Wednesday, January 7

 Hi parents,

We had yet another fantastic day today - the year is really off to an excellent start!

In the morning, we had Music, and then a lockdown drill. The students handled this exceptionally well and stayed quiet the entire time.

We continued working on our '2026' writing / art project. The students added some blurbs about things they're grateful for, and things they hope will happen in the new year. This was also an opportunity to practice using commas, as they wrote in the format: "I am grateful for _______, ________, and _________. 

Here's how they turned out:

In the afternoon, we continued piling on new geometry terminology, and discussed quadrilaterals, such as trapezoids, parallelograms, rhombuses, squares, and rectangles. Reviewing these at home would probably be helpful. We still have a bunch more to cover.

Hoping tomorrow is as good a day as the rest of our week has been. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, January 6

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today. In the morning, we learned about commas, and how they can be used to separate items in a list. The students wrote their own sentences using commas, and did an excellent job of it. I really hope they apply this skill to their regular writing work, it really makes writing sound more professional and skillful.

Our bulletin board was recently reorganized. There are a concerning number of Wanted posters.

In math, we learned more about polygons. We learned that there are two types of polygons - regular, and irregular. Regular polygons have all equal sides and angles. Irregular polygons don't.

I also reviewed addition and subtraction using the standard algorithm with the Grade 3s separately. 

We started a '2026' art / writing project. I'll upload pictures when its further along. Its hard to explain.

Have a nice day,

Zac

Monday, January 5

 Hi parents,

We had a fantastic first day back. Honestly it was really nice to be back in the classroom. The kids were happy and positive and worked hard.

As you probably guessed, we wrote about our winter breaks. I challenged the class to start with the topic sentence, "The one word that best describes my winter break is _______".

We went over the new spelling words, which are in fact old spelling words, and reviewed the oi, oo, oa, ai, and ea vowel teams.

The students went to Music and Gym in the morning too.

Over the break I had this idea of how to improve Daily LA, in particular, the 'creative writing' station, and I was really excited to try it out today. I've noticed that students on the 'creative writing' station often end up sitting around with writers block, or 'brainstorming' (read: 'sitting around') with other students, and very little actually writing happens. So I introduced this writing bingo card to hopefully give them ideas and motivate them.

Now, when students are on writing, they can pick one of the options above. When they complete four in a row, they get free-choice for their next day on writing. When they get a blackout, they earn an indoor recess with a friend. 

Since I just introduced this today, every student in the class got to do creative writing today, and I was so thrilled by how it went. I hope the enthusiasm continues!

In math, we started our new unit, which is on polygons. We learned that polygons are 2-D, closed shapes, with only straight sides. There are two types of polygons, regular and irregular, which depend on whether all of the sides and angles are equal.

This whole geometry unit is basically just a ton of terminology memorization. The concepts aren't actually that hard, its just a matter of knowing what each term means, and applying it in the right way.

I sent home the addition and subtraction quizzes from before the break. Don't worry - I am a big believer in re-dos. I'm going to keep working with the class on addition and subtraction in small group lessons every morning. We will study geometry at a different time. If you are looking to practice at home, I hope the quizzes give you an idea of the types of content and difficulty level that we're working at!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Jan. 4)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 5 – 9)

come	with	said	walk	fail
each	soap	oil	sooner	toys

 

Spelling List B (Jan. 5 – 9)

they	wanted	know	without	again
beard	toasty	spoil	bamboo	lights

 

Spelling List C (Jan. 5 – 9)

would	many	sigh	guess	explain
yearly	throat	rejoin	foolish	warmth

We're going to start the second part of our school year off with some review words. Each list is comprised of words from all ten of our previous spelling lists. In class we will take this opportunity to review all of the letter combinations we've covered so far, as well as some essential sight words that come up all the time.

Good luck!

Friday, December 19

 Hi parents,

We had a great last school day of 2025. We finished watching the Muppet Christmas Carol, the students drew and wrote about their 'Christmas futures', and we did our spelling quiz, as well as carolling.

I did not have a chance to send home the math quizzes sadly - we still have a few students writing them! 

I want to thank all of you for checking the blog and keeping up with what we're doing in class. It makes a big difference in your child's learning and I feel like it helps me stay more connected with you all as well! Thank you also for all your support and kindness this year. It has been a really good year all around and I have looked forward to coming in to work every day. Especially on days like this where the workload is a little less, its so easy to see that I'm lucky to have such a kind, imaginative, compassionate, and thoughtful group of students. Maybe a bit silly or lazy sometimes. But always exceptionally nice.

I hope you all have a wonderful Winter Break. See you in the new year!

Zac

Thursday, December 18

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. Yesterday was pretty good too, sorry about the lack of blog posts.

Starting the day with carolling has been really nice. The kids have been super into their snowman diary writing, and many of them have done 3+ entries now.

The math quiz was pretty good all around. The Grade 3s struggled a bit. I can tell they've mostly got the skills but more practice would definitely help. Not saying you should do math practice over the break, but if your child is getting bored, it wouldn't be a bad thing to threaten.... I'll send the quizzes home tomorrow.

In French, we learned the colours. In Cursive, we learned how to write 'm'.

Watching the Muppet Christmas Carol has been awesome. 

Tomorrow is PJ Day! It's going to be a great one. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, December 16

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. Normally this last week of school is more laid back, but our class kind of decided that most of November should be 'laid back', and as as result we're spending this week working hard to catch up.... 

But it was still a fun day. 

We used the Ipads to take photos of our sock snowmen. We actually had a lesson on 'photography' and how to effectively use lighting, backgrounds, and perspective to create a powerful photo. We also learned how to edit the photos using filters,  contrast, and brightness, and how to airdrop.

Later, the students used their photos for 'snowman diary' entries, which turned out awesome. I had a feeling the kids would get really into that prompt since they're treating their snowmen like their own flesh and blood.

Here are some of the pictures:

There are even more but they weren't taken in a format I can upload to the blog, sadly.

We also did some tricky math mashups, played Elf Switch in gym, and finished up work from last week.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, December 15

Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! Our snowman craft turned out fantastic. The kids are already so attached to them. They're very cute.

We went over this week's spelling words and also met up with our buddy class to finish our cards to community helpers.

We had quite a bit of work time to finish up jobs from last week. 

There are a bunch of important dates coming up this week so I'm going to dedicate the rest of this post to those.

Math Quiz - December 17

We are having an addition and subtraction quiz on Wednesday, December 17. It will cover all the things we've learned about adding an subtracting so far this year. Students will be able to use the stamp game or other Montessori materials. I am also a big believer in re-tests, so if your child isn't happy with their performance, there will be opportunities to retake the test (same problems and format, different numbers) down the road.

Muppet Christmas Carol Viewing - Dec. 17, 18, 19

We will be watching a Muppet Christmas Carol for about a half hour a day over the course of the last three days of school.

Caroling

Spirit Week

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words (Last week before winter break!!)

  Spelling List A (Dec. 12 – 19)

gift	bells	snow	tree	Santa
sled	card	eggnog	toys	scarf

 

Spelling List B (Dec. 12 – 19)

cozy	Christmas	lights	cookies	joyful
merry	peace	jolly	cheer	baking

 

Spelling List C (Dec. 12 – 19)

chimney	turkey	elves	festive	humbug
Scrooge	present	ornaments	warmth	Rudolph

Some very festive words this week - easier in the sense that they are all probably familiar to the kids, but more difficult in that there's no unifying spelling patterns.

Good luck!

Thursday, December 11

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. In the morning, we learned about 'concrete poetry', which is basically poetry that is created to visually represent the thing it is describing. The students learned that they were going to be writing their own concrete poems about snowflakes. We brainstormed some awesome words and phrases to describe snowflakes, and then looked at how we could take those and arrange them so they actually looked like a snowflake. I was really impressed by the words they came up with as a class, I'm thinking this one is going to turn out really well when we move on to good copies.

We learned the letter 'd' in cursive. We had Music, and then for French, we learned a bit about the Quebec Winter Carnival, and 'bonhomme'. I showed the class the infamous Bonhomme song. It has been stuck in my head since I was in Grade 4. I'm glad I can pass the torch along.

In the afternoon we had Buddies, and then afterwards, we learned about an especially simple kind of simple machine, the inclined plane (ramp). The students were tasked with the challenge of building ramps out of classroom materials, to allow a skateboard to move from the floor onto a chair. 

Sock Snowman Supplies Wanted! - Monday, December 15

We will be making sock snowmen on Monday. Please send a sock (used is fine - just no holes) to school with your child, as well as 2-3 cups of rice, coffee beans, or another 'filling' material, if you can. I will also be providing rice, and extra socks, so everyone will be able to participate no matter what - but having extra supplied will allow us to make bigger, fuller snowmen. :)

If you have extra patterned fabric, please send that as well, so we can use it to make sweaters for the snowmen.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, December 10

 Hi parents,

We had a really productive day today. I don't have much to report because we spent so much time finishing the big tasks we started earlier this week, and last week - the art projects, the art project reflection, and the addition and subtraction word problems. These word problems are really tough. I truly feel that if the students can solve these, then they know their addition and subtraction.

Which means.... we will be having an addition and subtraction quiz next week, on Wednesday, December 17. The quiz will include some 2 and 3-digit addition and subtraction problems, as well as a few word problems, and some problems in the format: "____ - 5 = 10", "6 + ____ = 20", etc. Grade 4s will have to do some decimal addition and subtraction.

Our artwork will be up on display in the hallway for the next few weeks!

Have a nice night,

Zac