Tuesday, June 17

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, we talked more about Free Verse poetry, and the students took another shot at writing an original free verse.

In math, we talked about polygons, and angles. We talked about how the four angles in quadrilaterals will always add up to 360 degrees, and how angles can be classified as right, acute, reflective, and obtuse, within a given polygon. The students traced polygons and labelled the angles in each one.

In Gym, we started learning the Cadillac ranch dance, just to make sure everyone is Stampede-ready.

We learned 3 new letters in cursive, and the students wrote 30 words, using only the letters we've learned so far (l, u, I, e, t, r, c, a, g, d, f, h, y).

Room 3 Talent Show - June 23

Please let me know if your child is interested in participating! It will help me organize the day.

Have a nice night,

Zac 

Spelling Words (Week of June 15)

 Spelling List A (June 15 – 20)

can’t	don’t	won’t	what’s	it’s
Asher’s	I’m	we’re	she’ll	you’re

 

Spelling List B (June 15 – 20)

didn’t	they’d	Charlie’s	isn’t	let’s
she’d	Maya’s	that’s	I’ll	you’ll

 

Spelling List C (June 15 – 20)

shouldn’t	I’d	wouldn’t	haven’t	they’re
what’d	Alexis’	they’ve	Kavyn’s	weren’t

The most common issue kids have with these words is getting the apostrophe in the right spot. This is also a great opportunity to review those sight words (they, would, what, etc.)

Good luck!

Monday, June 16

 Hi parents,

Thanks everyone for your patience over the past few weeks, things were really busy but are calming down now. Report Cards are mostly done but as I reminded the class today, it's still not too late to change marks..... ideally for the better!

Today in writing, we learned about Free Verse poetry. It's deceptively tricky, despite having no 'rules', because good free verse poetry still feels poetic. It still creates an emotional or sensory reaction in readers. It's all about the word choice. And sometimes being able to choose from every possible word, with no regard for rhyme or syllable count, is actually harder.

In math, we revisited angles. We learned about supplementary and complementary angles. We're kind of filling in whatever gaps may have arisen over the course of the year at this point. Don't worry, we'll revisit polygons too.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then learned about Food Chains.

We also went over this week's spelling words (sorry for not posting sooner) and talked about the many purposes of an apostrophe.

Room 3 Talent Show - June 23

The classroom talent show has become something of an annual tradition, and this year, it's on the 23rd. Participation is optional. All talents are welcome. Students can choose to perform live in front of the class, or to submit a video. The easiest way to share videos is with 'unlisted' Youtube links. Please let me know if your child would like to participate so I can plan the schedule beforehand. At school, we have access to a piano and sports equipment, so no need to send those.

Have a nice night!

Zac

T-Shirt Tuesdays!

 

In my plan to update the blog only on Fridays, I completely dropped the ball on T-Shirt Tuesday today... So from now on, the plan is to wear your school shirt on Tuesdays, for the rest of the school year!

Spelling Words (Week of June 8)

 Spelling List A (June 6 – 13)

they	were	make	walked	take
grey	obey	money	really	keyhole

 

Spelling List B (June 6 – 13)

honey	alley	barley	Turkey	kidney
monkey	jockey	survey	volleyball	paisley

 

Spelling List C (June 6 – 13)

pulley	nosey	keyboard	journey	trolley
greyhound	honeybee	disobeyed	chimney	jersey

The theme this week is '-ey', which mainly makes the sounds 'ee' and 'ay' (we're not getting into the whole 'eye' sound this week). These words are pretty hard. I do not recommend List C unless you're really looking for a substantial challenge.

List A has sight words that are still being widely misspelled - I don't know how many times we've had 'they' on a spelling list at this point, probably at least 5, but I'm still seeing it spelled 'thay' pretty regularly... 'were' was also the number one most misspelled word today on our quizzes!

Good luck!

Friday, June 6

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good week! I'll share some highlights with today's extra detailed Blog post.

Fish Creek Library

Our walking field trip to Fish Creek Library was a blast. The weather was perfect, the library program was interesting, and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the fire truck. We learned about the Ultimate Reading Challenge, which students can enter online, as well as the other cool programs and books the library has to offer.

Ozobots

We used the ozobots to learn about coding. The students created pathways for the bots to drive along, and included special blocks of colour coding that would make the robots do specific things. We tried to tell stories with the ozobots but they were a bit glitchy. It was still really fun and a good real-life lesson about how finicky technology can be.

Math - Fractions and Telling Time

We have been re-learning how to tell time using an analog clock, and introducing some 'fraction vocabulary' to the mix ('half past four', quarter to nine, etc.') Unfortunately it seems like the clock reading skills we developed earlier in the year have largely been forgotten, so it's been a bit like starting from square one.

Limerick Poetry

The students have been working on their limericks all week. The general struggle has been creating a poem them meets the criteria for rhyme and rhythm and also makes sense. I'm seeing a lot of limericks that go kind of like this:

"There once was a man named Bob

Who wanted to a get a job

So he went to a house

And he saw a mouse

And he met a man named Rob"

Lots of strong starts, but then the 'plot' kind of goes awry as the students try to fit their rhyming words in.

Reflecting on Art

One other activity we did this week was a reflection on a famous work of art. This one went pretty well! The students gave the artwork a lot of thought, and wrote detailed responses around their observations.

Overdue Library Book Slips

I sent home the overdue library book slips - please try to help your child locate their book and return it as soon as you can!

Upcoming Dates:

June 20 - Indigenous Peoples' Day

June 24 - Sports Day

TBD - French Party, Room 3 Talent Show

Apologies again for the lack of blog communication this week. This is a pretty busy time of year with report cards and end-of-year wrap up stuff. Next week will probably be the same, but then after that things will settle down and I'll get back on the daily updates. Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice weekend!

Zac

Tuesday, June 3

Hi parents,

Sorry for the lack of Blog yesterday - we're really in the busy stretch of the year with report cards and stuff, so I might not be able to update the Blog as consistently over the next couple of weeks. I'll still provide an update every Friday at the bare minimum as well as weekly spelling words.

This morning we learned about Limericks. The students actually did an awesome job with these, despite them being a fairly tricky type of poem. We'll probably write some more tomorrow!

In math, we learned about rotations, translations, and reflections - geometry terms that refer to various ways that you can reposition a polygon. This unit is nice because it provides a natural opportunity to review irregular and regular polygons (which many students could use) as well as to review angles.

In the afternoon, we used Scratch to make very simple video games. The students are loving these lessons and doing an awesome job with experimenting to add features to their games that I'd never even considered.

If your child is taking a real interest in game design / coding and you're looking to help them extend their learning, there are a few programs available through Steam that we can't use at school that are fantastic - much better than Scratch in my opinion. A couple to look for are GameMaker and RPGMaker. RPGMaker will likely go on sale this summer for something crazy like 90% off. The basic version of GameMaker is free.

In Gym, we went outside and played some 2v2 and 3v3 soccer games. The students have never showed such great sportsmanship and effort! I was really proud of them.

We ended our day with Music.

FISH CREEK LIBRARY WALKING FIELD TRIP - TOMORROW!

We are walking over to the Fish Creek Library tomorrow, where we will participate in a program, and then the students will have a chance to check out books. This is a fairly big walk (2km) so make sure your child has sunscreen, walking shoes, etc. Please send them with their Library Cards! Students who filled out the application form will be given library cards there.

Have a nice day,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of June 1)

 Spelling List A (June 1 – 6)

would	could	were	they	went
future	nature	mature	sure	picture

 

Spelling List B (June 1 – 6)

picture	lecture	future	nature	mixture
feature	culture	venture	capture	texture

 

Spelling List C (June 1 – 6)

vultures	pasture	gesture	creature	moisture
fracture	immature	sculpture	structure	adventure

The theme this week is the -ture pattern. List C is quite difficult this week, and features a lot of words that realistically, kids won't need to spell very often - so please just treat it as a challenge! I'd rather everyone be able to spell everything on List A correctly than get half the words on List C right.

Good luck!