Spelling List A (Oct. 9 – 16)
Spelling List B (Oct. 9 – 16)
Spelling List C (Oct. 9 – 16)
Hi parents,
Its been a great week! Today the students were able to finish even more of their work from earlier in the week, and while not everyone got it all done, I was really impressed by the dedication and hard work. I think the new system of prioritizing certain tasks is paying off too and helping students who are a bit slower to still complete the most important things.
We met with our buddies and read books on Epic.
We did some Halloween-inspired drawing lessons. I haven't had a chance to mark the spelling quiz yet, but we did do that too.
Stay tuned for next week's words, and have a great Thanksgiving weekend!
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a great day today, it was exceptionally productive. No new work was added, which gave the class plenty of time to finish everything from earlier in the week. Long Work Periods like today's a great for me too as I have plenty of opportunities to work one on one with lots of different students. Plus, they're a great way to build time management skills.
Along with work time, we practiced neat printing and brainstormed proper nouns, and we reviewed the French numbers to 10 and learned (but probably forgot) how to say how old you are in French.
In the afternoon we did Daily LA and read more of Charlotte's Web.
Tomorrow is the -or spelling quiz.
Have a nice night!
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a pretty good day today! The students have a ton of work on the go right now, so tomorrow and Friday will have plenty of work period time. I'm trying to structure the weeks a little different this year, and overload the class with work for the first couple days, and then give them plenty of time to finish it for the rest of the week. I've noticed this group seems to take a while to get started, but once they're in the zone, they actually work really efficiently.
We've been talking a lot about 'character traits', and the students have created characters that could be friends with Wilbur (the pig from Charlotte's web) in some alternate version of the story.
Today we went a step further with this work, and the students were tasked with choosing four character traits they didn't know the meanings of, looking up the meaning, and then writing a sentence about a person, real or fictional, that embodies that trait. For example, "Spiderman is altruistic because he puts himself in danger to protect others. Malfoy is arrogant because he think's he's better than other wizards and picks on Hermione."
In math, we're working on addition and subtraction with whole numbers. For example, 94 - 30, or 250 - 70. Ideally these questions should be pretty easy for kids in Grade 3/4, but not everybody has had that moment where the pattern 'clicks'. I'm hoping with some explicit practice, it will happen for everybody very soon. :)
In Social Studies, the students labelled cities and towns on maps of Alberta and Canada.
Parent Teacher Conference Bookings are now open (for real this time), so please book a spot soon!
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
Picture Day went great today. I've never had so many students get so dressed up, it was awesome.
For writing, we built on the theme of last week's Spelling Sentences Twist, in which the students had to write sentences with adverbs, verbs, adjectives, and nouns. This time they had to write sentences about things they were thankful for. I think being forced to include adverbs and adjectives made this writing a lot more unique than your average gratitude journaling.
We went over this week's spelling words, and talked about the 'or' sound. We read Chapter 5 of Charlotte's Web, and did Daily LA. The students also had Gym and Music in the morning.
In math, I taught the class some mental math tricks for solving problems involving 11's and 12's, by first adding or subtracting 10, and then counting on 1-2 more times.
Parent Teacher Conferences are now open for booking - please book a conference as soon as you can!
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
I don't have too much to write today! We had a long morning work period, then we met up with our buddy class and did some data collection and graphing. Students worked in partners to survey their classmates with 'whats your favourite _____?' questions, and then graphed the results.
In Math, we did some subtraction on a number line. This has been really challenging for the class, and I'm glad they're getting the opportunity to expand their knowledge of math strategies. Working with a number line is a good way to build a sense of numbers' relative positions too.
We did the Spelling Quiz but I didn't have a chance to mark them yet. I just posted the words for next week below.
Have a nice weekend!
Zac
Monday, October 5 is Picture Day!!
Spelling List A (Oct. 2 – 9)
Spelling List B (Oct. 2 – 9)
Spelling List C (Oct. 2 – 9)
Hi parents,
We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, we switched up table groups, awarded a prize to last month's winning table, and had a long work period. Students all finished their 'Smile So Big' Art as well as just about all the work from last week.
For Spelling Sentences this week, the twist was 'Super Sentences'. This means each sentence must include a noun, adjective, verb, and adverb.This is a pretty challenging twist for spelling sentences, as far as they go, especially at this point in the year where we haven't explicitly learned about adverbs.
We did Daily LA, Music, and French (we reviewed days of the week and counting to 10), and we read another chapter of Charlotte's Web.
In Math, we're working on 'jump addition' using a number line. This strategy can be helpful for mental math. Basically it involves taking a problem like "123 + 112" and thinking" "first, add 100. Then add 10. Then add 2." Students can show these 'jumps' on a number line.
Since its October, we ended our day with a scary story.
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
Today we learned more about Orange Shirt Day. We read the book 'When We Were Alone', and students wrote in their journals about what Orange Shirt Day means to them. If your child has an orange shirt, please encourage them to wear it to school tomorrow!
We've been doing low-stakes 'mad minutes' lately to build fact fluency. Students get 3 minutes, rather than just one, to do as many basic facts as they can. Then, they mark their own work, and keep track of how many they got. The hope is that they can beat their own personal records, rather than competing against classmates, and so far morale has been good!
We went over some of this week's new spelling words. This will be our last week of 'sight words', before we move on to specific spelling patterns.
In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then a math lesson on different ways a number can be represented, based on place value. For example, '10 tens and 14 ones' is the same as '114'. This activity helps students build general number sense. I reiterated that it is still important to know and use the common and most efficient ways of writing numbers.
We started reading Charlotte's Web. We're only a chapter in, but the students seem to be pretty into it so far. At the end of the day I handed out some info about Picture Day, which is Oct. 5!
Have a nice night,
Zac
Spelling List A (Sep. 25 – Oct. 2)
Spelling List B (Sep. 25 – Oct. 2)
Spelling List C (Sep. 25 – Oct. 2)
