Spelling Words! Week of Oct. 1

 Spelling List A (Oct. 1 - 5)

Where	You	Three	See	To
Much	Chew	Chip	Chore	Chase

 

Spelling List B (Oct. 1 - 5)

Ask	By	Once	Some	Them
Chapter	Charity	Chatterbox	Cheetah	Ketchup

 

Spelling List C (Oct. 1 - 5)

Echo	Chasm	Chord	Choir	Chile
Chaos	Anchor	Chromatic	Monarch	Anarchy

Good luck! 

Art Cards

 

Thursday, September 29

 Hi parents,

We had a wonderful Orange Shirt Day today. Mrs. Green and Ms. Gierl's classes led an amazing assembly, and I think the conversations we've been having all week helped the students to appreciate the content on a deeper level.

We finished our Reconciliation Rock project with the buddies, and placed the rocks in the garden. Feel free to stop by and check them out some time!

The spelling quiz was great today. It is so great to see the students' practice paying off! So many students are consistently challenging themselves to do difficult lists, even though they could probably get higher scores on easier ones, and that's what it's all about. I love to see the perseverance. 

In math, students sorted numbers from least to greatest - but the numbers ranged from 10 - 1,000,000!

We had a French lesson today but unfortunately didn't have time to finish. All we really had time for was to get a few songs stuck in our heads. 

We had a really interesting class discussion around the question, "If you had a machine that could see the future, and you saw someone commit a crime, would it be okay to arrest that person before they committed the crime?" Someone should make a movie about that.

We had our first official Daily LA today and the class did a fantastic job. I'm amazed by how responsibly they used their time, regardless of what station they were on.

Tomorrow is Truth and Reconciliation day, and the students have all kinds of ideas about things they may want to do to honour it. I look forward to checking back with them on Monday to hear how it went!

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Wednesday, September 28

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today - it's shaping up to be a pretty good week in fact!

We met up with our buddy class and did an Orange Shirt Day art project. We read the book "Trudy's Rock Story", which is an indigenous story about a girl who uses a rock to help her express her emotions and solve conflicts. The students painted their own rocks orange. We watched a video about reconciliation and brainstormed idea for what we could write on our rocks, once they are dry.

In math, we played a game called "Place Value Battle Royale" in which students competed at their tables to create the biggest numbers, by rolling dice. It's basically the same as the Beat the Teacher game we played earlier, but this time the numbers went into the millions.

In the afternoon, we had music, gym, and library. Easy afternoon for me, fun for the class.

Tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day. Wearing an orange shirt is encouraged - however, if you don't have one, a good alternative is just wearing a shirt that has sentimental value, just like the orange one that was so special to Phyllis Webstad. 

Have a wonderful night,

Zac

PS: Don't forget to send back the pink homework sheet!

Tuesday, September 27

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. In the morning we had a fantastic discussion about orange shirt day and residential schools. The students listened intently and shared so many thoughtful contributions. We talked about how the 'orange shirt' is really just a symbol to represent all of the many things indigenous children lost, like their language, traditions, songs, and connections with family. The students showed a respect and empathy throughout our conversation. 

Then, we did some writing. The class chose between two prompts: 

1. What does the orange shirt represent?

2. How is Grandpa Nat's story similar to Phyllis Webstad's story?

Both are quite a bit deeper than what we often do with writing prompts and it was great to see the students rise to the challenge.

We visited the library and Mrs. Brady talked to the kids about what to expect from our Book Exchange / Library time this year. There are some interesting changes in the works! The kids are clearly very excited about getting to check out books, starting tomorrow!

At the end of the day, we read Wish Tree, and I gave out some homework about family traditions and history. One of the big themes in Wish Tree is diversity,  so we will be adding leaves to our tree that showcase the diverse backgrounds of families in our classroom. We talked about how at some point in history, everyone's families moved to Canada from somewhere else in the world - it may have been a grandparent, or even a great great grandparent. Having different family traditions is another way our classroom is diverse. 

If you wouldn't mind talking with your child and then sending the homework back by Thursday, September 29, that would be awesome.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, September 26

 Hi parents,

We had a great Monday today. In the morning, we watched this excellent episode of Molly of Denali and talked about Residential Schools. If you haven't watched Molly of Denali already, I really recommend it. It is a show about an indigenous community in Alaska. A lot of the episodes address the same concepts that we try to teach students about Canada's indigenous history, but in a kid-friendly way.

We did another Numeracy Assessment in math, just to see where everyone is at and help us meet the students at their individual levels. 

The students wrote in their journals. We talked about how a simple sentence, like 'We went camping", can be expanded into literally hundreds of additional sentences that add detail. For example, where you went camping, who you went with, what you did there, etc. And each of those sentences could probably be expanded on as well. With writing, it's about quality over quantity, and adding detail is a great way to enhance quality.

The students glued in and practiced their new spelling words. Once again, this week's quiz will be on Thursday, so we have less time to practice. Any extra practice at home will help!

At the end of the day we read further into Wish Tree. We talked about Samar and her family. The students discussed how the discrimination faced by Samar's family is kind of similar to what indigenous peoples experienced in the past. 

Orange Shirt Day is on Thursday, so we're trying to build lots of connections and make sure it is meaningful!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Sept. 24)

 Spelling List A (Sept. 24 – 29)

Funny	Little	My	One	Said
Bite	Here	Make	Bone	Tube

 

Spelling List B (Sept. 24 – 29)

Any	Could	Every	Going	Of
Change	Phone	Prize	Quite	Shape

 

Spelling List C (Sept. 24 – 29)

Surprise	Absolute	Replace	Produce	Continue
Graduate	Assume	Desire	Engage	Customize

Good luck! 

Tuesday, September 20

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today! 

In the morning, the students learned about leaves, and watched this Sci Show Kids video about why leaves change colour in the fall.

Then, we used 'Northern Red Oak Leaf' tracers to cut out leaves, which we then painted in beautiful fall colours. In the spirit of Wish Tree, the students brainstormed 'wisdom' that they could write on their leaf. We added all the finished quote leaves onto our Wish Tree display and it looks pretty awesome! A little bit bare right now, but I'm thinking we can create new leaves to represent different things, and fill the tree out a bit more. Some of the central themes in Wish Tree are Nature and Wisdom - and the work we did today did a great job of expressing those!

We had an awesome discussion about Terry Fox today, and read a book that went into more detail about his childhood and education. It was interesting for the students to see how much they had in common with Terry! I'm hoping that our talk today will help them feel extra motivated to run tomorrow.

In the afternoon, we did more work on place value in math. We're starting to focus more on the Thousands, Ten Thousands, and Hundred Thousands places. This is brand new terminology for many students, but it's not necessarily any more difficult to learn than ones, tens, and hundreds. Practicing writing and talking about large numbers at home would be a great way to reinforce this new knowledge.

We ended our day by reading Wish Tree. We're reviewing what's happened so far. We talked more about diversity and acceptance, another of the book's prevalent themes.

I am sad to say I'll be away tomorrow and will be missing the Terry Fox run. There also won't be a Blog post (unless our Guest Teacher is feeling exceptionally keen).

Have a nice evening! I look forward to seeing you at the Open House on Thursday!

Zac

PS: The spelling quiz for this week will be on Thursday as Friday is an Organizational Day.

Terry Fox Run Tomorrow!

 Lake Bonavista School is proud to be participating in this year’s Terry Fox School Run. Our run will take place on Wednesday, September 21 at 12:40pm following Room 2’s sharing assembly. Let’s get our fundraising going and show everyone how we can “Try like Terry”! To donate: https://schools.terryfox.ca/LakeBonavista. Together, we can all make a difference. 

#terryfoxschoolruns #tryliketerry @terryfoxfoundation 

Monday, September 19

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good Monday today!

In the morning the students practiced spelling and did some more advanced place value math problems, with numbers going into the millions. They were asked to write the value of a specific digit in a series of numbers. So for example, in the number 784,230, the '8' would represent '80,000'. At this point, the students are expected to be able to do this for numbers up to 1000, but once they get the hang of it, it's a pretty easy skill to extend into the millions and even billions. The hard part is just remembering the names of each bracket of numbers.

We had a moment of silence for Queen Elizabeth, and had a good class discussion about her life and legacy, as well as ways in which we can show respect.

The students wrote in their journals, either about their weekends, or about what they would do if they were king or queen of a nation.

In the afternoon we had Music and Gym. We also did a review of Wish Tree thus far. A lot of has happened - we had an interesting class discussion about the book's events, characters, and themes.

One word that came up at the end of the day was "Diversity", as it is one of the books central themes. The students didn't seem too familiar with it - even though they experience it every day at school! 

Blog Homework:

Talk with your child about 'diversity', and then ask them to create their own 'definition' for it. They could write it down, or just memorize it and tell me tomorrow. 2 points for the table of each student who completes this very secret homework assignment.

Have a nice evening!

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of September 18)

 Spelling List A (Sept. 18 – 23)

Find	For	Here	Look	Make
Knew	Know	Knit	Knee	Knob

 

Spelling List B (Sept. 18 – 23)

Again	From	Just	Over	Think
Knock	Known	Knight	Unknown	Knuckles

 

Spelling List C (Sept. 18 – 23)

Knowledge	Believe	Against	Breath	Center
Certain	Divide	Double	Neither	Special

The letter blend of the week is 'kn-'. 

List C is focused on grade 4 level 'sight words' as there weren't a whole lot of other 'kn' words that seemed relevant. 

Good luck!

Friday, September 16

Bonjour parents!

We had a great day today. 

The students met, read with, and played with their younger buddies from Ms. Midgley's grade 1/2 class. 

The spelling quiz went well - I didn't have a chance to mark them yet so I'll send them home on Monday instead. 

We had our first French lesson today, which was meant with mixed reactions - some students n'aime pas le francais beaucoup. But I'm sure that will change over time. Today we learned how to say "Bonjour" and "Je m'appelle". The students also learned how to ask how other people were doing ("Comment ca va?") and respond with "bien", "comme ci comme ca", or "mal".

We learned about ancient Egyptian numerals, and used them to express numbers. The system is pretty similar to base ten blocks but with more fun imagery.

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a great weekend!

Zac

Terry Fox Run at LBS

 Lake Bonavista School is proud to be participating in this year’s Terry Fox School Run. Our run will take place on Wednesday, September 21 at 12:40pm following Room 2’s sharing assembly. Let’s get our fundraising going and show everyone how we can “Try like Terry”! To donate: https://schools.terryfox.ca/LakeBonavista. Together, we can all make a difference. 

#terryfoxschoolruns #tryliketerry @terryfoxfoundation 

Thursday, September 15

An artsy day indeed

Hi parents,

We had a very art-centred day today. It was "International Dot Day", which is a day intended to celebrate the message behind the book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds, which is basically to believe in yourself, and realize that success looks different for everyone.

The students did a water colour dot art project and learned how to created Montessori-inset-inspired tracers, using cardstock paper.

The class also gravitated towards a new responsible work choice that was just added today, which is designing a "Boss" for a really fun math game called Classroom of Doom. I didn't think they'd be so into it. But it's a cool game because we get to design many aspects of it collaboratively, and then  appreciate everyone's contributions as we play the game together as a full class. Looking forward to introducing it officially next week!

We ended our day with come creative writing time, and yet another place value math game.

Tomorrow is going to be a great day, as we will be meeting our Grade 1/2 buddies, learning French, and of course, doing a spelling quiz.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, September 14

 Hi parents,

Today we continued working on place value, and played a game called "Place Value Bingo" as a class. For this game, we randomly picked ones, tens, or hundreds, and then rolled a dice. If the number rolled was in the correct place value spot on our bingo card, we crossed it off.

We talked about the meaning of the word 'quote', and brainstormed some examples of famous quotes. We talked about how most famous quotes contain some form of timeless wisdom or teaching, and that we can often continue to learn from these quotes even hundreds of years after they were initially spoken. Our favourite tree, Red,  from Wish Tree, just so happens to be full of wise quotes, and today, the students selected one of his many quotes and wrote about what it means to them.

This was quite a challenging writing prompt and it really got the class thinking. I look forward to doing more like it in the future!

Optional Blog Homework:

Find a famous quote and talk with your child about it. Students who share their quote with me tomorrow will earn 2 points for their table!

In the afternoon, we had gym and music, and read another few chapters of Wish Tree. 

I handed out scholastic book orders at the end of the day. If you are interested in placing an order, please include our classroom code - RC157953 - in your order, as Scholastic gives a decent percentage of it back to our classroom as store credit. With Scholastic credit, we were able to buy a whole bunch of new puzzles, games, and building materials last year.

Thank you and have a nice night!

Zac

Tuesday, September 13

 Hi parents,

Today was another good day in room 4. We discussed rhyming words, practiced spelling, and caught up on work from yesterday. In math, we're still reviewing place value, and working on 2-digit addition using the 'number columns' strategy, which you are probably all familiar with. It involves first adding the ones, then tens, hundreds, and so on. 

An interesting way to see if your child has really grasped this concept is to intentionally write out a problem so that the place value spots are misaligned. For example,

    452

+ 3

__________

A lot or students will solve this problem as if it were "452 + 300", because they're too quick to add numbers that are on top of one another, rather than noticing what place value each number should occupy and rewriting the problem accordingly.

We also did some standard 'beginning of year' math assessments that will help me figure out math groups moving forward and know how to best meet each student where they're at.

We watched a video about Terry Fox, and had a quick class discussion. Our school's Terry Fox run is coming up on the 21st. We talked about the word 'inspire', and the students wrote about inspirational people in their lives. Or, they were able to write about Terry Fox.

In the afternoon we reviewed the "Listen to Reading" station of Daily LA. Still in the process of putting together groups, but we should be good to go by next week.

We read more of Wish Tree. It's taken a bit of a sad turn, and we had some great conversations about bullying, exclusion, and how important it is to accept one another regardless of differences.

I sent home forms about Picture Day, School Council, and some courses available to children. I also sent yearbooks home with people who ordered them last year. I believe there are still yearbooks available, so if you are interested in buying one, please let the office know!

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, September 12

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today - it's cool to see how quickly the students have already settled into many of our classroom routines.

In the morning, the class was introduced to this week's spelling words, which they had a chance to practice, and we also talked about rhymes. I've noticed more and more students seem to be struggling with identifying words that 'rhyme' and I'm not sure why that is, but I'm hoping that by teaching it a little bit every day, we'll be able to get right back on track. 

In math, we continued to discuss place value, and its role in addition with 2 and 3-digit numbers.

The students wrote in their journals, either about the weekend, or in response to the prompt 'would you rather be a tree or a rock?'. Or, they did creative writing.

In the afternoon we had Music, and we used the Parachute in gym. We ended our day by reading Wish Tree, and the students received their drawing books.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Sept. 11)

 Spelling List A (Sept. 11 – 16)

Away	Blue	Can	Come	Down
Just	Most	Past	Mist	Pest

 

Spelling List B (Sept. 11 – 16)

After	Fly	How	Open	Then
First	Trust	Ghost	Strict	Street

 

Spelling List C (Sept. 11 – 16)

Station	Instead	Bolster	Register	Historic
Honesty	Chemistry	Dynasty	Stomach	Justice

Words in italics are 'sight words'. They don't fit in with the word family we are studying this week (the -st family), but they are essential words for effective written communication. There will be 5 new sight words on List A and List B each week.

If your child is practicing List C, that's a great opportunity to discuss some new vocabulary words they may not be familiar with.  Even if they may not spell a word correctly, they've still gained an understanding that may help them with reading, speaking, or listening.

Spelling practice is more interesting than it looks!