Friday, December 1

 Hi parents and happy Friday,

This morning, many kids chose to rewrite the math quiz. Due to a photocopying error it ended up being the same version as last time, but I don't think the kids realized that so I don't think it ended up giving them any advantage... 

There will still be time for additional rewrites for anyone who is interested! 

We had our spelling quiz, and then met up with our buddy class, to give them feedback on their writing. We also helped them use a thesaurus website (Word Hippo) to find more interesting adjectives to spice things up. I hope that through helping their buddies, the students in Room 6 started thinking about how they can do the same things for their own writing.

We went outside and played Buddy Kickball.

Then, we learned about Alberta. We talked about the many different landscapes and regions, and read accounts from kids who live all across the province. We discussed which place seemed like it would be the most fun to live in.

We ended our day with a bit of "A Rover's Story". We're starting to think about how we can build our own rover models, and what those models would need to include.

Have a nice weekend!

Zac

Thursday, November 30

 Hi parents,

We had another good day today. In the morning, the students had a chance to catch up on work from earlier in the week. Those horse paragraphs turned out awesome, often even better than the earth paragraphs, which had significantly more planning and editing! 

We built on our work around the map of Canada from yesterday, and learned about the 'compass rose'. We learned the four main directions, as well as northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast. Then we did a classic / 'old school' activity, in which the students answered questions from the textbook that tested their ability to use directions to compare locations on the map. It was also a big success.

In the afternoon, we had Music and Daily LA. We brainstormed the 'must-have' features and qualities of a Mars Rover, in preparation for actually designing and building models of our own rovers.

Remember that tomorrow is our spelling quiz! And, the 14th is our Winter Event.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, November 29

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students were provided with jot notes about horses, that they used to write their own paragraphs. The students really nailed it on this activity. Without explicit planning and instruction, they were able to incorporate many of the elements of paragraphs we've been targeting over the past few weeks - clear topic sentences, writing that flows, sentence variety, and compound sentences - it really felt like all of that came it a lot more naturally today.

In math, we did some 'fact fluency' work, with fill in the blank problems. These problems were not particularly difficult, so students could work on developing fast, effective mental math strategies for solving them.

We worked on maps of Canada as part of Social Studies. As we move into our exploration of Alberta, it made sense to ensure every students understood where Alberta is located in Canada, and the difference between a city, province, and country.

There are a couple big dates coming up:

Tomorrow is our school's "Hat Day", and the Winter Celebration is on December 14.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 28

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students got into Social Studies groups, and were introduced to their Alberta textbooks. They skimmed through the book, and read the introduction. As you can probably guess, we're going to start learning about Alberta - the landscape, people, history, and more! Working in mixed-grade groups is great because the students can help each other with the challenging words. 

In math, we did our addition and subtraction quiz, which ended up being much more of an 'addition and subtraction exam', as it took most of our afternoon. It went quite well though. I'm about halfway through marking them. Students will have an opportunity later this week, or next week, to do a 'rewrite' if they want to improve their score. The rewrite quizzes will feature all the same general content, but with different numbers.  

We also had Music, Gym, and of course work period. We ended our day by reading A Rover's Story.  

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Nov. 26)

 Spelling List A (November 26 – December 1)

each	real	nearby	flea	eating
peas	cheat	dreams	beast	easy

 

Spelling List B (November 26 – December 1)

clearly	beaten	unleash	earth	leave
ready	learn	bread	wheat	yearly

 

Spelling List C (November 26 – December 1)

squeak	theatre	ideally	realize	creature
seasonal	increase	league	fearful	cease

The theme this week is the -ea blend, which often sounds like a 'long e', but can sound like a lot of different things too. Words like 'ready' and 'learn' are important to remember as they come up frequently in reading and writing tasks.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who continues to follow the blog, and practice spelling at home. It makes such a big difference. I especially noticed it on this week's quiz. Students were taking so much pride in their accomplishments. 

Good luck!

Thursday, November 23

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. The class had one of the highest-scoring spelling quizzes of the year, in spite of it being just a four day week. We had an excellent discussion about empathy, and homelessness. The students made thoughtful, compassionate, anonymous cards to be given to people who are going through tough times during the holidays. They put so much thought into the messages they included. I wish I could put pictures of every single one on here. 

In math, we went over the word problems from yesterday. The students had one of their first experiences with 'marking', which I think will help them prepare for our math quiz next week by giving them a better idea of what teachers look for.

In the afternoon, we organized the classroom, did Daily LA, and read A Rover's Tale. We had an interesting discussion about whether or not human emotions would be a positive or negative thing on a mission to Mars.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at conferences! Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice weekend.

Zac

Wednesday, November 22

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. The students are using their morning work period time a bit better, but I think they need more practice with being 'problem solvers'. Many students will get stuck on one problem, for example, and just sit there feeling frustrated, rather than skipping it, or taking out a different work choice that they still need to complete. But all things considered, I'd say we're getting back on the right track.

In math, the students put their addition and subtraction skills to the ultimate test - word problems. There will be a few word problems on the quiz next week. The Grade 4s did an awesome ob with their decimal math word problems, and the Grade 3s showed a strong understanding of big numbers.

We learned about the word and concept of 'Empathy' today. The students wrote responses to their choice of three empathy-related prompts. We're going to be making anonymous cards tomorrow to be shared with some community members who are going through tough times. I hope our empathy work helps the students put some extra thought into this task!

In the afternoon, we talked more about the Montessori concept of Peace Education. The students did a 'Photography' challenge, where they staged and took photos that they felt captured the idea of peace in the Montessori classroom. These will be up on display tomorrow for conferences!

Please book your conference if you have not already done so. And remember that tomorrow is also our spelling quiz. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, November 21

Hi parents,

Sorry about the lack of a blog post yesterday - I had some personal "Canada Post drama" to deal with after school, which the students were incredibly empathetic about, haha. 

I will try my best to fill you in the the past couple of days.

We're working hard on missing number math problems. They're coming along. It's a been such a struggle, and I don't think the students realized how much they've learned from the struggle. So today, I gave the class a 'missing number' worksheet we attempted two weeks ago. Last time, it took almost an hour. This time, they finished it in just about 15 minutes, with significantly improved accuracy, and they seemed to feel pretty good about that.

The Math Quiz is on November 28. I'm just about finished writing it up, and tomorrow I'll give you the details.

We did more work around 'compound sentences'. The students brainstormed simple sentences about pizza, and then wrote paragraphs by combining simple sentences to form longer compound sentences. We talked about how it's generally a good idea to connect sentences that are somewhat related. For example, you probably wouldn't want to write a sentence like: 

"A pizza can have many different toppings, and the pizza oven gets very hot."

We learned about the -ai blend today. We talked about how learning blends, especially vowel blends, is helpful when reading, because attempting to sound out vowel blends one letter at a time will certainly lead you astray.

In the afternoon, our focus was organization and mindfulness. The students cleaned out their cubbies, tidied the classroom, and did Daily LA. We also read more of A Rover's Story.

Please remember to book your conference if you haven't already done so!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of November 19)

 Spelling List A (November 19 – 23)

wait	tail	main	paid	fail
said	air	snail	rainy	brain

 

Spelling List B (November 19 – 23)

chain	again	faint	daisy	repair
hairy	detail	afraid	await	braids

 

Spelling List C (November 19 – 23)

curtain	rainbow	certain	explain	villain
sustain	painful	frail	praise	paisley

The theme this week is the 'long a' -ai sound. Notice how many words on list C don't really have that long a sound, and yet, they still contain -ai..... 

Friday, November 17

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, we had a bonus Music class, and then we worked on topic sentences. 

Our paragraph writing work is coming along slowly. It's been a challenge for sure. We started to work on compound sentences today, which was also a struggle. So I'm going to assign some homework to hopefully start students off on the right foot for next week!

Blog Homework - Creating a Compound Sentence (+2 Table Points)

Convert the three simple sentences into a single 'compound sentence', that includes all the same information.

1. Calgary is a city.

2. Calgary is in Alberta.

3. Calgary has a population of 1.3 million.

In math, we worked more on Fact families. There was definite improvement in this area from yesterday! This time, I gave the students equations, and asked them to write the corresponding number facts. For example:

340 + 626 = 966

Then the students would write:

626 + 340 = 966

 966 - 340 = 626

966 - 626 = 340

We played kickball outside. It was an awesome tie game!

We ended our day by reading A Rover's Story.

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, November 16

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. The morning was tough though. The 'missing number' addition and subtraction problems were such a challenge. Spirits were on the brink of being crushed - so we took a few steps back and reviewed the idea of 'fact families'.

We did a few examples of fact families as a class. They look like this:

7 + 13 = 20

13 + 7 = 20

20 - 13 = 7

20 - 7 = 13

I'm hoping that by reviewing basic fact families, students will be able to build a stronger understanding of how addition and subtraction are related, and apply the same understanding to successfully rewrite and solve more complicated problems. On the math quiz, there will be problems like:

1,402 + ___ = 2,105

Same idea, but with bigger numbers. I think we can get there with practice. But because we may need some extra time, the math quiz will be postponed until Tuesday, November 28.

In the afternoon, we started reading A Rover's Story. We learned about Mars, and we learned about Mars Rovers. These videos are interesting!

We also had Daily LA, and lots of work period time.

Have a nice night,

Zac