Spelling Words (Week of September 24)

 Spelling List A (September 24 – 29)

Ring	King	Sing	Thing	Sting
Going	Doing	Being	Lying	Bring

 

Spelling List B (September 24 - 29)

Living	Gaming	Eating	Moving	Finger
Fading	Saving	Single	Evening	Nothing

 

Spelling List C (September 24 - 29)

During	Mingle	Lodging	Ceiling	Viewing
Winning	Grueling	Stunning	Ginger	Pending

The theme this week is "-ing" words.

For List C, I tried to throw in some cool vocabulary words that students might not be familiar with. Spelling practice is also a great way to expand children's vocabulary. It'd be awesome to see words like 'grueling' show up in some journal entires.

Good luck!

Thursday, September 21

 Hi parents,

Today was an interesting day for our class, and a good one. Our walking field trip plan had to change last-minute, because when we arrived at Lake Wapta Park, we found a big crew of tree-removal vehicles and workers. This ended up being pretty cool to watch actually. A big thank you to Ms. Cooper for explaining the sketching activity over the sound of chainsaws and woodchippers, and students talking excitedly about chainsaws and woodchippers.

The crew later brought in a big bin of tree cookies from the trees that were cut down, and the students had an opportunity to look at them up close. It was really cool!

We did some work on rounding to the nearest thousand when we got back. 

We also did the spelling quiz.

In the afternoon, we did the annual "September Numeracy Assessment", which is a government assessment that we started doing a couple years back to see how covid had affected students' math abilities. I think it went really well. I haven't checked over them yet, but in general, students seemed to have a more positive attitude, as well as more stamina, compared to previous years.

We ended our day with a big classroom cleanup. We're excited for the Open House and BBQ!

I hope to see you soon!

Zac

Wednesday, September 20

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today.

In the morning, the students drew and painted their good copies for our 'zoomed in' Montessori Material artwork. It turned out fantastic! I wish I could post the full display but a bunch of students decided to sign their full names in massive text, which is awesome, but sadly also a privacy issue for Blog stuff.

In math, we talked about rounding to the nearest thousand, and the students did a few practice problems, but this is a topic we'll revisit. They're really getting the hang of rounding when we focus on one place value at a time. The challenge will be when they're faced with a variety of different rounding tasks at once.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and the class went to Music. We talked about the Open House and Welcome Back BBQ, which are tomorrow after school. I hope to see you there!

Tomorrow is also exciting as we are going on a "walking field trip" to Lake Wapta Park. This park is right across from the school, but it still somehow feels kind of exotic. We are going from 9:45 - 11:00am. There was also a school messenger with more info.

Finally, tomorrow is our spelling quiz,  as it is the last school day of the week.

Have a nice night!

Zac

PS: If you're interested in ordering from the scholastic flyer, please place your order tonight! I am going to officially submit the orders tomorrow. Thank you!

Tuesday, September 19 (Terry Fox Run!)

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today!

In the morning, the students made Terry Fox Mini-Posters, that featured drawings of Terry, and motivational phrases. They turned out really well - I'm in the process of getting pictures of all of them.

We did a sketching activity, in which the students chose Montessori Materials, or even just components of the materials, and sketched them, on a macro, zoomed in level. So one single bead would take up almost an entire page.

I'm hoping this activity will be a fun way of helping the students familiarize themselves with the wide range of materials they can use to help with their work, or just to further their learning. There are so many cool ones.

In the afternoon, we had the Terry Fox Run and Assembly. Both were a blast. Our class ran a total of 110 laps.

We ended our day by watching "Hair Love", and amazing short film that is connected to the things we've learned about Terry Fox. Highly recommend, but you will probably cry. We also went to the Learning Commons and reviewed how book check-outs will work this year when they start back up.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, September 18

 Hi parents,

We had an awesome Monday today.

In the morning, we watched a video about Terry Fox, and then the students wrote in their journals about him. The options were:

"Terry Fox is a hero because..."

"Dear Terry, [write a letter]"

"My thoughts on Terry Fox"

Students were also allowed to come up with their own writing prompt that was related to Terry Fox, and some of them decided to write poems.

In math, we revisited rounding to the nearest hundred, and used 'rounding hopscotch' to help students practice. Hopscotch is underrated for counting. I can't believe it took me this long to realize. It'd be a great way to practice counting by 7's too, when we get there.

We also practiced the new spelling words, had Music and gym, and learned about some of the Montessori materials in our classroom.

Terry Fox Run - Tomorrow!

Lake Bonavista School is proud to be participating in the Terry Fox School Run. Please join us and continue the legacy of one of our greatest Canadian heroes. Donate at: https://schools.terryfox.ca/LakeBonavista Thank you for joining us in the fight against cancer! #terryfoxschoolrun @theterryfoxfoundation 

  

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Sept. 17)

 Spelling List A (September 17 – 22)

Bite	Lane	Pete	Lone	Cute
Tire	Make	More	Tube	Have

 

Spelling List B (September 17 - 22)

State	Close	Twice	Argue	These
Value	Whole	Strike	Cakes	Gene

 

Spelling List C (September 17 - 22)

Scene	Telephone	Assume	Empires	Phrase
Prices	Ireland	Sigh	Delicious	Actually

The theme this week is 'The Bossy E', also known as 'the silent e'. You will also find a few sight words (in italics).

I always use this video to review bossy e. They are probably sick of it by now.

Friday, September 15

Happy Dot Day!

This morning, the students continued to work on their Dot Writing tasks from yesterday. The students have really put a lot of work into these so I thought I'd show off a few:

We had our spelling quiz, which definitely was harder than last week's, but was still pretty good. Sight words are always trickier. For most weeks, I'll just throw a few of them in, and the rest of the words will focus on a specific spelling pattern.

 We did some Dot artwork, using Q-tips and paint. Students used the q-tips to make tons of colourful dots in whatever style they chose.

We went outside for a kickball game for PE, and it was nice to see more teamwork and strategy emerging from both teams - the Ghost Evees, and the Red Pandas.

We did a very brief place value check-in, and talked about rounding to the nearest hundred, and how this skill is similar to and different from rounding to the nearest ten, which the students have mostly mastered now.

We ended our day with Music. :)

Have a nice weekend!

Zac

Thursday, September 14

 Hi parents,

We had a really awesome day today. 

In the morning, we read 'The Dot', and the students did some writing in response to it. They had the choice between writing about the lesson in the story, a time they felt like the main character, writing a sequel, or answering the ever-philosophical question, "what is art?"

We kept practicing rounding with a speen-run type of activity, where students rounded tons of numbers, up to 5-digits, to the nearest 10, until it was practically second nature. It seemed to do the trick. In the coming days we'll work on rounding to the nearest hundred, then thousand, then ten-thousand, then hundred thousand, and then we'll call it a day.

In the afternoon, we did our first full Daily LA session, where all the students were engaged in different literacy tasks within their groups. It was fantastic. Much better than I expected - it usually takes a few weeks to get to where we were at today.

We ended our day by playing and then working on a math game called "Dungeon Dice". Basically, students roll dice, and use multiplication and division to battle monsters. There are items and treasures to find, and plenty of other challenges too. And what's cool about it is the students fully design all the cards. :)

Have a nice day,

Zac

PS: Tomorrow is DOT DAY and Spelling Quiz Day!! Wear dots, and practice for the quiz!