Tuesday, November 9

 Hi parents,

Today was a great day for our class and it really made me appreciate how cool it is to work in a Montessori classroom. The students worked hard on their assigned work throughout the day, but what really impressed me was how they chose to spend their free time. Students have been writing amazing, detailed stories, challenging themselves to learn / practice advanced math, creating colourful Remembrance Day artwork, making thank you cards for staff at the school, and more! A small group of students even organized a video of each student in our classroom reading from In Flanders Fields. 

In the morning, students wrote rough copies of letters to veterans. They gave thanks, asked questions, and expressed wonderings about life during and after WWI and WWII. 

We continued to work on multiplication today, and I introduced the students to the Noodles and Bowls Strategy, as well as the Skip-Counting strategy. Both of these strategies are fantastic when working with small numbers, and it's awesome to see how fast the students are picking up this new concept. It's way easier than 2-digit subtraction.

We practiced Spelling, had Music class, worked in literacy groups, and cleaned up.

Our Cohort is super close to having the highest number of food donations in the whole school! If you have any non-perishable food items you would like to give to the Veterans Food Drive, please send them tomorrow! Monetary donations for poppies are also welcomed. :)

Have a nice night!

Zac

Veteran's Food Drive Reminder

 Hello Families! 

 

So far, our food drive to support the Veterans Food Bank is off to a great start!  As of today we have collected 112 food items!  Our goal is to collect 500 items and we hope that you will continue to help us not only reach that goal, but make a positive difference in the lives of veterans.  Keep up the generosity LBS Community! 

 

Did you know that the food items that food banks are in need of are: 

 

• Canned Beans, Vegetables, and Meats (Fish or Chicken) 
• Cooking Oil 
• Crackers 
• Nuts 
• Spices 
• Granola Bars 
• Peanut Butter 
• Cereal 
• Soup, Chili and Stew 

Thank you! 

The Students in Action Club 

Monday, November 8

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today, a pretty typical Monday all around.

In the morning, students wrote about their weekends in their journals, we learned and practiced this week's spelling words, and went to the Library to exchange books.

We watched another great Remembrance Day commercial (see below). This one is really cool because it forces audiences to make inferences and predictions, rather than explicitly telling them what happened.

I have really enjoyed our commercial discussions! It's funny because usually ads are the bane of my existence, but in November they're kind of awesome.

In the afternoon we did Literacy activities, including Daily 5, Sentence Writing Practice, and Literacy Games.

We ended our day with an introduction to multiplication!! I feel like we've gotten our fill of addition and subtraction and its time to kick things up a notch. We will still continue to practice addition and subtraction problems as part of our daily Morning Math, but the focus of math lessons in the near future will be multiplication.

We'll be starting with 2's, 5's, and 10's, because students are already familiar with skip-counting by those numbers, and they can apply that skill when multiplying. The Number Blocks episode below is my favourite way to introduce it.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Poppy Fund Donations

Students will be given a poppy on November 10th while honoring Rememberance Day at school.  If you would like to send in a monotary donation to support the Poppy Fund that day, it would be greatly appreciated.  You can also show your support by donating online by following the link below: https://legion.ca/donations

Spelling Words! (Week of Nov. 7)

Spelling List A

Bird	Firm	Girl	Dirt
Our	After	Very	Just

 

Spelling List B

Third	Stir	Shirt	Birth
Smirk	First	Birch	Thirty

 

Spelling List C

Virtue	Mirage	Circle	Circus
Chirp	Circuit	Thirsty	Giraffe

On List A, you'll notice some words that don't fit the the '-ir' theme. I felt it was important to include some 'no-excuse' words that students use frequently in their writing, rather than delving into obscure '-ir' words that nobody knows the meaning of.

Good luck!

Friday, November 5

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today! The "Field Trip" was actually really fun, and a nice change of scenery. The weather could not have been better. :)

The students spent their time sketching parts of nature, by 'zooming in' and capturing every detail they noticed. We learned about sketching techniques from this video.

The spelling quiz this morning was more challenging than usual, which I kind of expected because the 'aw' blend is a tricky one, but I was happy to see kids challenging themselves to do all three lists.

We had Quiet Reading time, and then did Film Studies. We watched an emotional commercial about Remembrance Day (see below) and addressed three questions:

1. What was it about?

2. Why could nobody see the soldier?

3. How did the soldier feel at the end? Why?

The students are showing a really solid understanding of 'literal' and 'figurative' meaning, and we had an amazing discussion. There were tons of different ideas circulating, and a lot of compelling evidence to back them up.

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

Zac

Thursday, November 4

 Hi parents,

It was a crazy day in Room 4, I'm sure the students are feeling as exhausted as I am.

There were still some shining moments though - in the morning, we read "In Flanders Fields" together as a class, and learned a bit about the author, John McCrae. The students used tissue paper and construction paper to decorate borders for the poem, which they glued into their sketchbooks. We listened to some Remembrance Day favourites, such as 'Highway of Heroes' and 'A Pittance of Time'.

The students got choose between 3 moustache themed writing prompts:

-Write about someone you know who has a moustache

-Write about what you would do if you had a moustache

-Write about a time you wore a disguise

We went to the library to use magnifying glasses to look at some artifacts. It was got pretty loud and unruly and we had to come back and do mindfulness. The afternoon was pretty similar, we attempted to clean the classroom but it was more of a party than a cleanup. We had some nice Daily 5 time, and then when it was time for gym we had a surprise fire drill. After recess it was Music.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz, good luck!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Veteran's Food Drive

 Hello Families! 

So far, our food drive to support the Veterans Food Bank is off to a great start!  As of today we have collected 112 food items!  Our goal is to collect 500 items and we hope that you will continue to help us not only reach that goal, but make a positive difference in the lives of veterans.  Keep up the generosity LBS Community! 

 

Did you know that the food items that food banks are in need of are: 

 

• Canned Beans, Vegetables, and Meats (Fish or Chicken) 
• Cooking Oil 
• Crackers 
• Nuts 
• Spices 
• Granola Bars 
• Peanut Butter 
• Cereal 
• Soup, Chili and Stew 

Thank you! 

The Students in Action Club 

Wednesday, November 3

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today although the class was sillier than usual.

The morning was actually exceptionally good. We started by brainstorming examples of 'symbols' in our world - for example, a Christmas Tree, a Jackolantern, the Canada Flag, an Easter Egg, a Snowman.... all of these things represent larger ideas and concepts. We rewatched the Remembrance Day video from yesterday, this time focusing on the many 'symbols' within it. The students talked about what they felt each aspect of the video represented.

The class understood that the video told a story of peace, war, and soldiers. The animals huddling underneath the soldier's helmet represented the ways that soldiers fight to protect loved ones back home. There were many other symbols too - I encourage everyone to watch the video one more time with your child, and see what they can tell you about it!

The students wrote about symbolism in their journals.

In the afternoon, we did some Quiet Reading / Read w/ Teacher time, and then worked in Literacy Groups. The afternoon was when most of the silliness transpired. 

We ended our day by looking at another animal's ear - can you guess which one?

Tomorrow is Moustache Day! And I am still not entirely sure what that entails, but I've told students they are welcome to use facepaint to draw moustaches, or make them out of paper, if for whatever reason they are unable to grow a real one.

We'll be talking about 'Movember' and how it's goal is similar to Terry Fox's, and other ways that we can take simple steps to bring about positive change in the world.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 2

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today!

In the morning, we started off with Morning Math as usual. I realize I haven't posted an example of Morning Math in a while, so here you go:

We're starting to move from regular problems into word problems, which is awesome because it gives the kids an opportunity to work on reading comprehension as well, and to see how their math skills can potentially help them in real-life situations.

We talked about Remembrance Day, and watched this video. It's one I like to show every year because it's beautifully animated and quite emotional, despite being simple. I like that it's appropriate for kids too. And I also like that it is loaded with symbolism, which we'll talk about soon!

We looked at a diagram of a bat's ear, and found it was remarkably similar to a human ear! In fact, the inner ear components are almost identical. We reviewed the functions of the Cochlea, Ossicles, Pinna, Ear Drum, and Ear Canal. The students labelled diagrams of bat ears.

The class brainstormed ideas for their very own Wayside School Spin-off stories. They based their stories on the stories from Wayside School, but changed details to make it their own. The students completed graphic organizers and wrote jot notes about the beginning, middle, and ends of their stories. Story writing is way harder than you'd think - the most common problem is students having too many ideas and trying to incorporate them all. That's why making a plan beforehand tends to come in handy.

I sent home Scholastic Book Orders, once again (I feel like they're putting them out every other week this year..!), and if you're interested in ordering anything, please remember to include our Class Code! Scholastic gives us a pretty sizeable portion of each purchase back into our 'bonus bank' which we can spend on some cool things for the classroom.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, November 1

 Hi parents,

We had a surprisingly calm, peaceful, and productive day today, considering it was a 'Halloween Hangover' Monday. 

In the morning, we watched this episode of Molly of Denali. The students seemed to really enjoy the wildlife connections and mapmaking.

We learned that 'masih' choo' means 'thank you' in Gwitch'in. I'm hoping we can learn some simple Blackfoot words and phrases in the near future too!

The students had a lot to write about in their journals today - mainly Trick or Treating, but some chose to write about other things too. Before writing today, we talked about the ways different sentences can have different effects on the reader. For example, beginning a journal entry with a sound effect (crash, boom, boo, etc.) can make people feel excited, and want to read more about what may have caused that sound. Similarly, using a 'cliffhanger' sentence, such "That's when the trouble started", can give readers a hint as to what comes next, and make them feel more curious. I challenged the students to try to include some  interesting sentences in their own writing today, and they rose to the occasion.

We went to the library and exchanged books. Then, we talked about the 'aw' blend, and used this picture as a visual cue. 

If you saw this guy, what would you say? 

Probably 'aw', and kittens have paws, so hopefully that helps them remember. I know it's a bit of a stretch.

In the afternoon, we spent some time on Quiet Reading, working in literacy groups, and playing class vs. teacher dodgeball in gym. We ended the day with a math game that tested the students on their basic fact knowledge.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Veterans Food Drive

 Veterans Food Drive

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

The Grade 6 Students in Action Club have organized and will be running a food drive starting on November 1st and ending on November 16th. The collected food will be going to the Veterans Food Bank, as Remembrance Day is coming up and we would like to show our appreciation for our Veterans.  This also connects to our learning in preparing for the upcoming Remembrance Day assembly that Room 7 and Room 8 will be hosting. 

Please bring non-perishable food items such as: soup, pasta, baby food, cereal, peanut butter, protein or granola bars, trail mix and canned goods like fish or vegetables. Any other non-perishable items that you think of are welcomed to be donated. Don’t forget to try and bring some gluten free or nut free items in case of anyone with allergies.

Written by: Lily and Will