Wednesday, January 14

 Hi parents,

We had an okay day today.

In the morning we talked about sensory writing. That is basically descriptive writing that focuses on the five senses and uses powerful words that activate the senses of the reader. This lesson didn't go all that well because it seemed like we got stuck on the same basic words over and overs - so tomorrow we're going to try to expand our vocabularies a bit more.

In Math the Grade 3s did a numeracy check-in, and the Grade 4s did some coordinate plotting.

In the afternoon we had Daily LA, and then in Social Studies we learned more about Alberta's natural resources.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, January 12

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today in Room 3. We started off with a paragraph writing task, in which the students wrote a descriptive paragraph about our classroom. This is kind of a warm-up for a bigger writing task we've got coming up, in which the students will write vivid descriptions of a special place in Calgary. Even though this was just a first draft, I saw some really exceptional writing today - the kids seem to have a pretty good idea of how to write clear, well-organized paragraphs. Now its just a matter of really cranking up the descriptive language and vocabulary.

In Math, we learned about the different ways that triangles can be classified. The main ones we focused on were equilateral, isosceles, and scalene. But you can also classify them by angles, as acute, obtuse, and right.

We read more of A Rovers Story, and its getting pretty exciting now. I've seen a lot of improvement in the Grade 3s addition and subtraction skills, but I think we'll spend another week working on it and then do the quiz re-do sometime next week.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 11)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 9 – 16)

time	cake	use	huge	like
tame	poke	name	note	here

 

Spelling List B (Jan. 9 – 16)

smile	these	state	whole	pure
vole	fuse	scale	theme	crime

 

Spelling List C (Jan. 9 – 16)

argue	clue	move	while	phase
acute	ignore	estate	debate	extreme

The theme this week is the 'e' ending. Bossy e, Silent e, Magic e, 'e' controlled vowel, it has a lot of names. I tried to pick the straightforward ones where the e just makes the vowel 'say its name'. 

Good luck!!

Thursday, January 8

 Hi parents,

I don't have much time for a blog tonight, but let me just say we had yet another awesome day today. 

We learned a bit about Alberta and its natural resources, reviewed 2-D polygons, did some 'favourite shape' graphing, learned the letter 's' in cursive, and learned how to count to 10 in French.

The spelling quiz is tomorrow!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, January 7

 Hi parents,

We had yet another fantastic day today - the year is really off to an excellent start!

In the morning, we had Music, and then a lockdown drill. The students handled this exceptionally well and stayed quiet the entire time.

We continued working on our '2026' writing / art project. The students added some blurbs about things they're grateful for, and things they hope will happen in the new year. This was also an opportunity to practice using commas, as they wrote in the format: "I am grateful for _______, ________, and _________. 

Here's how they turned out:

In the afternoon, we continued piling on new geometry terminology, and discussed quadrilaterals, such as trapezoids, parallelograms, rhombuses, squares, and rectangles. Reviewing these at home would probably be helpful. We still have a bunch more to cover.

Hoping tomorrow is as good a day as the rest of our week has been. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, January 6

 Hi parents,

We had another great day today. In the morning, we learned about commas, and how they can be used to separate items in a list. The students wrote their own sentences using commas, and did an excellent job of it. I really hope they apply this skill to their regular writing work, it really makes writing sound more professional and skillful.

Our bulletin board was recently reorganized. There are a concerning number of Wanted posters.

In math, we learned more about polygons. We learned that there are two types of polygons - regular, and irregular. Regular polygons have all equal sides and angles. Irregular polygons don't.

I also reviewed addition and subtraction using the standard algorithm with the Grade 3s separately. 

We started a '2026' art / writing project. I'll upload pictures when its further along. Its hard to explain.

Have a nice day,

Zac

Monday, January 5

 Hi parents,

We had a fantastic first day back. Honestly it was really nice to be back in the classroom. The kids were happy and positive and worked hard.

As you probably guessed, we wrote about our winter breaks. I challenged the class to start with the topic sentence, "The one word that best describes my winter break is _______".

We went over the new spelling words, which are in fact old spelling words, and reviewed the oi, oo, oa, ai, and ea vowel teams.

The students went to Music and Gym in the morning too.

Over the break I had this idea of how to improve Daily LA, in particular, the 'creative writing' station, and I was really excited to try it out today. I've noticed that students on the 'creative writing' station often end up sitting around with writers block, or 'brainstorming' (read: 'sitting around') with other students, and very little actually writing happens. So I introduced this writing bingo card to hopefully give them ideas and motivate them.

Now, when students are on writing, they can pick one of the options above. When they complete four in a row, they get free-choice for their next day on writing. When they get a blackout, they earn an indoor recess with a friend. 

Since I just introduced this today, every student in the class got to do creative writing today, and I was so thrilled by how it went. I hope the enthusiasm continues!

In math, we started our new unit, which is on polygons. We learned that polygons are 2-D, closed shapes, with only straight sides. There are two types of polygons, regular and irregular, which depend on whether all of the sides and angles are equal.

This whole geometry unit is basically just a ton of terminology memorization. The concepts aren't actually that hard, its just a matter of knowing what each term means, and applying it in the right way.

I sent home the addition and subtraction quizzes from before the break. Don't worry - I am a big believer in re-dos. I'm going to keep working with the class on addition and subtraction in small group lessons every morning. We will study geometry at a different time. If you are looking to practice at home, I hope the quizzes give you an idea of the types of content and difficulty level that we're working at!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Jan. 4)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 5 – 9)

come	with	said	walk	fail
each	soap	oil	sooner	toys

 

Spelling List B (Jan. 5 – 9)

they	wanted	know	without	again
beard	toasty	spoil	bamboo	lights

 

Spelling List C (Jan. 5 – 9)

would	many	sigh	guess	explain
yearly	throat	rejoin	foolish	warmth

We're going to start the second part of our school year off with some review words. Each list is comprised of words from all ten of our previous spelling lists. In class we will take this opportunity to review all of the letter combinations we've covered so far, as well as some essential sight words that come up all the time.

Good luck!

Friday, December 19

 Hi parents,

We had a great last school day of 2025. We finished watching the Muppet Christmas Carol, the students drew and wrote about their 'Christmas futures', and we did our spelling quiz, as well as carolling.

I did not have a chance to send home the math quizzes sadly - we still have a few students writing them! 

I want to thank all of you for checking the blog and keeping up with what we're doing in class. It makes a big difference in your child's learning and I feel like it helps me stay more connected with you all as well! Thank you also for all your support and kindness this year. It has been a really good year all around and I have looked forward to coming in to work every day. Especially on days like this where the workload is a little less, its so easy to see that I'm lucky to have such a kind, imaginative, compassionate, and thoughtful group of students. Maybe a bit silly or lazy sometimes. But always exceptionally nice.

I hope you all have a wonderful Winter Break. See you in the new year!

Zac

Thursday, December 18

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. Yesterday was pretty good too, sorry about the lack of blog posts.

Starting the day with carolling has been really nice. The kids have been super into their snowman diary writing, and many of them have done 3+ entries now.

The math quiz was pretty good all around. The Grade 3s struggled a bit. I can tell they've mostly got the skills but more practice would definitely help. Not saying you should do math practice over the break, but if your child is getting bored, it wouldn't be a bad thing to threaten.... I'll send the quizzes home tomorrow.

In French, we learned the colours. In Cursive, we learned how to write 'm'.

Watching the Muppet Christmas Carol has been awesome. 

Tomorrow is PJ Day! It's going to be a great one. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, December 16

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. Normally this last week of school is more laid back, but our class kind of decided that most of November should be 'laid back', and as as result we're spending this week working hard to catch up.... 

But it was still a fun day. 

We used the Ipads to take photos of our sock snowmen. We actually had a lesson on 'photography' and how to effectively use lighting, backgrounds, and perspective to create a powerful photo. We also learned how to edit the photos using filters,  contrast, and brightness, and how to airdrop.

Later, the students used their photos for 'snowman diary' entries, which turned out awesome. I had a feeling the kids would get really into that prompt since they're treating their snowmen like their own flesh and blood.

Here are some of the pictures:

There are even more but they weren't taken in a format I can upload to the blog, sadly.

We also did some tricky math mashups, played Elf Switch in gym, and finished up work from last week.

Have a nice night,

Zac