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
