Spelling Words (Week of October 8)

 Spelling List A (October 8 – 13)

Are	Car	Bark	Carl	Marking
Hard	Star	Scarf	Charm	Starting

 

Spelling List B (October 8 – 13)_

Large	March	Alarming	Cargo	Park
Army	Arcade	Archer	Arctic	Carbon

 

Spelling List C (October 8 – 13)

Gardener	Upwards	Artery	Armour	Afar
Jaguar	Archive	Harvester	Harmful	Regardless

Ar words this week - keep up the practicing! Our quiz results have just been getting better and better. :)

Friday, October 6

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. We had a two hour work period in the morning because there was so much work to catch up on. The ideal Montessori work period is three hours. That take time to build up to, but we could probably get there by the end of the year. It was quiet and orderly the whole time. Students who finished early moved on to responsible work choices, or chose to type up their written work from yesterday. 

We went outside for a kickball game. Due to a lot of players being away, and some questionable sportsmanship, it ended up just being an 'exhibition match'. 

When we got back in, we played the math game "Classroom of Doom". It's a fun way for kids to practice their basic fact skills.

We ended the day with a spooky story. We do a lot of scary story telling in October.

Have a nice thanksgiving weekend!

Zac

Thursday, October 5

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today. In the morning, the students took on another challenging writing task, and wrote persuasive paragraphs about what they considered to be "The Best" Montessori material, and why. 

We reviewed the 'hundred thousands' place, and students worked in their sketchbooks to represent the number 243,186, in base ten form. But the catch was, it also had to be to scale. This was quite difficult to space out, because the hundred thousands are so massive compared to the ones and tens. But I am really glad that we've spent so long on this topic - I think it will pay off down the road.

In the afternoon, the students picked named for the guppies, though it is hard to say which one is which. 

We did Daily LA, and ended our day with Library book exchange. Students took home up to 2 books each. They are due back in two weeks!

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz! Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, October 4

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today! The students met Mr. Wade, who is starting his practicum as a student teacher in our classroom. He'll be reading with students and teaching lessons on Wednesdays. 

We did a writing activity where the students responded to quotes from Maria Montessori about hands-on learning. They mostly wrote about why hands are important.

We learned about the 'hundred thousands' place, using the Montessori place value blocks. This material is awesome because it accurately captures the scale of 1:100,000 - which is otherwise pretty difficult to visualize!

We did some spelling practice as a class. I'm optimistic for the quiz on Friday because students were even able to spell gorgeous correctly.

In the afternoon, the class went to Music. We did Daily LA, and worked more on our math game, dungeon dice.

Thank you to everyone who did the blog homework last night! I'm still accepting submissions!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, October 3 (Homework alert!)

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. In the morning, we learned about the life cycle stages of guppies. We learned that male guppies are smaller, and have colourful tails, whereas female guppies are larger and better at blending in due to their duller colours.

We learned more about the 'ten thousands' place in math, and the students solved a bunch of problems where they had to write the value of the ten thousands place in various numbers.

For example: in the number "245,910", the value of the ten thousands place is '40,000'.

We got to have double gym today because yesterday we missed our gym time due to picture day. We played kickball outside, and had an awesome game in which the Ghost Eevees experienced their first win. Fantastic teamwork all around this time. 

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and visited the library, where Ms. Smith showed the students a whole bunch of new chapter book series' that they'll be able to check out starting on Thursday. After that, we'll move to a more free-flow model of using the library, where students can check out books throughout the week, at their convenience.

BLOG HOMEWORK: Solve the problem Use Expanded Form. (2 pts per studet)

Ronin's Problem

At my bedroom, I have 3,000,000 laptops, some transformers, 10,000 PC's, 9,000 books, 200 stuffies, 10 pillows, and 8 blankets. There are 3,919,218 things in my room. How many transformers do I have?

Have a nice night!

Zac 

Monday, October 2

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today - and it was so awesome that everyone was able to be here for picture day. It feels like it's been a few years since I've had a class photo with everyone in it.

The morning was pretty exciting for Room 6 as the students received the special prize they'd earned last month through table points:

That's right, we have classroom pets! They are guppies (and one catfish).

The students spent a lot of time watching them and naming them, and in the coming weeks we'll study them and learn more about their life cycles.

In math, we continued to delve into 'place value', and learned about the 'ten thousands' place. We learned that 'ten thousand' can also be shown as a large rectangular prism - which is basically a stack of 10 cubes. We used the Golden Beads to show this rectangular prism, and then the students worked on representing some very large numbers.

In the afternoon, we had Daily LA, Music, and mindfulness. 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words: Week of Sept. 31

 Spelling List A (October 1 – 5)

Or	Fort	Sorting	Cord	Short
North	More	Cork	Orb	For

 

Spelling List B (October 1 – 5)

Force	Storm	Sorry	Order	Scorn
Glory	Shore	Vortex	Portal	Torch

 

Spelling List C (October 1 – 5)

Chord	Ivory	Sorrow	Mentor	Horror
Chorus	Flora	Orange	Formula	Gorgeous

A lot of interesting vocabulary words. I tried to pick ones that were unusual, but not too difficult to spell (except gorgeous), in the hopes that students will feel more confident using them in their writing. This might be a good week to take on the challenge of List C if you were on the fence about it.

Good luck!

Thursday, September 28 (Orange Shirt Day)

 Hi parents,

Orange shirt day was a big success in our classroom. We had some great discussions and the students showed so much empathy through their contributions.

We officially met with our Grade 1/2 buddy class! We worked on a Truth and Reconciliation Day art project, which now is on display between our two rooms.

We attended the school's Orange Shirt Day assembly, and sat in circle while we learned and listened.

In the afternoon, we finished our Canadian History pages, by talking about reconciliation, and modern day Canada.

We also had our spelling quiz. Our class has earned enough points for the month of September to earn a special prize - which will ideally be revealed on Monday!

Thank you all for reading the blog and helping to support all the work we do in class. I really appreciate it. :)

There is no school tomorrow - have a nice long weekend!

Zac

Wednesday, September 27

Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. The students continued to work on their "Canadian History" pages, as we learned about what happened that led to the establishment of Residential Schools. The students showed exceptional empathy during our class discussion. We read the book "When We Were Alone", which told the story of indigenous children who were able to find creative ways to continue practicing their culture and traditions in spite of attending schools that forbid it.

Remember that tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day! Please encourage your child to wear orange. If you do not have anything orange, a favourite shirt of a different colour will work too.

We continued to work on expanded form and place value in math. The students solved a variety of expanded form word problems, and then made their own.

Blog Homework: Complete the Word Problems. Show Your Work.

  

Along with being orange shirt day, tomorrow is also our spelling quiz on the -ing pattern. 

Have a nice night!

Zac

Tuesday, September 26

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. In the morning, we did part one of four of our 'Canadian Indigenous History' lesson. We talked about what life was like for indigenous peoples in Canada before European settlers arrived. The students already knew a lot about the ways indigenous peoples lived off the land by hunting and gathering, built temporary, easily moveable shelters to follow Bison (at least in the Alberta region), and lived fairly sustainably. We also talked about how during this time, people in Europe were living very different lives, that were often driven by a desire to expand and progress. which ultimately led them to explore over seas and arrive in Canada.

I'm trying to provide students with a general, age-appropriate context of what the world was like a few hundred years ago. I'm a bit of a history nerd so it's been tough to condense everything and I have went off on quite a few unnecessary tangents. But the students were an excellent audience, and contributed a lot to our discussions as well, so I think we're off to a great start. The class has been working to capture their understanding with illustrations in their sketchbooks.

For math, the Grade 4s worked on a "grueling" numeracy assessment, which covered multiplication, division, fractions. number lines.... pretty much everything. It was quite tough!

The Grade 3s worked on a place value / expanded form activity.

In gym, we played "Plank Air Hockey". It was also grueling.

In the afternoon, we had Daily LA, and then practiced spelling words in a fun way by playing -ing word charades. Students were given an -ing word (lets say 'crying'), which they would act out, and then their group would have to guess it by writing it correctly on white boards.

Remember that orange shirt day is on Thursday - and have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, September 25

 Hi parents,

We started off our week on the right foot once again. In the morning, we did a quick weekend journal activity because time was short, but the class used the time they had especially wisely, and actually ended up doing work that was on par with our regular journal writing. 

We were in a bit of a rush today because we have a lot of content to cover this week in preparation for Truth and Reconciliation Day on Friday, as well as Orange Shirt Day on Thursday.

Today the students set up pages in their journals for the work we'll be starting tomorrow. 

We watched an episode of "Molly of Denali" which does a good job of introducing the concept of residential schools in a kid-appropriate way. 

In math, we talked about Place Value. We learned the Montessori colour-coding rules for place value, and the students discussed the patterns they noticed.

In the afternoon, the students went to music. We had Daily LA and more work period time. 

Have a nice night!

Zac

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