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!

Friday, May 30

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. In Gym, we wrapped up one of the most epic Kickball series we've ever had with an 8-8 tie, which tied the series as well.

The spelling quiz was less easy than I expected! I didn't get a chance to send them home but I will on Monday.

In Science, we talked about the concept of 'waste', in all its forms, including time, energy, money, etc. The students came up with goals for how they can reduce waste for the month of June.

We did Daily LA, and then started learning cursive. We learned the letters 'l', 'e', and 't'.

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words (coming later this weekend) and have a great weekend!

Zac

Thursday, May 29

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today, and a bit more of a normal school day.

In the morning, the students wrote stories about 'Lemon', the bear puppet that Elder Shirley brought yesterday. The stories were meant to be short and simple, but still feature a clear problem and solution. We talked about how when telling a story, it can be helpful to really slow down and drag out the events connected directly to the problem and solution. Things like establishing setting and describing characters are important too, but the problem and solution are what really make or break a story, and they deserve extra focus.

In Math, we did some data collection for our Ever Active Schools project. The students went around the school and surveyed other classes to find out how everyone got to school today. We analyzed the data as a class and found that our prediction (nice weather = more walking) was somewhat true. 

Elder Shirley was excited to see our Display Case and spent much of the lunch hour helping our class make it even better!

The spelling quiz is tomorrow!

Have a nice night,

Zac

End of Year Book Return

 

Wednesday, May 28

Hi parents,

We had yet another special day at school today - I almost feel bad for the students, they haven't had a predictable school day in ages - but I don't, because we keep getting to participate in cool activities.

Today we spent the entire afternoon working with and learning from Elder Shirley. She taught the class about hoop dancing, shared stories of Alberta's history, and constantly had the class laughing and smiling with her puppets and stuffies. It was an awesome experience.

In the morning we worked on artwork for an Ever-Active Schools Banner Contest. The students are designing banners to promote the safe drop-off zone across the field. The winning designs will be turned into actual big banners that we'll display on the fences next year.

We also learned about adding and subtracting fractions, and adding and subtracting mixed numbers.

Have a nice night.

Zac

Welcoming Elder Shirley

 

Tuesday, May 28

Hi parents,

Our sharing assembly went so well today! The students were professional, knowledgable, friendly, and engaging, and did a fantastic job answering questions. I really enjoyed checking in with each group and grilling them to see how well they knew their stuff. Honestly I was a little worried after yesterday's rehearsal, but today they brought their A game. And Alberta Bound sounded better and better each time.

That took up our entire morning. In the afternoon we went over this week's unusual spelling words, and discussed what each one is an abbreviation of, went outside for gym, and had Music.

Exciting news - tomorrow our class is spending the entire afternoon working with Elder Shirley!

Have a nice night,

Zac

S.W. (wk. of May 25)

 Spelling List A (May 26 - 30)

St.	mm	km	NW	SE
Mr.	Dr.	Mt.	Ms.	cm

 

Spelling List B (May 26 - 30)

Feb	Apr	l	ETA	i.e.
Rd.	Mrs.	etc.	AB	Aug

 

Spelling List C (May 26 - 30)

Sept	tbsp.	mph	gal.	oz.
etc.	lb	e.g.	kg.	blvd.

With this week being so busy, I figured some easier spelling words would be nice, and believe it or not there's a section in the curriculum about kids needing to know how to spell common abbreviations. So that's what this is.

For the quiz, I will be reading out the full form of each word or phrase. The kids will only be excepted to spell the abbreviated form. I'll be picky about capitalization for words like NW, ETA, and SE.

GLHF