Spelling List A (May 22 – 29)
Spelling List B (May 22 – 29)
Spelling List C (May 22 – 29)
Hi parents,
We had a great day today with a lot of work period time. Performing at the Volunteer Tea was fun. I don't think the kids realized what a big audience they'd have! Thankfully we know those French songs super well.
In math, the students were tasked with finding the area and perimeter of their tables. They were allowed to use any unit of measurement they chose.
In Health, we learned a bit about social media and internet safety. We talked about the potential dangers of social media and how alogorithms are designed to show content that evokes an emotional response - often a negative one.
At the end of the day, I sent home the spelling quizzes and the multiplication / division quiz re-dos. If you child wants another re-do, no problem! It only takes a few minutes to switch up the questions. Unlimited re-dos are available. I just want everyone to learn this stuff and feel confident that they know it.
Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice weekend!
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a great day at Nose Hill Park today!
We did a ton of walking, exploring, and learning about the significance of the park, and the medicine wheel landmark. The students loved getting to experience this unique place and seeing the city from a completely different angle than our other field trips have allowed. Thanks so much to our parent volunteers. :)
Spelling quiz tomorrow! Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
We had another good day today. In the morning, we learned about perimeter. Students had to calculate the perimeter of a variety of irregular polygons, and find the missing side length when given a perimeter.
We did another 'School-wide Write', where every class in the school spent an hour writing about a picture prompt. This was the prompt:
I think this one went better than the last one. The work we've done with story writing and descriptive writing seems to have sunk in! I had a lot of fun reading these.
In the afternoon, we worked on the Book in a Box project (email coming soon), went outside for gym, and learned about Nose Hill Park's iconic landmark, that we will be visiting tomorrow.
Have a nice night!
Zac
Spelling List A (15 – 22)
Spelling List B (15 – 22)
Spelling List C (May 15 – 22)
Hi parents,
We had a great day today. It was basically just a big work period.
I didn't have a chance to mark the spelling quizzes yet, but we did those, and we learned a few more cursive capital letters too. We also reviewed our French songs, which we will be singing at the Volunteer Tea.
In the afternoon we did some quiet reading, and I am so happy with how this Book in a Box project is going so far! Students seem totally enthralled by their books. Lots of them have started reading by themselves as a responsible work choice.
I ended up giving a bit of homework this weekend. I mostly just did that to follow through, and in the hopes that it will help motivate students to work a little bit harder during the day. There was a lot of talking this week. I sent home short descriptions of each task as well, but in case your child didn't bribng one, here's what they said:
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a really great day today. The students were exceptionally focused and hard-working, and we got through a whole bunch of stuff.
In the morning, we talked about parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Students were tasked with writing 'super sentences' that included each of the above. For example: "the sneaky (adj,.) elf (noun) quietly (adv.) entered (verb).
We also went over the Montessori symbols for parts of speech.
Wheelchair Basketball FormsAt the end of the day, I handed out the math quizzes from last week, as well as more forms, these ones for our upcoming Wheelchair Basketball residency. Please bring those back ASAP, as well as the field trip forms if you haven't already - I'm sorry they're the same colour I know that's confusing.Math Quiz Re-Do - Tues. May 19On Tuesday, May 19, students will have an opportunity to re-do the multiplication and division quiz. The Re-do will feature the same format of questions, but with different numbers. We have practiced factoring every day this week, and I am confident the students have made huge growth in that area. I have also met with small groups of students to work on long division, and 'fill in the blank' problems. I am asking all the Grade 4s to re-do the quiz (the first version was too easy), and making ot optional for Grade 3s. I will use whatever score is higher when doing report cards, so there's really nothing to lose in trying it again.
Hi parents,
We had a busy and productive day today. In the morning, we did Spelling Sentences, with the twist "Haiku Practice" - every sentence had to be either 5 or 7 syllables.
We reviewed factoring some more. I'm confident if we were to re-do the division and multiplication quis tomorrow (which we won't - it'll be next week), scores would already be a lot better.
In other math / health & life skills news, we explored financial literacy further. The students created pie charts to show how they could Spend, Save, and Share a given quantity of money. We talked about how some people may spend, save, and share equal quantities of money, while others may choose to save more, and how overspending could be a risky move. We also learned about credit and debit cards, and the dangers of credit card debt.
In the afternoon, we spent 20 minutes on quiet reading. Students read their chosen 'Book in a Box' novels, and we shared a bit about what happened so far.
We ended the day with even more math, and learned how to measure curved lines using a measuring tape.
Have a nice night,
Zac
Forms for this will go home tomorrow!
Hi parents,
We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, we learned a bit about Finanical Literacy. We learned about the purpose of banks, and the history of banks, and then the students wrote about hypothetical short term savings goals.
We went over the new spelling words, and in math, we learned about measurement, using cms, mms, and ms.
Book in a Box Project
We went to the library as a class, and the students chose novels for the "Book in a Box" project. This is a big-ish project that I like to do every year, which has three parts:
1. Students choose and read a novel, over the course of the week. The purpose of this project is to encourage kids to move from picture books into full length chapter books, and experience the joy of reading, even when a book doesn't have any / as many pictures.
2. Students decorate a cardboard box to represent a prominent setting of their chosen novel.
3. Students choose three items that represent important characters, events, or themes in their novel. They write a paragraph about each item, explaining its significance, and present to the class.
We will be working on this project in class this week, but students who need more time to finish their novels can bring them home.
Please send any small cardboard boxes you may have around the house! Cereal boxes, shoe boxes, coffee cans, etc. Doesn't need to be a specific shape, just has to be big enough to fit three small trinkets.
Thanks to everyone who has sent back their forms already, and to the parents who have offered to volunteer. We are good to go for volunteers now. :)
Have a nice night,
Zac
Spelling List A (May 8 – 14)
Spelling List B (May 8 – 14)
Spelling List C (May 8 – 14)
