October 20th - 25th

It was a very busy week with swimming! 

  

Students did a wonderful job practicing their swimming skills and participating in their lessons over the 4 days. They were excited to play various games, dive for rings as well as test out the slide!

In Math we have been working on solving one-step addition and subtraction equations that involve a symbol to represent an unknown number.  For example >  5 + * = 15  , What does * =
Students need to have developed important understandings and ways of thinking in order to understand and use variables. In developing algebraic thinking, students are more focused on relationships and begin to better understand, that in an equation, the relationship is one of equivalence. Strong relational thinking is required of the student as they develop the important conceptual view of an equation as ‘an object that balances’

After busy mornings with swimming we had some slower and quieter afternoons! One of the quiet activities that the students really enjoyed was following directed drawing art lessons using an iPad. Using artforkidshub.com, the students followed various lessons and learned how to draw lots of really neat things! Check it out here https://www.artforkidshub.com/

Here are some quotes from round two of SibbaldU...

• K - “In Robotics there was tape on the floor and you had to figure out the pattern on the iPad to get the robot to follow and stay on the tape.”
• LB - “In Destination Imagination we were using Lego to build boats that had to float on water.”
• K - “In Christmas Creations we practiced sketching snowmen and reindeer on paper and when we finished we got to draw it on a canvas and next Friday we are going to paint it!”
• DB - “In Photography we were using small and large objects to create forced perspective and one of the photos was of DH pushing the school with his feet!”
• CB - “In Needle Felting we started to needle felt the pictures we are putting on our bookmarks and we also did our names.”
• LM “In Printmaking we got a block of wood and put elastics all around it to make a design to print on paper.”
• KB - “In Get Moving we did some fitness centers like skipping and we also played partner soccer outside.”
• JW “In Lights, Camera Action we brainstormed our ideas for the episodes of our movie. My group decided to do playground safety
• AG - “In Animal Sketching we watched a video of how to draw a turtle. Then we drew different animals and we also worked on designing our own signature.”
• C “Today in Abstract Painting we were able to mix colours - I mixed purple and blue together and on the paper the purple was in the middle.”
• EV “In Scrapbooking lots of people brought in supplies like stickers and other things and I used some of the materials like washi tape in my book.”
• HB – “In Collaborative Art we were tracing our hands and painting big pieces of paper.” 

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

• Oct 31 – Halloween - Students are welcome to wear costumes to school
• Nov 1 – PD Day - No School for students
• Nov 4-7 – Gr 4-6 Swimming 
• Nov 8 – Remembrance Day Assembly 
• Nov 11 – No School – Remembrance Day 
• Nov 13 – Photo Retakes 
• Nov 21(evening) and 22 (morning) – Parent Teacher Conferences 
• Nov 21 – No School for Kinder only 
• Dec 17 – Christmas Concert (K-2) 
• Dec 18 – Christmas Concert (Gr 3-6) Dec 19 – Last Day of School before Winter Break 
• Dec 19 – Report Cards go home 
• Dec 20 – No School (PD)
• Dec 21 – Jan 5 – Winter Break 
• Jan 6 – No School (PD) 
• Jan 7 – School Begins

October 15th - 18th

It was another wonderful week in Grade 3!  Students came back well rested and ready to take on their learning after the long weekend 🙂

As we have been looking closely at rocks, we read two books this week that had rock connections.  Whimsy struggles with anxiety and worrying about too many things that eventually weigh her down and make it really hard for her to do every day things. As class we talked about the way the pictures showed her 'pulling or carrying heavy things like rocks' but that the 'heavy things' were actually not things at all. Her worries were the heavy things and they were making her feel heavy. JJ commented, "She has heavy feelings and that's what is making her feel heavy...like sad and scared." We all agreed that sometimes life is a little hard or scary and that if we hold onto all of our worries and fears they start to weigh us down but that if we use strategies like Whimsy did then we can deal with our worries as they come up and feel a lot less heavy.

Lots of students have been talking about or sharing their special rock collections. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a funny story about a a little donkey who also collects rocks.  One day he finds a a very unique pebble and realizes it is magical when he begins to wish for things and his wishes come true. When confronted by a lion Sylvester holds his magic pebble tight and wishes to be a rock so the lion can not eat him...well you can imagine the problem with turning into a rock! After reading this story students shared about what they would wish for if they had a magic rock. Here a few of the wishes - "I wish for no more cancer", "I would wish for all the money in the world", "I would wish for all the people who are lonely to have friends", "I wish for no one to have allergies", "I think I would wish for a puppy", "I would wish for no one to be hungry"





We continue to work on developing our mental math strategies through games and puzzles. The make-ten strategy is great for adding and subtracting and helps students understand place value and the relationships between numbers. As our place-value system is based on making groups of ten, having fluency and being efficient in this area is important. These 'mind picture' games can help many kids to do mental math with greater ease. 





This was our first week of SibbaldU and students were very excited to get their course assignments!
Here is what a few students had to say about day 1:

• NS "We started talking about our movie which is going to be about kindness!"
• EV "In Scrapbooking we started on the front cover of our paper bag book - I did a few pages about my cat Felix!"
• CL "We made a spaghetti and marshmallow tower in Destination Imagination! My team was the first ones to finish!"
• GC "We were writing animal fonts in Animal Sketching.  I think my favourtite was the dragon in my G"
• EP "In Christmas Creations we listened to a Christmas story and got to listen to Christmas music! We made Christmas cards."
• GT "We were using rollers and paper and bottle caps. We dipped them in paint and then rolled them onto the paper o make designs."
• TR "In Robotics, after we got our robots we got an iPad and we used an App to make race car tracks to move Dash! We also got to add sounds!"
• MS "We went into the Learning Grounds for Photography. We took photos of nature outside and we were looking closely at texture"

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

• Oct. 21-25 – Gr 1-3 Swimming 
• Oct. 22 – Apple Pick Up for those who ordered
• Oct. 25 – No School for Kinder only
• Nov 4-7 – Gr 4-6 Swimming 
• Nov 8 – Remembrance Day Assembly 
• Nov 11 – No School – Remembrance Day 
• Nov 13 – Photo Retakes 
• Nov 21(evening) and 22 (morning) – Parent Teacher Conferences 
• Nov 21 – No School for Kinder only 
• Dec 17 – Christmas Concert (K-2) 
• Dec 18 – Christmas Concert (Gr 3-6) Dec 19 – Last Day of School before Winter Break 
• Dec 19 – Report Cards go home 
• Dec 20 – No School (PD)
• Dec 21 – Jan 5 – Winter Break 
• Jan 6 – No School (PD) 
• Jan 7 – School Begins

October 7th - 11th

We hope you have a wonderful long weekend ♡

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

• Oct. 11th > PD Day - No School for students
• Oct. 14th > Thanksgiving - No School
• Oct. 16th > Gr 1 Corn Maze field trip 
• Oct. 18th  > Sibbald U begins 
• Oct. 21st-25th > Gr 1-3 Swimming 
• Oct. 22nd > Apple Pick Up 
• Oct. 25th > No School for Kinder only

Spet. 30 - Oct. 4

In grade three this week....

We read a variety of books during our read aloud times. One student even brought a book from home and asked that we share it with the class! This book was called The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds. Students made great connections to books we have previously read in class and explained why they were similar. This shows students are applying their comprehension skills of “making text to text connections” and “making personal connections”! This book was an excellent connection to what the students have been working on in their writing as well. This week, students focused on adding descriptive words. We talked about how descriptive words (or adjectives as one student pointed out) are words that tell us more detail about a person, place, or thing. To start brainstorming descriptive words, students went outside and picked four objects. Then they determined different words they would use to describe these objects. Following this, students were given simple sentences and were then asked to identify the person, place, or thing, and add descriptive words to make the sentence more interesting. Students were definitely able to “build better sentences” than the original ones! This weekend, ask your child to share some descriptive words they used in their sentences.

Students continued to develop their mental math skills by playing math games. One game played this week was called “What’s under my thumb?” In this game, students rolled two dice, found the sum, covered one die, and then asked their partner, “_____ is my sum. What’s under my thumb?” As a class, we discussed adding another strategy to use: counting up. Ask your child to explain how they add two numbers together using the “counting up” strategy. In addition to practicing mental math, students continued to work on their understanding of numbers to 1000. They represented numbers through words, pictures, and expanded form. They also played a number of math games to become more familiar with the different ways to work with numbers to 1000.

Throughout the start of the year, we have talked about the importance of looking closely. This applied to the work students did around their logos and came up again when students did some sketching this week. There was a variety of natural objects around the classroom including nests, feathers, and plants. Students looked closely at each object and sketched them, using different shapes and shades. They also added descriptive words around the sketch to describe the object. Ask your child what their favourite object to sketch was.

On Orange Shirt Day, we had our special school guest, Elder Shirley spend time with the class. Elder Shirley brought along her friend, Lemon the Bear. Ask your child to share what Elder Shirley and Lemon talked to us about.

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

• Swimming Forms due back ASAP
• Oct. 7th > Picture Day
• Oct. 8th > School Council
• Oct. 9th > Apple Fundraiser orders due
• Oct. 10th > Scholastic book orders due
• Oct. 11th > PD Day - No School for students
• Oct. 14th > Thanksgiving - No School
• Oct. 16th > Gr 1 Corn Maze field trip 
• Oct. 18th  > Sibbald U begins 
• Oct. 21st-25th > Gr 1-3 Swimming 
• Oct. 22nd > Apple Pick Up 
• Oct. 25th > No School for Kinder only