Spelling List A (Oct. 1 – 3)
Spelling List B (Oct. 1 – 3)
Spelling List C (Oct. 1 – 3)
Hi parents,
Today was Orange Shirt Day. We went outside for a whole school sit spot, we had our spelling quiz, and the students worked more on their paragraph writing. The orange shirt day assembly featured poetry, drumming, singing, and indigenous language lessons, and was amazing to be part of.
We read the book 'Peter's Moccasins', and the story 'Terrence' from Wayside school.
Stay tuned for next week's spelling words (they probably won't be up till Sunday or Monday!) and enjoy your long weekend!
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a fantastic Terry Fox Run today. Thank you so much for your incredibly generous donations - our class raised $164!! That is by far the most any class I've ever taught has raised, and it was so moving to hear how kids were donating their own money to the cause. We also ran a total of 142 laps. :)
In the morning, we did some peer editing and revision. Students went into partners and read their paragraph writing aloud to each other, and gave feedback. Then, we wrote 'semi-good' copies. I thought it would be helpful to write everything into one paragraph, on one page, before transferring it into the actual good copy template.
In math, we learned the standard algorithm for addition. The students seem to have gotten the hang of the stamp game (for addition), and I don't want to bore them, so I thought we could take this on a little quicker than usual.
Tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day and it is also our Spelling Quiz!
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a great day today. In the morning, we had Music, and then we did a cool Orange Shirt Day-inspired art project that involved creating folded paper people chains, and then giving them more personality to really capture the message "every child matters".
In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then used the Stamp Game for more addition. The kids are getting faster and more accurate with their regrouping. Soon we'll be able to start moving away from the Stamp Game, and towards the standard written algorithm. I am a big fan of the algorithm, but I think it's so much more meaningful if kids first use the materials to understanding why it works.
At the end of the day, we practiced spelling, and some students were able to write conclusions for their Wayside School-inspired paragraphs. Not everybody has reached that step yet though!
The Terry Fox Run is tomorrow at 1:00! And, Friday is Orange Shirt Day.
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
We had another good day today. In the morning, the students continued working on their Wayside School-inspired paragraphs. We added some interesting sentences that helped the kids describe themselves in unique ways, for example, by comparing themselves to an animal, predicting what they'd be like in their old age, and sharing fun facts that nobody knew about them.
In math, we continued working with the Stamp Game. We did a bunch of 3-digit by 3-digit addition problems - with regrouping! Regrouping is the hardest concept we cover in math until long division. Thankfully the Stamp Game makes it easy to visualize.
We're taking on two big social studies topics this week - Terry Fox, and Orange Shirt Day.
We watched this video on Terry Fox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BzyHYZgMz8
We're taking on the 'Toonies for Terry' challenge - if you can, please send a toonie for our Terry Fox Run on Thursday!
And we also watched this video to start the conversation on Orange Shirt Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsV79rGW15o&t=1s
We also practiced spelling and did Daily LA.
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a pretty good day today! In the morning we started a new writing task. It's our first 'big' writing job of the year, and it's inspired by Wayside School. The students are going to be writing paragraphs about themselves in the same quirky style that Wayside School is written in. Then we'll be creating a cool interactive wall display, where the stories are all stacked to form a multi-storey building, and you can open up the different storeys to read the story on each storey, and learn about the kids in our class, it's going to be awesome. Hard to explain but I will post pictures as it starts to take shape.
We introduced the new spelling words, and I sent home last week's quizzes.
We had Music and Gym, and in the afternoon we went outside with Ms. Rooke to put up the traffic safety banners our class created last year. You can see them on the fences in front of the school and across the field!
We had Daily LA, and then ended the day with a math lesson using the Stamp Game once again. Students learned how to add 3-digit numbers, with no regrouping.
A couple important dates to know about:
Terry Fox Run - Thursday, Sep. 25 (1:00 - 1:30pm)
Orange Shirt Day - Friday, Sep. 26
Have a nice night,
Zac
Spelling List A (Sep. 19 – 26)
Spelling List B (Sep. 19 – 26)
Spelling List C (Sep. 19 – 26)
Hi parents,
We had a pretty good day today. The students spent a lot of time finishing up their art from yesterday, and when that was done, they moved on to Spelling Sentences.
In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then revisited yesterday's Golden Bead Estimation lesson. This time, we gathered up all of the tables' numbers, and after estimating the total, used regrouping to figure out the actual total. This was an awesome way to introduce the students to 'regrouping', which is one of the toughest concepts to grasp in math (especially when it comes to subtraction), so I'm glad we're getting an early start on it.
Tonight is the Welcome Back Pancake Party, as well as the open house - and tomorrow is the spelling quiz. :)
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
We had a great day today! In the morning, we worked with the Golden Beads on representing numbers in the thousands. We also did some estimation using the Golden Beads (more to come tomorrow).
We went to Music, and spent most of the rest of the morning working on a cool art project that challenges students to use rulers, shading, sketching techniques, and varying pencil pressures to draw a realistic tree on a colourful patterned background. Those should be done and up on the wall just in time for the family BBQ / open house tomorrow.
Have a nice night,
Zac
Hi parents,
Sorry about the lack of Blog post yesterday, I was writing a sub plan for today and it totally slipped my mind...
Today and yesterday, the students worked on a couple connected writing tasks, which I'd hoped would help us fix some of the behaviour issues we had last week. On Monday, the students wrote about the responsibilities of a teacher, and what kinds of a qualities a good teacher should have. They also wrote about the best parts and most difficult parts about being a teacher. Then, today, we did the same thing, but for students. I'm hoping that through this writing task, the students became more aware of the responsibilities that we all have at school.
In math, we did some place value practice worksheets. I think we're ready to start looking at some larger numbers, 10,000+!
Today, and yesterday, we did actual Daily LA time, where the students worked in groups on specific literacy tasks. The Daily LA stations are: Read to Self, Buddy Reading, Read with Teacher, Writing, Literacy Games, and Listen to Reading. I've split the students into groups based on their reading levels, with consideration to friendships as well. This allows groups to engage in shared reading tasks with minimal teacher support, since they're all working at roughly the same level, and it also gives me a chance to read with a different small group every day, which is such an awesome way to check in regularly and see student progress.
We practiced spelling (today and yesterday), and in general, the kids have been working hard and trying their best. Big improvement from last week!
Remember that tomorrow is our walking field trip (to the park across the street).
Have a nice night,
Zac
