen to the sounds in our classroom, and with the beautiful weather - we were able to take a listening walk around the schoolyard to investigate the sounds we hear outside.

Below are a couple pictures that I managed to take while trying to lead the walk!

We also explored the following concepts:

R how humans talk

R sound is energy  

R sound is created by vibrations

R pitch means how high or low the sound is

R volume means how loud or soft a sound is

Ask your child what we learned using balloons and tuning forks in science class? 

(They should tell you about the vibrations that they felt!)

It gives me such pleasure to watch the students when they are exploring a new concept - 

the excitement that they have is contagious! 

I feel so lucky to share in the learning of your child.

Social Studies Update

This week we continued to look at quality of life - however, this week we focused on a character from Tunisia. We started to learn about the day-to-day life of a student in Tunisia, 

making comparisons with what we previously learned about Maria in Peru, 

and what we know about our lives in Devon, AB.

There will be a letter coming home to explain how we will be celebrating each country that we are studying by having 4 cultural days throughout the school year - our first one, India Day, will be the first week back in January. It will give the students a chance to experience a number of aspects of each culture - from trying food, doing crafts, listening to the languages, etc - we hope to give your child an opportunity to really experience each country and its culture.

Enjoy your weekend - only 1 week left!

A Special Book Reading for the Grade 3's

On Monday all of the grade 3's were treated to not one, but two wonderful surprises. 
We were lucky enough to have a local author, Nicole Brook, come in to do a book reading

of her new series. It is called The Amazing Adventures of Abigail Andrews.

Along with her reading, Nicole spoke with the students about their dreams - 
and the students seemed quite engaged with her message. 
She explained her three 'secrets' to them:

First - you need to DREAM it.

Then - you need to BELIEVE it.
Finally - you need to WORK at it.

 Thanks to Devon's FCSS, and much to the excitement of the students, she personally signed a book for each child. Below you can see a picture of some of our students getting their books signed:

All of us at Robina Baker were very excited to have a local author come in and talk 
with the students. Her message to the students was inspiring - it's such a fabulous 
thing when we can celebrate local successes - it really shows our students that 
anything is possible if you work at it! 

You can find more information on her, and the series at abigailandrewsseries.com. 

It's Christmas Time in 3FM...

It was another short week at school - but wow - was it jam-packed with activity.

Thanks so much to our Christmas Concert team headed by Mrs. Stanski for a fabulous show. Also thank you so much to all the parents for supporting your children and partaking in the entertainment

Although rehearsals and last-minute touches for the Christmas Concerts definitely took center stage, we still were able to get some fabulous work out of our exceptional 3FM students!

Social Studies Update

This week we continued to look at quality of life, however, we narrowed our focus onto one of the main characters we are studying who lives in Peru. 

Students read and discussed the difference between life in the city of Lima and in villages of Peru.

We discussed things such as family, houses, school and work.

Science

This week we started our second unit, Hearing and Sound. Students discussed what they know about sound and hearing, and we came up with some questions that they would like to see answered. 

Here are some of the examples of what they already know:

There are loud and soft sounds.

There are high and low sounds.

Tigers, lions, heavy metal concerts, race cars are all loud sounds.

Mice, whispers, some winds are all soft sounds.

We hear with our ears.

Our eardrums can be damaged by loud noises.

Instruments make different sounds - high or low.

Water on a glass can make a sound.

Here are some of the examples of the questions they would like answered:

How do people make sounds?

What do our eardrums do?

How do our ears work?

How do we talk?

How can we hear our heartbeat?

Students also started a title page for this unit using the netbooks and their gmail accounts. They were given a list of requirements for pictures that they needed to have. Some students brought home their gmail information so that they could try and work on it at home. 

I guess the countdown is on - I hope you all have a fabulous long weekend!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun and the Snow is Blowing!

A few important updates!

LANGUAGE ARTS

* We won't be having a new word sort or word wall words this week. With the chaos of Christmas concerts and last Friday's snow day, we are going to test the words from last week, this week. 

* This week will be adding a few sentences to a school wide story that revolves around a different piece of art from the Alberta Art Gallery. We will also be writing letters to Santa this week (if you haven't seen my special Christmas request email yet, please look for it in your inbox ASAP).

* We are finishing up The Trouble With Chickens this week. The students have LOVED it! They have fallen in love with the characters! There are a few other books by the same author, Doreen Cronin, that would make great Christmas gifts for the kids: The Legend of Diamond Lil, The Chicken Squad: The First Misadventure, and The Case of the Weird Blue Chicken: The Next Misadventure. 

* One on one and small group weekly reading conferences are going very well. I am seeing quite a bit of growth when in comes to reading strategies in the areas of comprehension, accuracy and fluency. Thank you for your support with home reading! This is such an integral part of supporting your child's growth as a reader. 

MATH

* I was hoping that I could announce that we were finished our patterns unit and on to our place value unit...but I can't. I wasn't comfortable leaving such an important unit behind when I had a handful of students who were struggling with identifying and extending patterns when it involved numbers instead of objects. I have spent the last few days taking a step back with these students and built a more solid foundation of skills to work with. We have completed our work with increasing number patterns and will focus this week on decreasing number patterns. In the meantime, the other students have enjoyed: (a) applying the patterning concepts to some challenging problem solving questions

(b) completing review work out of the textbook 

(c) playing math games that reinforce their basic facts. 

* The place value unit is up next. It is a quick, straight forward unit. With all of the number sense work that we have done over the past three months, I believe that this unit will be completed quite quickly. 

Christmas Festivities

Christmas concerts are this week! The students have been working hard to perfect their performance. Our concert is on Tuesday, December 2nd at 7pm. Doors open at 6:45pm. We are meeting in Mrs. Murtha-Toles' room. 

Christmas party/special snack day details will be coming out on Thursday! 

Golden Garbage Can Award

For the month of November, 3FM won the Golden Garbage Can Award! We won this by keeping the cleanest classroom! Way to go team! It's a great way to show our appreciation for our custodians!

SNOW DAY!

On Friday, only 8 students made it to school due to the cold weather and lack of buses. The nine of us had a great day! After our assembly we played a variety of games, both educational and just for fun! We spent the afternoon in Mrs. Rothfos' class with seven 3R students and worked on a special art project. It was so much fun getting together with other grade three students!

Looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday night!

Take care and stay warm!

Walking In a Winter Wonderland!

It looks like the end of November is here already, and that winter has decided to 

rear its head with a nice warm snow storm welcome.

We have been pretty busy with preparations for the Christmas Concert on Tuesday December 2 - 

we hope to see all your faces there, however if your child cannot make it - we ask 

that you please let us know as soon as possible.

Science Update

We finished up our Rocks and Minerals Unit this week with the students writing their tests on Tuesday. Wow! I was so impressed with how hard they worked and how well they did! 

The tests should be coming home for you to have a look at - if you would please sign them 

and return them to school, it would be greatly appreciated.

Today, we wrapped things up with a Pet Rock activity. The students painted their very own Pet Rock and were able to work on some Pet Adoption papers and activities relating to their new pet. 

Here are a couple pictures of the students working hard on their Pet Rocks.

And here are the final products - some pretty fabulous Pet Rocks!!!

The class really enjoyed this unit - their enthusiasm  and excitement was contagious. 

I'm not sure who is more sad that it's over - myself or the students!

Next week, we will begin our second unit - Hearing and Sound - 

which ties in nicely with the Christmas Concert.

Social Studies

In Social Studies, we began looking into quality of life. Students were introduced to the idea 

of quality of life through the story, Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting. It tells the story of a 

little boy and his father who are homeless but live in an airport rather 

than on the streets. It really opened up a good class discussion.

We talked about the meaning of quality of life and that having money does not necessarily

 mean that you have a better quality of life. We sorted out a number of feeling 

statements - safe, happy feelings VS sad, not safe feelings: 

I feel full VS I feel hungry.

I feel rested VS I feel so tired.

I feel like part of the group VS I feel like I'm alone

I feel hopeful that things will get better VS I feel hopeless that things won't get better

We determined that if you have more happy than sad feelings, it means that you have a better 

quality of life. We also looked at the difference between needs and wants.

Next week we will begin looking at the quality of life in each of the four countries: 

India, Peru, Tunisia and Ukraine. 

A Couple Notes

In regards to Social Studies - if you have any items, books or pictures or experiences 

relating to any of the four countries that you would be willing to share with the class - 

it would be greatly appreciated. 

The Annual school-wide toy drive for Devon Christmas Elves will run from 

tomorrow until Thursday December 4. 

We sent out letters about the Christmas Concert and Christmas Movie night. The information can also be found at the following link: http://www.rbes.ca/calendar.html  

  

Hope you all have a super weekend. Stay warm and stay safe!

3FM update!

After two short weeks, we are settling into a full week of school! 

Language Arts

A new word sort came home this week. Students are working hard to master the spelling rules for the week during their daily sorting activities. Five new word wall words came home on Monday too. When agendas come home on Mondays, please check for the weeks word wall words. To focus your child's word wall work for the week, follow the list below:

- if your child can read and spell all 5 words---> relax! No further practice is required!

- if your child can read but can't spell one or more word---> focus on those words and make sure your child can spell them by the end of the week

- if your child can not read one or more word---> help your child master these sight words by the end of the week. Do not worry about getting them to learn how to spell them, just focus on reading them. This way, students can find them on their word wall and practice writing them from there. 

We have continued with our paragraph writing focus this week. Today students wrote paragraphs describing a piece of art from the travelling art gallery that is visiting our school right now. Students were able to identify the parts of a paragraph: the topic sentence, supporting sentences and concluding sentence. Our ability to write a focused paragraph is definitely improving in 3FM!

Today we started reading a new novel, The Trouble With Chickens. Students are enjoying the story as told by the main character JJ, who is a retired search and rescue dog. His voice is sarcastic, witty and comical! We are discussing voice and how it impacts the reader while we are reading the book and will soon meet another voice that is eager to tell his side of the story. 

Math

This week we are finishing up our Patterning unit. We are expanding our skills into more complex questions involving some problem solving. Students are able to use a hundreds chart to help them navigate the number patterns but are also encouraged to use some mental math to extend the patterns. 

Next up for us in math is Place Value!

Christmas Concert

Our concert is on December 2nd. Please let me know ASAP if your child is unable to attend. 

A couple of shout outs:

The students are enjoying their week of Mission Impossible in gym!

I'm very happy with the progress that I am witnessing during reading conferences!

We all enjoyed Miss V's presentation about her trip to Mexico!

As always, if you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at your earliest convenience.

Take care, 

Jolene Milson

Quick Update - Science and Social Studies

Two short weeks makes it seem like we have barely been in the classroom. 

However, on the days that we were in the class - your students worked hard 

and we were able to get a lot done!

Science

In Science, students continued to work on soil. We also investigated 

weathering of rocks and erosion.

Ask your students how you can make soil using a rock, a hammer, a cutting board

 and a pair of safety glasses. 

They sure enjoyed seeing me in my safety "goggles!"

Students completed a weathering simulation using our mouths (saliva) to act as water, and rocket candies and our teeth to act like rocks. They learned that the faster a river is, and the more rocks that there are to bump into - the faster a rock will be weathered. 

I sent home a Practice Test to help them prepare for their Rocks and Minerals Unit Test. 

Practice Test is due Tuesday November 18 so I can mark it and have it back to them.

Rocks and Minerals Unit Test is Tuesday November 25. 

Social Studies

In Social Studies. students continue to be introduced to the four countries that we will be studying for the rest of the year. India, Peru, Tunisia and Ukraine. We have started 

looking at the locations of each country and what may be found bordering 

each country - neighbors or bodies of water.

Hope you have a fabulous rest of your week!

3FM Will Never Forget...

Today we focused our literacy time on Remembrance Day. We read one of my favourite books today. A Bear In War by Stephanie Innes & Harry Endrulat is a story told from a teddy bear's point of view about a family living through war times. 

After reading the book, watching a video and discussing the loss of Canadian soldiers, the students partnered up and wrote what they would be thinking about during our moment of silence tomorrow. I really appreciated how respectful the students were during these discussions. Their responses are very thoughtful. 

Science and Social Studies Update

Wow - I can't believe how fast the time is flying by...November already!

I am really looking forward to meeting everyone this week at parent-teacher interviews. We are available Tuesday and Wednesday. If you haven't already booked your appointment - please do! 

You can do so at the following link:

http://rbes.schoolappointments.com/admin/

Science

In Science we are almost ready to wrap up our Rocks and 

Minerals Unit. This past week the students:

*examined 5 different types of soil 

*described the differences  between different types of soil

*observed the different layers that we find in soil

*discussed that soil is NOT just dirt

Below is a picture of soil layer experiment and our comparison drawing:

We talked about the importance of recording our observations 

during experiments and labeling our diagrams so that when we 

look back it will help us remember.

Social Studies

After completing the quiz on Continents and Oceans, we started our new unit - Many Places, Many Lives in Social Studies. This unit will focus on getting to know the four countries that we will be studying. This past week were just introduced to the four countries, as well as to the textbook that we will be using.

Today, the students were introduced to four children, one from each of the countries, that we will follow as we learn about India, Peru, Tunisia and Ukraine.

Together we found the countries on a world map, and talked about how far each country is from us, here in Alberta. The students also completed a partnered activity - in which they read about the different countries and had to share at least one piece of information that they learned. 

Below is what the students shared:

The students were genuinely excited to discuss the countries and 

to share what they learned with their partners. They were especially 

fascinated by the varying populations in each country!

Buddy Activity from Last Week

The class had a great time helping our grade 1 buddies make their worms. Prior to the activity, we read the story "Diary of A Worm." Then we talked about how worms are really important to soil. We also spent our lunch hour watching a couple youtube videos on earthworms to get us in the mode for worm-building.

Here are a couple of pictures that I was able to capture during the activity. There was so much excitement - it made it difficult to get 

photos of all the students. However, if you have time and can swing by Mrs. Luciw's room - you can see what your children helped the grade one's do!

I hope everyone has a fabulous week - and an equally fabulous long weekend!

Reminder: There is no school on Friday November 7, Monday November 10 or Tuesday November 11.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Last week was a very productive week!

Language Arts

We have continued to work on sentence writing to ensure that everyone is aware of the proper conventions (capitalization, punctuation and spelling) and elements required to create a sentence. Students discussed how they come up with a sentence in their mind and then get that sentence accurately on paper. One student shared their strategy of focusing on two to three words at a time and then repeating the sentence over and over until all of the words are written down properly. This may seem like common sense to us but you would be surprised how many students struggle to get what is in their head, down on paper. We even took about 15 minutes to review proper formation and placement of letters. Several students were not forming or placing their letters properly when writing and it was difficult to tell the difference between upper and lower case letters. I'm hopeful that we are all on the same page now. 

We also discussed paragraph writing this week. Students understand that a paragraph focuses on one topic and contains: a topic sentence, supporting detail sentences and a concluding sentence. We started working on a paragraph on thankfulness. The topic of October's assemblies has been focusing on being thankful so the students have a lot of experience with this topic. This week we will continue to fine tune these paragraphs and publish them in a shared book. This book will make it's way home with each student next week!

In reading we focused on spooky Halloween books which was so much fun! The reading strategies that we focused on were: 

Tuning into interesting words

Reading with expression

Checking for understanding 

Backing up and rereading

During read to self time, I was able to conference with the remaining students that I hadn't read with yet (with the exception of one student who was absent). During reading conferences, the students and I decide on a reading strategy that they need to focus on for the next few weeks. Students need to focus on this strategy every time they read at school and at home. Ask your child what their strategy is. If they have forgotten, they can check our CAFE board...each student has a post-it note under their strategy heading (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expanding Vocabulary) with the number of the strategy beside their name. I was also able to do further reading testing with some struggling readers. These assessments help me target their reading instruction. 

Our Words Their Way program is going well! I am eager to hear how it is going for you at home during our Parent Teacher meetings. Students are quickly grasping the reasons for their sorts each week which is great to see! We are heading into our second 4 week stretch. With Remembrance Day week being only 3 days, we will not have a word sort that week. This week, being 4 days, will have a word sort. If you ever have any questions or concerns about the sorts when you are working on them at home with your child, please feel free to email me. I check my email often and should usually be able to respond quite quickly. 

Just a reminder that the WTW- Home duotangs should be returned to school each Friday so that I can mark them over the weekend. 

Math

We have continued our work on patterning, focusing on number patterns instead of figure patterns. Students were working with increasing number patterns using a hundreds chart for assistance. This week we will investigate decreasing number patterns using a hundreds chart for support. I'm hoping to finish up this unit by November 14th. 

We continue to spend time working on our basic facts and developing our number sense with How Many Ways? throughout the week. 

I look forward to meeting with each of you on either Tuesday or Wednesday evening during our Parent Teacher conferences. If you have any pressing concerns or questions that you want to address at that time, feel free to email me so that I have time to gather all of the information we need to properly address your concerns. 

Take care, 

Jolene Milson 

Happy Halloween!

We had a great day celebrating Halloween in 3FM! The day flew by!

After our assembly, the students completed their spelling tests on Spelling City, worked on a Halloween word search and participated in a Halloween themed gym class. After lunch, we participated in the annual RBES Costume Parade! It was great to see all of the students dressed up in their creative costumes! Earlier in the week, students brainstormed options for activities and voted on their favourite. Watching a movie was the most popular choice so when we got back to class, we watched Hotel Transylvania and enjoyed our party food. After tidying up we played Halloween pictionary! It was a blast!

A huge thank you goes out to:

Max's family for the veggie tray

Damion's family for the cheese and crackers

Vanessa's family for the sausage tray

Hunter's family for the fruit tray

Olivia's family for the chocolate cake and chocolate treats

Kennedy's family for the cupcakes and candy kabobs

Tristan's family for the chips

Mrs. Rector for helping hand out the party food

Mrs. Toogood for being on our girls team in Pictionary