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 12th, 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
