Thursday, October 6

 Hi parents,

The kids had a great time today with Stuffy Day but were still able to do a full day's worth of hard work.

In the morning we had our spelling quiz and it went really well! I want to express a very sincere thank-you to all the students who work hard week after week to challenge themselves with spelling, rather than just sticking with the comfortable list. The spelling skills students develop through doing this are undoubtedly valuable, but the skills of perseverance, resilience, and dedication are equally as important - maybe even more so!

We continued to work on rounding today, and I noticed the students have made a lot of progress since the start of the week. Rounding with thousands continues to be difficult, but the tens and hundreds have become a lot more comfortable.

We talked about Major and Minor characters, and brainstormed examples from a variety of movies, books, and TV Shows. The students wrote about some of the major and minor characters in Wish Tree.

In the afternoon,  we did Daily LA, Gym, and met up with our buddies to play a game of Song-Go.

I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving weekend. I am incredibly thankful to have such a wonderful class that constantly makes me think, laugh, and look forward to coming to work. :)

Zac

Wednesday, October 5

 Hi parents,

We had another pretty good day today. In the morning, we worked more on rounding, this time with larger numbers, and it became a lot more difficult! I think the students are pretty good at rounding up numbers they're familiar with - it's almost second nature to them when they're working with numbers from 1 - 100.

But as soon as we started working with numbers in the thousands or higher, it became quite challenging. The work today involved taking a number like 1,375, and then rounding it to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand.

It was really tough. I think we need to dial it back a bit tomorrow. Rounding will be on the math quiz on Tuesday, October 11, but nothing more difficult than what we did today.

We watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode on plants. It was interesting! The class took notes. 

We also did a writing activity in which the students wrote step-by-step plans that the Wish Tree, Red, could carry out to help Samar make a new friend.

In the afternoon, we had Music, Gym, and library book exchange.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, October 4

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today, although it was a bit on the loud side.

In the morning, we learned about rounding. We talked about how we can round a number to the nearest ten, hundred, or thousand, and that the rounded number will look different depending on how we round.

The students practiced rounding numbers to the nearest ten independently.

We did more leaf art today. The students created leaves to showcase their family history, by gluing on flags from countries that they are connected to. We also learned about the history of flags, and how they came to be symbols of countries.

In the afternoon we had a great Daily LA session, and then one of our winning table from last month's table point challenge got to lead our PE class.

We also did some more French today, and learned the French words for a variety of items found around the classroom.

Tomorrow we will be visiting the library for Book Exchange. Students will have a chance to return the books they borrowed last week and check out new ones. We will be doing book exchange on Wednesday afternoons this year, so please help your child get into the routine of bringing books back to school for this time.

Remember that this Thursday is stuffy day, and Tuesday, October 11 will be our math quiz.

Also remember...

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, October 3

 Hi parents,

I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend!

We had a good day back at school today.

In the morning we did our class pictures, practiced spelling, and worked on ordering numbers in math. Some students seem to be struggling with ordering large numbers with some shared digits.

For example, when asked to order the set of numbers: 1237, 1210, 1278, 1200, many students would get mixed up. We talked a bit about how if two digits are the same, we need to look at the next place value column to determine which is larger, but more review is probably needed.

On that note - we will be having a math quiz on October 11! We've never really done a math quiz before, but I think it'll be a good experience for the students. The quiz will be on place value, ordering numbers, greater than / less than, and rounding. Questions will be written in the same format that students have seen in other math tasks, so it should be pretty straightforward. 

Today students had the choice to write about their weekend, or to respond to the critical thinking writing prompt: "Do people take too many pictures?" I enjoy writing tasks like this because there's no right or wrong answer. It's all about the evidence and reasoning. 

In the afternoon, we had Music and Gym, and read more of Wish Tree. Red is trying to help Samar make a friend, but it's not as easy as they thought.

The students have earned a Stuffy Day this Thursday, October 6. This means they are allowed to bring one stuffed animal to school, to act as a sort of mascot / morale support source. Other than that it will be a normal school day.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Upcoming Dates:

October 6 - Stuffy Day

October 11 - Place Value Quiz

Spelling Words! Week of Oct. 1

 Spelling List A (Oct. 1 - 5)

Where	You	Three	See	To
Much	Chew	Chip	Chore	Chase

 

Spelling List B (Oct. 1 - 5)

Ask	By	Once	Some	Them
Chapter	Charity	Chatterbox	Cheetah	Ketchup

 

Spelling List C (Oct. 1 - 5)

Echo	Chasm	Chord	Choir	Chile
Chaos	Anchor	Chromatic	Monarch	Anarchy

Good luck! 

Art Cards

 

Thursday, September 29

 Hi parents,

We had a wonderful Orange Shirt Day today. Mrs. Green and Ms. Gierl's classes led an amazing assembly, and I think the conversations we've been having all week helped the students to appreciate the content on a deeper level.

We finished our Reconciliation Rock project with the buddies, and placed the rocks in the garden. Feel free to stop by and check them out some time!

The spelling quiz was great today. It is so great to see the students' practice paying off! So many students are consistently challenging themselves to do difficult lists, even though they could probably get higher scores on easier ones, and that's what it's all about. I love to see the perseverance. 

In math, students sorted numbers from least to greatest - but the numbers ranged from 10 - 1,000,000!

We had a French lesson today but unfortunately didn't have time to finish. All we really had time for was to get a few songs stuck in our heads. 

We had a really interesting class discussion around the question, "If you had a machine that could see the future, and you saw someone commit a crime, would it be okay to arrest that person before they committed the crime?" Someone should make a movie about that.

We had our first official Daily LA today and the class did a fantastic job. I'm amazed by how responsibly they used their time, regardless of what station they were on.

Tomorrow is Truth and Reconciliation day, and the students have all kinds of ideas about things they may want to do to honour it. I look forward to checking back with them on Monday to hear how it went!

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Wednesday, September 28

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today - it's shaping up to be a pretty good week in fact!

We met up with our buddy class and did an Orange Shirt Day art project. We read the book "Trudy's Rock Story", which is an indigenous story about a girl who uses a rock to help her express her emotions and solve conflicts. The students painted their own rocks orange. We watched a video about reconciliation and brainstormed idea for what we could write on our rocks, once they are dry.

In math, we played a game called "Place Value Battle Royale" in which students competed at their tables to create the biggest numbers, by rolling dice. It's basically the same as the Beat the Teacher game we played earlier, but this time the numbers went into the millions.

In the afternoon, we had music, gym, and library. Easy afternoon for me, fun for the class.

Tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day. Wearing an orange shirt is encouraged - however, if you don't have one, a good alternative is just wearing a shirt that has sentimental value, just like the orange one that was so special to Phyllis Webstad. 

Have a wonderful night,

Zac

PS: Don't forget to send back the pink homework sheet!

Tuesday, September 27

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. In the morning we had a fantastic discussion about orange shirt day and residential schools. The students listened intently and shared so many thoughtful contributions. We talked about how the 'orange shirt' is really just a symbol to represent all of the many things indigenous children lost, like their language, traditions, songs, and connections with family. The students showed a respect and empathy throughout our conversation. 

Then, we did some writing. The class chose between two prompts: 

1. What does the orange shirt represent?

2. How is Grandpa Nat's story similar to Phyllis Webstad's story?

Both are quite a bit deeper than what we often do with writing prompts and it was great to see the students rise to the challenge.

We visited the library and Mrs. Brady talked to the kids about what to expect from our Book Exchange / Library time this year. There are some interesting changes in the works! The kids are clearly very excited about getting to check out books, starting tomorrow!

At the end of the day, we read Wish Tree, and I gave out some homework about family traditions and history. One of the big themes in Wish Tree is diversity,  so we will be adding leaves to our tree that showcase the diverse backgrounds of families in our classroom. We talked about how at some point in history, everyone's families moved to Canada from somewhere else in the world - it may have been a grandparent, or even a great great grandparent. Having different family traditions is another way our classroom is diverse. 

If you wouldn't mind talking with your child and then sending the homework back by Thursday, September 29, that would be awesome.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, September 26

 Hi parents,

We had a great Monday today. In the morning, we watched this excellent episode of Molly of Denali and talked about Residential Schools. If you haven't watched Molly of Denali already, I really recommend it. It is a show about an indigenous community in Alaska. A lot of the episodes address the same concepts that we try to teach students about Canada's indigenous history, but in a kid-friendly way.

We did another Numeracy Assessment in math, just to see where everyone is at and help us meet the students at their individual levels. 

The students wrote in their journals. We talked about how a simple sentence, like 'We went camping", can be expanded into literally hundreds of additional sentences that add detail. For example, where you went camping, who you went with, what you did there, etc. And each of those sentences could probably be expanded on as well. With writing, it's about quality over quantity, and adding detail is a great way to enhance quality.

The students glued in and practiced their new spelling words. Once again, this week's quiz will be on Thursday, so we have less time to practice. Any extra practice at home will help!

At the end of the day we read further into Wish Tree. We talked about Samar and her family. The students discussed how the discrimination faced by Samar's family is kind of similar to what indigenous peoples experienced in the past. 

Orange Shirt Day is on Thursday, so we're trying to build lots of connections and make sure it is meaningful!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Sept. 24)

 Spelling List A (Sept. 24 – 29)

Funny	Little	My	One	Said
Bite	Here	Make	Bone	Tube

 

Spelling List B (Sept. 24 – 29)

Any	Could	Every	Going	Of
Change	Phone	Prize	Quite	Shape

 

Spelling List C (Sept. 24 – 29)

Surprise	Absolute	Replace	Produce	Continue
Graduate	Assume	Desire	Engage	Customize

Good luck!