February 18th - 21st

It was another great week in Grade Three :)

In math this week we looked closely at 2-D shapes by describing and sorting them according to their attributes. We talked about the name of the shape, number of sides as well as the number of points/corners. Students were also invited to go on a shape hunt around the classroom and record their findings.

We practiced more letter writing with an introduction letter about ourselves to Mrs. Leibel. Students did a wonderful job remembering the 5 different parts of a letter and did a great job telling all about themselves! We also took some time to review various ideas and options for our daily Fire Writing times. Students came up with the following list of what they could write:

• stories - fiction or non-fiction
• poems
• song lyrics
• riddles
• jokes
• memories about an adventure or experience
• about an upcoming adventure or experience
• lists
• instructions for doing or making something
• letter to someone

This week we began working on skipping in gym! We practiced some basics and began some tricks!

Check out the tricks in this video > https://safeYouTube.net/w/rkj1

We continued to talked about our school community and the importance of showing care for our space, each other as well as our selves. Our discussions focused on citizenship and ways to improve our school community to ensure there is a feeling of connection with others. Students talked about some of their design ideas in regards to how it would help with bringing people together,  create positivity as well as a sense of pride.

• EK > "Maybe once the students are done their work they could ask their teacher to go to the greenery tree and take a job leaf off to go and do. That would make people feel happy and proud that they did their work and helped out"
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• DH > "I was thinking about how we could have lego challenges like where kids could add a new piece of Lego to the wall until the last day of school and then see the what it is like at the end"
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• EV > "My brother was home sick yesterday so my mom and I were thinking it would be great if we could live stream the classrooms on their ipads so kids could still be part of the class but not get others sick"
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• LO > "Maybe on the Lego wall people could add a piece for every good job they do so that at the end of the year we can see how well we have done as a school"
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• JJ > "Every time someone is nice to someone else they get to put a piece of Lego on the wall and then we can see how nice everyone is being to each other"
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•  HG > "I think we should put the Lego table or wall in the MakerSpace. Like the MakerSpace back where it was in the middle of the school. Because a Lego table IS building and making!"
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• RP > "We could also use a giant dice to play games - I think that would be fun"
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• MS > "At Fish Creek Library they have giant board games where you are the game piece moving around!"
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• KG > "At my old school we had giant Jenga blocks to play with outside!""

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We will be starting our work with our Artist In Residence on Monday February 24th. For our work with her we need each student to collect at least 4 rocks that are the size of the palm of their hand and as smooth and flat as possible! Hopefully now that the snow has melted a little this task will be a little easier! 

***

Today was Ms. De Luca's last day with us as she will be beginning her exciting adventure with her new baby soon! We are all going to miss her VERY much but are also VERY excited for her and her family as they welcome their new little bundle of joy into their lives. We are excited to welcome Mrs. Leibel to our classroom community and look forward to having her be part of Grade Three for the remainder of the year!

Upcoming Important Dates...

Feb 24 - Mar 13 > Art Residency

Feb 25 & 26 > Gr 5/6 at Youth Link

Feb 27 > Pink Shirt Day

Feb 27 > Fun Lunch & Spirit Day

Feb 28 > Vaccinations

Mar 10 > School Council

Mar 12 > Open House 6:30

Mar 19 > No School for K

Mar 19 & 20 > Student Led Conferences

Mar 23 - 27 > Spring Break

Feb. 3 - 7

In grade three this week….

The students continued to work on a variety of reading strategies, focusing specifically on accuracy strategies. So far, the students have discussed and worked on using stretchy snake (sounding words out), chunky monkey (breaking words into chunks), flippy dolphin (flipping the vowel sound), eagle eyes (using picture cues), and skippy frog (keep reading for context clues). We talked about how when we read and come to a word we do not know, we can go through a number of different accuracy strategies before determining the correct word. We also continue to review comprehension strategies that we have covered this year.

“We’ve been working on our reading strategies like our comprehension. Some strategies we used were making predictions, making connections, and character traits. We also looked at accuracy strategies like chunky monkey, flippy dolphin, eagle eye, stretchy snake, and skippy frog.” – E. P.

“We were doing the mystery books in the Learning Commons. You don’t even know what the cover looks like. You know what the book is about but you don’t know if it’s a perfect fit or not.” – H. B.

“We have been working on picking the right books when we are going to the library to pick books.” – A.F.

The students continued to work on their letter writing this week. They used their criteria to make sure that they took all the necessary information from their plan and put it into their final copy of their letters. Then they also focused on using different sentence starters, connecting words, and descriptive words in order to make their writing flow and be more interesting. They have done a great job of working through the writing process on this task.

In addition, the students represented their learning using a “one-pager”. This tool required students to represent their ideas about our Kananaskis in the Classroom presentation in different ways. Their “one-pagers” included something they learned, something they still wonder about, something they found funny, key words, and a title.

“We finished our letter writing to Ms. Manser and Mr. Newman. We wrote it to tell them what we appreciate about our school.” – R. P.

“For our letters, we had to do plans and then a rough copy and then our good copy. The letter was about what we appreciate and we wanted to say what we appreciate because we are going to send another letter saying what we want to improve.” – C. L.

“We were at the Kananaskis in the Classroom presentation. Now we are doing one-pagers on Kananaskis in the classroom. The one-pagers need to include words, pictures, and information about the show.” – D. H.

The grade threes continued to refine their subtraction skills. They used strategies that we have practiced and that have become familiar to them and also discussed different strategies that they can use. We will focus on these additional strategies next week and then students will be able to use whichever strategy they prefer. In addition, students continued to work on their mental math skills to work on their speed and efficiency through games. Students also looked at shapes and explained things they already know about them. We will continue to explore 2D shapes and 3D objects. This knowledge will be applied when we design and test things to improve our school community.

“We did math games using cards to practice 2-digit or 3-digit subtractions. If you’re using 3-digit, you’d flip over 6 cards and then write out the equations and then solve it. The partner with the highest number won that round.” – L.B.

“When we were in the Learning Commons while the other class had the Kananaskis in the Classroom presentation in our room, we played a card game. We each flipped a card and whoever solved it first, got the cards. This helped us practice adding up to 10 really fast.” – R.J.

“We were writing shapes down to see what we already know about them. There were rectangles, triangles, squares, hexagons, circles. We did point form.” – N.S.

We have focused a lot on community and showing care. We will continue this focus as we discuss citizenship and ways to improve our school community. Students will look at the needs and wants of our school and then will design and test their ideas of how to make our school community even better.

Students finished their art showcasing important parts of our school community. They used different media for this project including photography, tissue paper, pencil and sharpie. After the Kananaskis in the Classroom presentation, students designed and drew an animal that had different adaptations.

“We had a blank piece of paper and we had to put tissue paper on it and we had to take pictures with the iPad. Then we had to cut them out and glue them onto our tissue paper background. Now the picture really stands out.” – C. B.

“For Kananaskis in the Classroom, we had to draw our own rodent and you can make up the name and what the animal adaptations were. Mine was called the porcubeaver.” – C. K.

In PE this week, students worked on a number of pickle ball skills.

“In gym this week, we started pickle ball. We are working on our strategies for bouncing the balll and bouncing it on the wall. We did that for a couple of days and then started games.” – A. G.  

On Thursday, students watched a performance all about rodents put on by Kananaskis in the Classroom. After the performance, the expert came into our classroom and furthered students learning. Students learned information about rodents, talked about the food chain, and looked at animal artifacts. During this discussion, students asked some very thoughtful questions about both the performance and rodents.

“I noticed you spoke loudly but didn’t have a microphone. How?” – F. S.

“How do you get your costumes on so quickly?” – I. S.

“Why can’t porcupines shoot their quills?” – E. J.

“Why do beavers have webbed feet and big tails?” – L.B.

“KIC came and we had an assembly in the gym. The title was named Rodentia High. It was about rodents that went to school and they came to our classroom. We got to hold some artifacts and look at the food chain. Without rodents, there would be no animals left because it would affect everything on the food chain.” – M. P.

Reminders

On Wednesday, February 12^th, students can hand out Valentine’s cards to their classmates. This is optional. If you and your child choose to participate in the card exchange, please ensure there are enough cards for each student in your child's particular class. In room 10, there are 30 students and in room 11, there are 28 students. Also, please remember to not send treats to share in the classroom (e.g. cupcakes, chocolate, etc.) A notice was sent home on Friday with more information and lists of students’ names.

Upcoming Dates

Feb 11 > School Council

Feb 13 &14 > No School Teachers Convention

Feb 17 > Family Day

Feb 24 - Mar 13 > Art Residency

Feb 25 & 26 > Gr 5/6 at Youth Link

Feb 27 > Pink Shirt Day

Feb 27 > Fun Lunch & Spirit Day

Feb 28 > Vaccinations

Mar 10 > School Council

Mar 12 > Open House 6:30

Mar 19 > No School for K

Mar 19 & 20 > Student Led Conferences

Mar 23 - 27 > Spring Break

January 27th - 30th

As always - it was another great week in Grade 3!




Students continue to work on strengthening their reading skills through our daily literacy activities. Recently we have been focusing on word solving strategies, increasing accuracy as well as building better fluency. 








Students have been using Base Ten Blocks as well as drawing pictures to represent their understanding as they worked through various levels of subtraction questions this week. We will continue to look at other strategies that students can use when subtracting and have them consider which strategy is the one they think works best for them.

After learning about the 5 parts of writing a letter (Greeting, Introduction, Body, Conclusion, Closing) students planned their letters based on their 'appreciation walk' from the previous week using a planning template. This week students began writing their letters for Ms. Manser and Mr. Newman, excited to tell them all about the things they appreciate about our wonderful school community. 

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

Feb 3 > Ms. Pols Gr.4 at Seed School
Feb 6 > Kananaskis In The Classroom Assembly 
Feb 11 > School Council Meeting 7:00pm
Feb 13 &14 > No School - Teachers Convention
Feb 17 > No School - Family Day
Feb 24 -Mar 13 > Art Residency
Feb 25 & 26 > Gr 5/6 at Youth Link
Feb 27 > Pink Shirt Day 
Feb 27 > Fun Lunch & Spirit Day