Thursday, November 30

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. In the morning, the students had a chance to catch up on work from earlier in the week. Those horse paragraphs turned out awesome, often even better than the earth paragraphs, which had significantly more planning and editing! 

We built on our work around the map of Canada from yesterday, and learned about the 'compass rose'. We learned the four main directions, as well as northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast. Then we did a classic / 'old school' activity, in which the students answered questions from the textbook that tested their ability to use directions to compare locations on the map. It was also a big success.

In the afternoon, we had Music and Daily LA. We brainstormed the 'must-have' features and qualities of a Mars Rover, in preparation for actually designing and building models of our own rovers.

Remember that tomorrow is our spelling quiz! And, the 14th is our Winter Event.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, November 29

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students were provided with jot notes about horses, that they used to write their own paragraphs. The students really nailed it on this activity. Without explicit planning and instruction, they were able to incorporate many of the elements of paragraphs we've been targeting over the past few weeks - clear topic sentences, writing that flows, sentence variety, and compound sentences - it really felt like all of that came it a lot more naturally today.

In math, we did some 'fact fluency' work, with fill in the blank problems. These problems were not particularly difficult, so students could work on developing fast, effective mental math strategies for solving them.

We worked on maps of Canada as part of Social Studies. As we move into our exploration of Alberta, it made sense to ensure every students understood where Alberta is located in Canada, and the difference between a city, province, and country.

There are a couple big dates coming up:

Tomorrow is our school's "Hat Day", and the Winter Celebration is on December 14.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 28

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students got into Social Studies groups, and were introduced to their Alberta textbooks. They skimmed through the book, and read the introduction. As you can probably guess, we're going to start learning about Alberta - the landscape, people, history, and more! Working in mixed-grade groups is great because the students can help each other with the challenging words. 

In math, we did our addition and subtraction quiz, which ended up being much more of an 'addition and subtraction exam', as it took most of our afternoon. It went quite well though. I'm about halfway through marking them. Students will have an opportunity later this week, or next week, to do a 'rewrite' if they want to improve their score. The rewrite quizzes will feature all the same general content, but with different numbers.  

We also had Music, Gym, and of course work period. We ended our day by reading A Rover's Story.  

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Nov. 26)

 Spelling List A (November 26 – December 1)

each	real	nearby	flea	eating
peas	cheat	dreams	beast	easy

 

Spelling List B (November 26 – December 1)

clearly	beaten	unleash	earth	leave
ready	learn	bread	wheat	yearly

 

Spelling List C (November 26 – December 1)

squeak	theatre	ideally	realize	creature
seasonal	increase	league	fearful	cease

The theme this week is the -ea blend, which often sounds like a 'long e', but can sound like a lot of different things too. Words like 'ready' and 'learn' are important to remember as they come up frequently in reading and writing tasks.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who continues to follow the blog, and practice spelling at home. It makes such a big difference. I especially noticed it on this week's quiz. Students were taking so much pride in their accomplishments. 

Good luck!

Thursday, November 23

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. The class had one of the highest-scoring spelling quizzes of the year, in spite of it being just a four day week. We had an excellent discussion about empathy, and homelessness. The students made thoughtful, compassionate, anonymous cards to be given to people who are going through tough times during the holidays. They put so much thought into the messages they included. I wish I could put pictures of every single one on here. 

In math, we went over the word problems from yesterday. The students had one of their first experiences with 'marking', which I think will help them prepare for our math quiz next week by giving them a better idea of what teachers look for.

In the afternoon, we organized the classroom, did Daily LA, and read A Rover's Tale. We had an interesting discussion about whether or not human emotions would be a positive or negative thing on a mission to Mars.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at conferences! Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice weekend.

Zac

Wednesday, November 22

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. The students are using their morning work period time a bit better, but I think they need more practice with being 'problem solvers'. Many students will get stuck on one problem, for example, and just sit there feeling frustrated, rather than skipping it, or taking out a different work choice that they still need to complete. But all things considered, I'd say we're getting back on the right track.

In math, the students put their addition and subtraction skills to the ultimate test - word problems. There will be a few word problems on the quiz next week. The Grade 4s did an awesome ob with their decimal math word problems, and the Grade 3s showed a strong understanding of big numbers.

We learned about the word and concept of 'Empathy' today. The students wrote responses to their choice of three empathy-related prompts. We're going to be making anonymous cards tomorrow to be shared with some community members who are going through tough times. I hope our empathy work helps the students put some extra thought into this task!

In the afternoon, we talked more about the Montessori concept of Peace Education. The students did a 'Photography' challenge, where they staged and took photos that they felt captured the idea of peace in the Montessori classroom. These will be up on display tomorrow for conferences!

Please book your conference if you have not already done so. And remember that tomorrow is also our spelling quiz. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 21

Hi parents,

Sorry about the lack of a blog post yesterday - I had some personal "Canada Post drama" to deal with after school, which the students were incredibly empathetic about, haha. 

I will try my best to fill you in the the past couple of days.

We're working hard on missing number math problems. They're coming along. It's a been such a struggle, and I don't think the students realized how much they've learned from the struggle. So today, I gave the class a 'missing number' worksheet we attempted two weeks ago. Last time, it took almost an hour. This time, they finished it in just about 15 minutes, with significantly improved accuracy, and they seemed to feel pretty good about that.

The Math Quiz is on November 28. I'm just about finished writing it up, and tomorrow I'll give you the details.

We did more work around 'compound sentences'. The students brainstormed simple sentences about pizza, and then wrote paragraphs by combining simple sentences to form longer compound sentences. We talked about how it's generally a good idea to connect sentences that are somewhat related. For example, you probably wouldn't want to write a sentence like: 

"A pizza can have many different toppings, and the pizza oven gets very hot."

We learned about the -ai blend today. We talked about how learning blends, especially vowel blends, is helpful when reading, because attempting to sound out vowel blends one letter at a time will certainly lead you astray.

In the afternoon, our focus was organization and mindfulness. The students cleaned out their cubbies, tidied the classroom, and did Daily LA. We also read more of A Rover's Story.

Please remember to book your conference if you haven't already done so!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of November 19)

 Spelling List A (November 19 – 23)

wait	tail	main	paid	fail
said	air	snail	rainy	brain

 

Spelling List B (November 19 – 23)

chain	again	faint	daisy	repair
hairy	detail	afraid	await	braids

 

Spelling List C (November 19 – 23)

curtain	rainbow	certain	explain	villain
sustain	painful	frail	praise	paisley

The theme this week is the 'long a' -ai sound. Notice how many words on list C don't really have that long a sound, and yet, they still contain -ai..... 

Friday, November 17

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, we had a bonus Music class, and then we worked on topic sentences. 

Our paragraph writing work is coming along slowly. It's been a challenge for sure. We started to work on compound sentences today, which was also a struggle. So I'm going to assign some homework to hopefully start students off on the right foot for next week!

Blog Homework - Creating a Compound Sentence (+2 Table Points)

Convert the three simple sentences into a single 'compound sentence', that includes all the same information.

1. Calgary is a city.

2. Calgary is in Alberta.

3. Calgary has a population of 1.3 million.

In math, we worked more on Fact families. There was definite improvement in this area from yesterday! This time, I gave the students equations, and asked them to write the corresponding number facts. For example:

340 + 626 = 966

Then the students would write:

626 + 340 = 966

 966 - 340 = 626

966 - 626 = 340

We played kickball outside. It was an awesome tie game!

We ended our day by reading A Rover's Story.

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, November 16

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. The morning was tough though. The 'missing number' addition and subtraction problems were such a challenge. Spirits were on the brink of being crushed - so we took a few steps back and reviewed the idea of 'fact families'.

We did a few examples of fact families as a class. They look like this:

7 + 13 = 20

13 + 7 = 20

20 - 13 = 7

20 - 7 = 13

I'm hoping that by reviewing basic fact families, students will be able to build a stronger understanding of how addition and subtraction are related, and apply the same understanding to successfully rewrite and solve more complicated problems. On the math quiz, there will be problems like:

1,402 + ___ = 2,105

Same idea, but with bigger numbers. I think we can get there with practice. But because we may need some extra time, the math quiz will be postponed until Tuesday, November 28.

In the afternoon, we started reading A Rover's Story. We learned about Mars, and we learned about Mars Rovers. These videos are interesting!

We also had Daily LA, and lots of work period time.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, November 15

 Hi parents,

I hope everyone enjoyed their November Break. We had a good day back at school today. In the morning, the students revisited the notes they took last week about tanks, and used these notes to write paragraphs with topic sentences, concluding sentences, and plenty of factual information.

In math, we worked on "missing number" addition and subtraction. This has been a sizeable challenge for the class. Its been tough for them to know how and when to 'rewrite' a problem to make it easier to solve - for example, thinking of the problem "36 + __ = 92" as if it were "92 - 36 = ___".

Math Quiz - Addition and Subtraction - Nov. 22

We will be having another math quiz on November 22, focusing on Addition and Subtraction. It will be on content we've covered in class, and I'll post more detailed information soon about what kinds of questions to expect.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA and Music. We talked about the Montessori value of "Peace Education", and how to have a successful Peace Talk to solve a conflict.

We ended our day by previewing the cover of our upcoming novel study, on "A Rover's Story". The students sketched the cover, paying close attention to subtle details, and wrote three questions they had about the story.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Holiday Flower Fundraiser

 

Wednesday, November 8

 Hi parents,

We had a much better day today. From my experience that's pretty much always how it goes. 

In the morning, Mr. Wade (our student teacher) read the class a book called "Greenie the Wheat King". It's a beautifully illustrated simple story that celebrates grain elevators and Alberta's landscape. The students wrote in their journals about whether they felt grain elevators should be preserved, or torn down, now that they're not really useful anymore.

Rooms 7 and 8 put on a perfect Remembrance Day assembly, and the students listened and participated with exceptional respect and compassion. Thank you to everyone who donated to our school's Essential Items drive - look how it turned out!

In math, we revisited the problem from yesterday, about the bag of marbles. The students were much more confident this time around, now that they had a few strategies to try. We talked again about how important perseverance is when solving math problems, and how often our first attempt will be unsuccessful, and that's okay. 

To further make this point, I gave the class some "math mash-up" problems. These problems are an awesome way to force students to think outside the box, and they're usually pretty fun too.

In the afternoon, we did some research on tanks. Learning about different vehicles, and wheels in particular, is part of our science curriculum, so our focus was around the question of why tanks have 'tracks' instead of just regular wheels. Students did an awesome just with this one - we're going to write some paragraphs with these notes next week!

We ended our day with the spelling quiz. I didn't have a chance to mark them yet unfortunately.

I don't think we'll do spelling words for next week, it's just too short.

Enjoy the November Break - until next Wednesday!

Zac

Tuesday, November 7

 Hi parents,

Today was a bit of a rough day for Room 6. In the morning, we revisited the idea of topic sentences, and 'hooks' in paragraph writing. For some reason this concept is really stumping the class. They seem to be stuck in a rut where they just hooked on whatever our last example was, and then just alter it very slightly, but not in a way that necessarily makes sense with their topic. So for example, if the example we brainstormed together was "Mmmmmm, do you smell cookies baking in the oven?" they might write, "Mmmm, school is fun." 

We've talked about how asking questions, using sound effect words,  and descriptive language is a good way to make your topic sentence engaging, but they seem to be struggling with applying those concepts to their own writing in a way that is natural and not forced. I think all we can do at this point is keep practicing and studying examples of good writing. I'm sure in time it will come, but the kids won't be too happy about having to keep working away at the same thing.

We encountered even more struggles in math today, with the classic word problem: "There are 92 red and blue marbles in a bag. At least 70 are blue. What combinations of red and blue marbles could there be?"

Only about 3 students were able to solve this problem. I was disappointed because it's not really that complicated of a problem, and I know the class is more than capable of doing the necessary adding or subtracting to solve it, but for some reason most of them just kind of gave up and sat there rather than trying different approaches. We eventually went over how to solve it, and tried an alternate version at the end of the day, which went a little bit better, but I don't want the class to only feel like they can do 'familiar' math. I want them to be creative problem solvers!

We had a talk about trying different things when your initial strategy doesn't work. Maybe tomorrow we'll teach strategies more explicitly. I hope the class takes it to heart. 

Tomorrow is also our review spelling quiz! Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, November 6

 Hi parents,

Today we started to talk about Remembrance Day. We had an awesome class discussion about peace, and war, and the students asked thoughtful questions about why war happens, and what it would take to achieve world peace. We studied the song "Ridin' With Private Malone" and had a great discussion about that too.

For this week's journal writing, we tried to incorporate elements of paragraph writing. Students tried to begin their weekend journal writing with an engaging topic sentence, and end with a conclusion. Unfortunately this was easier said than done. I think because they're so used to starting with "On the weekend..." they had a hard time breaking away from that, so most "hooks" ended up just being "On the cold weekend..." or "On my weekend..." or "On Sunday..."

In math, we looked at subtraction problems with missing numbers. For some reason these problems always confuse students. We used the golden beads to show how you can solve a problem like "100 - ___ = 45" simply by rewriting it as "100 - 45 = ___". We talked about how both 45 and 55 are 'parts' of 100, so you can always find one by subtracting the other.

We did Daily LA and practiced this week's review spelling words.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Review (Week of Nov. 5)

 Spelling List A (Nov. 5 - 8)

cute	many	short	marking	church
tire	doing	more	scarf	chew
was	are	like	went	with

 

Spelling List B (Nov. 5 - 8)

value	saving	force	alarming	watching
whole	nothing	family	arctic	each
they	said	from	want	were

I thought since we have a three day week next week, there wouldn't be much point in trying to learn any brand new spelling concepts. So we'll have a review quiz. I figured since we've seen all these words before, the students could handle a few more. And hopefully the sight words are just about second-nature to the kids by now, and they won't feel like they need to practice those ones too much.

After this week, we'll go back to 10 words, and three List options. :) 

Good luck!

Friday, November 3

 Hi parents,

We wrapped up our week on a high note. We had a spelling quiz, and then did a collaborative paragraph writing activity. We talked about the idea of 'flow' in writing. I was thinking a lot about my earlier attempts at teaching paragraph wring this week, and I came to the conclusion that it was just too structured. So we're taking a more flexible approach. 

We wrote this one together as a class. Then, they students read it aloud, over and over, to see if it 'flowed'. We talked about how reading aloud multiple time is important, because often the first time students proof read something, they read it in a choppy, robotic way, and it's hard to tell how it's really supposed to sound.

We went outside and played kickball in gym. Then, we used to Golden Beads to learn about subtraction problems with regrouping and multiple place values of zero. For example:

3002 - 1255 = ____.

We used the golden beads to show how we have to split one thousand cube into 9 hundreds, 9 tens, and 10 ones, before we can proceed with the subtracting.

We learned about some different shading and sketching techniques, and how using different pressure can result in darker or lighter lines. The students experimented with these techniques and drew some spheres.

Next week is only 3 days for the students - so we'll be doing a spelling review. Stay tuned for those words. :)

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, November 2

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. In the morning, we reviewed the concepts of 'topics sentences' and 'concluding sentences' in paragraphs. I gave the students pre-written 'detail sentences', and it was their job to read through them determine the 'main idea', and write an appropriate topic and concluding sentence. This was a really challenging task for the class. It's tough because I feel like they often do their best writing with less direction, and when presented with a very structured task like this one, they end up writing kind of robotically...

In math, we worked on mixed addition and subtraction equations, with and without regrouping. This exercise was a perfect way to test whether students really understood the algorithms, and when to use them, and I'm happy to report that the answer is a resounding 'mostly yes.' They might even be ready for a math quiz next week!

On that note - our spelling quiz is tomorrow. 

In the month of October, we focused on the Montessori tenet of community and belonging at LBS. Here are some simple ways to encourage belonging and promote community beyond the school walls.

Stay tuned to learn more about the Montessori tenet we're focusing on this month!

Have a nice night,

Zac