Monday, October 31

 Hi parents,

Our Halloween day was a pretty big success.

The highlight was definitely the parade - it was so great to have parents visit the school again!

Students wrote about their costumes, or, if they were feeling especially literary, they responded to the prompt: :"What is a monster?"

We did a subtraction 'check-in' (which is basically just a zero-stakes pop quiz), to see how everyone's doing with subtraction. We have quite a bit of work to do still with the borrowing / regrouping strategy. I've noticed that a lot of students are awesome at doing 2-digit subtraction problems with mental math strategies - which is usually the hardest way to do them! However, with the changes in curriculum, we're now expected to do addition and subtraction with numbers up to 100,000, so I think it's a good idea for everyone to learn the classic written algorithm too.

Practicing at home will undoubtedly help. Even just 2-3 problems every day, starting with 2-digit numbers, will make a huge difference.

Here are a few examples you could try to get you started.....

Beginner:           42 - 15 =            61 - 13 =                55 - 27 =             82 - 48 =

Intermediate:      276 - 49 =         351 - 44 =             723 - 18 =            682 - 154

Advanced:          2005 - 765 =                618 - 39 =                     10101 - 437 =

Master:     Word problem (e.g. I have 2005 cookies,  I eat 765, how many cookies do I have left?)

It would probably be a good idea for most students to start with beginner and work their way up.

We will also be doing daily practice in class, as well as lessons with the materials to help students build a more well-rounded understanding.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of October 1)

 Spelling List A (Oct. 30 – Nov 4)

Four	Pretty	Soon	There	Who
Ashes	Wishes	Fishes	Riches	Bushes

 

Spelling List B (Oct 30– Nov 4)

Before	Both	Call	These	Your
Clothes	Beaches	Crashes	Switches	Washes

 

Spelling List C (Oct 30 – Nov 4)

Stitches	Searches	Loathes	Slashes	Aches
Diminishes	Teaches	Wrenches	Twitches	Flourishes

The rule this week is -es following ch or th endings. Shouldn't be too difficult! 

As usual there are some great opportunities to learn vocabulary through List C, even if you don't spell the words perfectly.

Good luck!

October 27

 Hi parents,

Today was a great way to wrap up our week. In the morning,  we finished up our Art Cards by adding silhouettes, which also prompted a cool mini-lesson on light and shadow (one of our science units). Look at how well they turned out!

(sorry about the messy display. this is just temporary)

There will be an opportunity to order cards, ornaments, or other pieces in a few weeks, and a sample card will be sent home. I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

We met with our buddies and did a 'stem challenge' in which the students had to design structures that could launch a chocolate pumpkin across the room, using only elastics, a spoon, tape, and popsicle sticks. We used metre sticks to mark specific distances. The record was 12m! 

We read more of Wish Tree but still haven't finished it. The students added the final components to our classroom wishtree - the wishes themselves! They wrote kind messages / wishes to other students in the class, chosen at random, so everyone was able to receive and write a wish. Then, we used ribbon and thread to tie the notes, in classic Wish Tree fashion.

I realize that I forgot to remind the class about our spelling quiz today - I know it caught a few students off guard, so I have given the class another opportunity to rewrite the quiz on Monday if they want to (there will still be new spelling words for next week). I really appreciate that the students are taking so much pride in their quizzes and I think it's only fair that they know when quizzes will be.

Halloween is on Monday! I know the school has sent a more detailed email about the Halloween expectations at LBS, but to summarize:

-Costumes can be worn all day

-No weapons, blood, inappropriate content

-No treats or snacks :(

-The Halloween Parade begins at 1:00. Parents are welcome to view the parade in the gym!

Then, on Tuesday, November 1, we are having a school-wide Pajama day! 

If only everyone had the option to wear PJs to work after Halloween...

Have a nice weekend!

Zac

 

Wednesday, October 26

 Hi parents,

Today was a bit of a crazy day for our class, probably because Halloween is just around the corner. It was also a bit less structured than our usual days as we spent a lot of time painting in the morning, and then had book exchange in the afternoon. The students have pretty much finished their good copies for our Art Card project! If your child was away today, I think they will still be able to catch up tomorrow.

We also had an awesome hands-on opportunity to learn more about Diwali, as Ms. Kassam visited our classroom and showed us some traditional clothing that people may wear when celebrating. We learned how to properly put on a Sari (it's way more fabric than you could possibly imagine), and students got to try on a few other outfits as well.

At the end of the day, we almost finished Wish Tree. There were a lot of students out of the room or just being silly, so I thought we should wait till tomorrow.

 Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, October 25

 Hi parents,

We had a very artsy day today. In the morning, the students did some drafts for their Art Card paintings. We're going to be painting winter landscapes, and then adding silhouettes illuminated by a full moon. They're going to look really nice. The process of painting a winter landscape is a little tricky though, so we did a few practice attempts this morning to figure out some of the tricks. Here are a few examples of the draft paintings:

As you can see, they're pretty nice already - I'm sure adding the silhouettes will make them even better!

In math, we did more work around subtraction with borrowing. I cannot express how relieved I am with how quickly the students are catching on, because this concept is seriously brutal to teach. I think the golden beads have been a life-saver - they're great for helping the students visualize the processes.

We learned more about Diwali, and also about life in India, by reading an interesting book together as a class.

In the afternoon, we had Music and Gym, and read a bit more of Wish Tree.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Lifetouch Photos Reminder

 Just a quick reminder that online orders for Lifetouch Student Photos are due by Monday, October 31. Paper orders are due on Friday, October 29.

Monday, October 24

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. In the morning, the students wrote in their journals. They had the option to write about their weekend, while using needlessly spooky adjectives, or, to write a scary story. The scary story option will likely take a few days, but many students were up for the challenge!

In math, we talked about the most dreaded topic for any grade 1, 2, 3, or 4 class - subtraction with borrowing / regrouping. We looked at the problem 1000 - 123 = ___, and used the golden beads to illustrate the complicated process of regrouping. We talked about how it might be helpful to think of it as "nine hundred ninety ten" rather than one thousand, as that makes it easier to subtract each column individually. Or, that might just make it 10x more confusing. 

We did Daily LA, Gym, and mindfulness in the afternoon. We read a few more chapters of Wish Tree too, and are now very close to the big finale!

We learned more about Diwali, as today is the first day, and listened to some pop music from India. 

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Oct. 23)

 Spelling List A (Oct. 23 - 28)

As	Her	May	Live	Let
Ghost	Scare	Pumpkin	Treat	Trick

 

Spelling List B (Oct. 23 – 28))

Because	First	Many	Their	Why
Costume	Jack-o-lantern	Witches	Haunted	Halloween

 

Spelling List C (Oct. 23 - 28)

Chilling	Haunting	Cackling	Howling	Monstrous
Sinister	Phantom	Ghoulish	Eerie	Fearful

I'm hoping we can use some of these words to write some creepy poetry and / or stories this week!

Friday, October 21

Hi parents,

We made it through a five day week! I think this was the second full week we've had this whole year. 

The students did well on today's spelling quiz, and I was really happy to see that many of them who aced their quiz last week decided to move on to a higher difficulty level. That's what it's all about, even if it means getting a lower mark. The skills of persistence and resilience, however you may acquire them, are usually worth more than the skill you were practicing.  In my opinion.

We spent most of our morning doing research / writing project. Students are working in their table groups to create labelled posters that teach about deciduous and coniferous trees. They are dividing the task up so that each group member writes a paragraph for a different part of the tree. Then, they'll combine all their paragraphs to create an informative poster. Today all we did was write rough drafts of paragraphs.

We did Daily LA, played Song-Go, went outside for a body-break, and that was our day!

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, they will be spooky.

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, October 20

 Hi parents,

Today we did more work on our classroom Wish Tree, but painting even more leaves. This time the students put facts about trees on their leaves. We read books on Epic to learn more about trees and find the facts. Epic is a site similar to Raz-Kids, but with more texts for older students and less games.

I'm not sure if Epic works outside of school hours / outside the school, but if it does, our class code is: rqk1405

We used the information collected yesterday about celebrations to create bar graphs. We talked about how important it is to put a title on a graph, as without the title, the information could easily be misinterpreted.

We did Daily LA. The students are in new groups now and it seems to be working even better than before.

In the afternoon, we had Mindfulness, Gym, and Music. We read more of Wish Tree and talked about similarities between Samar and Maeve.

Have a nice night!

Zac

PS: Spelling Quiz Tomorrow!

Wednesday, October19

 Hi parents,

Today we continued working on writing and solving addition and subtraction equations. We're starting to work on problems involving numbers of with different numbers of digits - for example, "14032 + 148 = ___"

This kind of problem is a great way to really put your place value knowledge to the test, and it also brings in the skill of 'regrouping', aka 'carrying the one', which will be our focus for the next week or so. A lot of this is work is basically review from grade 2/3, but involving larger numbers, so it shouldn't be too tricky.

The students also did some data collection today, as they chose five holidays that they celebrate, and then surveyed their classmates to see who else celebrates them. Tomorrow we're hoping to use the data to make bar graphs.

In Science, we learned about trees. We learned that there are two types of trees - trees with broad leaves (deciduous) and trees with needles (conifers). We learned some other differences between the two types as well, but also the many similarities. Trees also have quite a bit in common with other plants, even small flowers!

We'll be learning about plants a lot more over the next few weeks.

We also spent a bit of time learning about Diwali, and discussing aspects of the holiday that are most interesting, or similar to other holidays we may celebrate.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent in boxes! If you have any more shoebox sized boxes and aren't using them, please continue to send them in. We're getting dangerously close to the end of Wish Tree, and it would be really cool if we could start the project right after we finish reading it.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, October 18

 Hi parents,

Today we talked about similes. Wish Tree is absolutely loaded with them. The students played "Roll a Simile", and wrote their own similes about various aspects of nature. We talked about how similes in poetry often force your brain to piece together new meanings for words - for example, "The river was as tangled and wild as vines in a jungle". Rivers don't really 'tangle' - but on some level, your brain still understands the meaning, and creates a really cool visual.

We continued to work on organizing and solving math equations by lining up place value.

In the afternoon, we had Music, and read more of Wish Tree. We learned about how Red became a Wish Tree - it turns out the 'Wish Tree' tradition originated in Ireland. We talked about other traditions and celebrations that originated in other places and over time, made their way to Canada.

Tomorrow is Book Exchange! I am also hoping to acquire more shoeboxes / similar sized boxes for an upcoming Wish Tree diorama project.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, October 17

 Happy Monday,

We had a great start to our week today and did pretty typical Monday activities.

In the morning, the students wrote in their journals, either about the weekend, or about something that scares them (in honour of Halloween). We talked about margins and how to use them to effectively organize writing. We also learned about the interesting history behind margins - apparently they were initially designed to indicate the portion of the book that would typically be eaten by mice.

We've mostly finished explicitly learning about place value in math, and have moved on to addition and subtraction. We talked about how we can apply our new and improved understanding of place value to help us solve addition and subtraction problems with huge numbers. For example, 100,435 + 6,701. 

A common mistake students make is to set up the equation incorrectly, instead of lining up the numbers based on place value. For example, writing it like this:

   100,435

+ 6701

instead of...

   100,435

+     6,701

Today the students just practiced writing equations into their math books using the grid paper as a guide. This organization skill will come in handy for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing - especially in later grades!

We talked about the new spelling words, and how to change -f endings into -ves for plural forms.

Shoeboxes Wanted!

We are going to be making Diaramas for Wish Tree in the near future. If you have any shoeboxes, or similar sized boxed, please send them to school! I will send an official email out when we get a bit closer to the actual start date.

Book Exchange - EVERY WEDNESDAY

Just a reminder that our class will be doing Book Exchange at the library every Wednesday. Please remind your child to put their books back in their backpack for then.

Have a nice night!

Zac

boxes

Spelling Words! Week of Oct. 16

Spelling List A (Oct. 16 - 21)

Yellow	Are	Have	Please	What
Lives	Elves	Wives	Loaves	Leaves

 

Spelling List B (Oct. 16 - 21)

Take	Round	Put	Always	Does
Proves	Wolves	Shelves	Scarves	Dwarves

 

Spelling List C (Oct. 16 - 21)

Thieves	Relieves	Werewolves	Knives	Calves
Themselves	Hooves	Disproves	Halves	Yourselves

The theme this week is "Words that normally end with an 'F' that change to a -ves ending when put in plural form"

And of course some essential sight words.

Friday, October 14

Hi parents,

We had a lot of fun today. The first fun thing we did was Music. Then, we had our spelling quiz, and went out for snack. We had our second quiz, the rounding redemption quiz, and watched some videos to learn about Quebec for French. 

We did a French conversation activity to review all the French we've learned so far, and also learned how to say some incredibly useful phrases such as "J'aime les crayons" (I like pencils) and "J'aime les chaises" (I like chairs). 

I sent home all the quizzes today. We talked a bit about how quizzes are not the only indicator of math / spelling abilities, and they by no means determine whether someone is 'good or bad' at a concept. Everyone has off days, and quizzes can be stressful which can make it harder to show what you know. But practicing writing them is still a good skill. At the end of the day, I value the hard work students have been consistently doing in class a lot more than a quiz mark. :)

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words!

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, October 13

 Hi parents,

We had another pretty good day today. In the morning we learned about crows, and a little bit about ravens too. The students read articles that taught all about how intelligent and interesting crows are, and then they addressed a series of statements and determined whether they were fact, fiction, or opinion.

We practiced rounding again with a full class activity and some more 'rounding tables'. Tomorrow is a 'double quiz day', as we will have the rounding quiz and our usual spelling quiz.

We did Daily LA. In the afternoon we had Music and Gym. We continued to read Wish Tree and told a couple more scary stories too.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Wednesday, October 12

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. We had an extra long morning work period so we could get some student surveys done. Then, we read the poem "Little Leaf" by Duke Redbird.

We had a fantastic class discussion about the poem. We talked about the interesting / poetic phrases, how the poem evoked different emotions, and about the interesting artwork that accompanied it. When we went outside for a picnic (how cool is it that we're still having daily picnics??) we watched real leaves fall from trees, and thought about other ways we could describe their fall.

The students wrote their own leaf poems. They had the option to use sentence starters, or to do it fully freestyle. The poems ended up being surprisingly deep and thoughtful! I say surprising because this is really the first time we've done poetry this year, and usually it takes more practice to get to where we were at today.

We practiced rounding some more. I'm hoping the daily review will help everyone get ready for the "Rounding Redemption" quiz on Friday. It's a tricky concept, especially when you're working with large numbers.

We read "Lila and the Crow", and found a striking number of similarities between it and Wish Tree!

We did Daily LA, Book Exchange at the library, and ended our day with Wish Tree and another spooky story.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, October 11

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today!

In the morning, the students wrote in their journals, either about the long weekend, or about things they are thankful for.

We had a practice Lockdown this morning and really nailed it. Very quiet, very calm.

Probably the biggest success of the day was the Math Quiz though. It was challenging and took a lot longer than I expected, but the class persevered, and did much better than I expected! I've marked the quizzes but still need to upload stuff to the computer before I can send them home.

I noticed that just about everyone struggled most with the question on Rounding. That usually means I didn't teach it enough. As a result I've decided to spend a few more days working on it, and then we'll do a mini "Rounding Redemption Quiz" on Friday, October 14 that will be only on Rounding. 

In the afternoon, the students had Music, and Gym, and spelling practice.

We read more of Wish Tree, and ended our day with a scary story (which we will do a lot more of until Halloween!)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of October 9)

Spelling List A (Oct. 9 - 14)

Play	Two	All	Eat	Now
Flies	Fries	Spies	Dries	Cries

 

Spelling List B (Oct. 9 - 14)

Thank	Walk	Were	When	Give
Babies	Taxies	Duties	Studies	Parties

 

Spelling List C (Oct. 9 - 14)

Hobbies	Valleys	Species	Monkeys	Copies
Ponies	Cubbies	Armies	Candies	Cuties

There are some real trickies on these lists.

If you're practicing at home, it may help to write the singular form of each word and compare the difference in ending. For example, talk about how "fly" becomes "flies", rather than "flys". We'll be talking about this at school too.

On list C, watch out for 'valleys' and 'monkeys', that seem to defy logic entirely!

Good luck!!