Friday, November 6

 Happy Friday!

We had a great day today. In the morning, we rewatched the beautiful animated short that I posted earlier in the week, with the animals, poppies, and war. This time, we stopped the video every few moments to really analyze it in detail. We talked about how the music changes throughout the video, how the changes in weather affect the mood, and how the helmet represents how soldiers protect others. 

If you'd like to watch the video at home, here's the link again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeR5JWaIcpo

We went outside for a quick break, and the students were fascinated by the way the gravel on our playground had frozen together into big chunks. It was pretty cool actually.

Our Spelling Quiz was my favourite part of the day because the class did better than ever before and with significantly less hints! 

We had Daily 5 and then had the Class Dojo Store. The students did better this time with the math, and I think that is largely due to all the practice we've had with subtraction lately through 'Morning Math'. Most students are comfortable solving subtraction problems by drawing circles to represent a quantity, and then crossing out circles to show the process of subtraction. While this is by no means the most efficient way to subtract, it is a reliable, easy to understand way for kids to solve problems while also being able to clearly visualize each step. Once students clearly understand that subtraction is a process of 'taking away', I encourage them to use mental math or written algorithms to solve problems.

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words!

Have a nice weekend,

Zac