Monthly Archives: March 2017

Almost Break Time!

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Apologies for the lack of posting…but since I got to see almost everyone last week I thought it would be nice to have a blog break and just do so Instagram posting instead! It was so great to see everyone at conferences. The students loved being able to share some of their learning with you. It means so much to have the home-school connection for these amazing learners 🙂

Pre-Break:

-We worked on a poster today about the Future of Canada (which has been sent home). There is a contest going on where kids across Canada are submitting what they think the future of our great country will be like. Check your email about Spirit Week (sent last week) for more details if you want to submit your child’s poster. The contest closes soon (March 31). This contest is completely optional!

-Tomorrow is Crazy Hair/Hat day AND movie day. As you all know…we are watching Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone. It will be nice to compare the movie to the book. We have just started to read The Chamber of Secrets. I think we have some new Potter supporters in the world! We are fortunate enough to have a parent make a popcorn treat for us to snack on during the movie. Thank you!!! I hear there is also a dance party happening from 10:45-11:05 in the gym!

-Friday is Mindfulness day. We are going to be working on some self portraits and will do some Yoga with Murray…all while being in the comfort of our PJs!

-The students will be sent home an activity to complete sometime between tomorrow and April 7. It is a math puzzle that they will create (like the one that was sent home yesterday). Full details and the actual sheets will be sent home tomorrow. I put a “due date” of April 3-7 because I know some of you are going away for a holiday and may not have time before going back to school. Once all the puzzles have been returned to school we will trade them and try to solve someone else’s! I have also posted a copy in the “Need an Extra” section of the blog in case you need a practice sheet!

Break:

-Have a fun, productive, relaxing, adventurous, calm, restful, wonderful break. I hope everyone gets a chance to do something they really want to do! I am headed for some R&R and plan on doing a lot of reading!

-This past Monday I sent home 2 Home Reading sheets so everyone should have one for next week too. If you can complete the reading graph for March that would be great 🙂

Post Break:

-Once we get back we will be starting our next themes. In Social Studies we will look at “Connecting with Canadians”. In Science we will learn about Forces that Attract and Repel. In ELA we will continue to work on sentence fluency and conventions in writing and fluency in reading. We will finish up the Literature Circles we’ve been working hard on too! In math we will keep working on basic facts for multiplication and developing recall, relating multiplication to division then starting fractions and decimals! We will spend time each cycle reviewing other numeracy skills such as addition and subtraction (3 and 4 digits) with regrouping and utilizing mental math strategies and vocabulary.

-The next vertical team session for Canada is on April 7th.

-Book orders are due on Tuesday, April 4th.

I think that is all I wanted to say for now! Keep an eye on Instagram to check out all the fun we will have during these last two days of school!!!!

Until next time!

Danielle

Spring Ahead!!!

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Good Morning & Happy Weekend!

First things first…this is your friendly reminder about the time change tomorrow! I feel like if I say it enough times that perhaps I will remember and not miss my morning Yoga class lol!

This Week At School!

-We are working hard to get everything ready for Student Led Conferences next Thursday and Friday. Your child was given the yellow sheet that they handed in with your time preference marked on it. This time the specific time is written in the right hand column. If your child did not return a yellow sheet, we gave you a time. If any of the times do not work for you, please call the office or let me know and we can work something out. Be prepared to see some amazing work! Conferences are Student Led, and not for meeting one on one with me. If you have any concerns, please make another appointment with me. This conference is meant to be a celebration of learning. There may be up to 4 families in the room at one time, and you may go through the “learning tour” in any order that works for you. Report cards will be sent home on Monday 🙂

-We had our first full session in our vertical teams for Canada 150. It was really fun to be mixed up from grades 1-6 and focus on one aspect of Aboriginal culture. We are looking forward to our next session in April. Mrs. Silk’s group is working on Aboriginal dance and I found this video online to show the kids. We thought Erik Pipestem is pretty amazing! Check out the video! (It is a link to a Facebook video so let me know if you can access it. Seems to work from my viewpoint!) P.S. We watched it on our new Interactive Whiteboard!!!! Pretty excited to have that up and running!

Hoop Dancer at Calgary Flames Game

-Yogis! Our yogis are almost finished! Here is a glimpse at the progress…then no more pictures until you can see them in person!!! The colours of the Yogis are inspired by the feeling that the students feel in that post. I love them so much!  My Yoga instructor is super impressed with our project!

Ask Me…There is no formal Ask Me…question this week. Since our day was so busy yesterday, we didn’t have time to write a question down. Some students still wanted to do one so here it is…Ask Me…about my Yogi! Some of the kids wrote it down after school ended, some said they’d remember it, and some don’t want to do it at all. These options are all fine with me!

I look forward to seeing everyone either Thursday or Friday. Have a great weekend 🙂

Until next time,

Danielle

Recap & Looking Forward!

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Happy Saturday Everyone!

To catch you up on what went on last week…

-Festival: We were great (as you heard on the last post). I’m still trying to figure out how to post the second song. It doesn’t want to email such a large file. I’ll keep thinking!

-Folklorama: Our two presentations were super fun. The first one was about African music. We got to listen to many different instruments and songs, then we also got to play some instruments and sing and learn some dances! There were so many smiles going around…it was contagious! The second presentation was on the form of Chinese Martial Arts called Wushu. We had an instructor and one of his students demonstrate their craft. They were amazing. They moved so quickly and purposefully. After that they taught us some moves too. They announced that they brought prizes for 3 students who they felt were very focussed during our ‘lesson’. Two students from 123 won! Good job!!!! What a great way to learn and celebrate other cultures 🙂

-MTYP: On Friday afternoon we had the MTYP touring performance called Dib & Dob. This was an interesting play because…there was no English! The two main characters spoke a language that the two of them had made up. Some of the words were similar to English, but we had to use other clues to figure out what they were trying to say!

-Other: Our classroom is looking a bit different! The old SmartBoard is gone, new projector is being installed and the bulletin/whiteboard from the back of the room is now where the SmartBoard used to be! We are getting very excited to be able to try out our new technology! The research we’ve been doing for our country projects is paying off! We are now in the making and sharing of information stage! Flags are being put up, Lego figures of symbols are being created, and facts are being learned! We finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone!! I have been convinced to read the second book. It is interesting to see how excited the students are about the series. It was very fun to read and I hope the class enjoys the second one as much as the first. We will however read a book in between. One about human rights.

-Ask Me…Question: This week the question asks the students to share 3 things that happened this week. It was such a busy and exciting week that I thought it’d be nice to have a chat with our families about things that happened! *Now that it is March…can you please do the February reading graph at home 🙂

Looking Forward!

-This week will continue to work on our country projects. Some of the activities/stations we have planned are: Fast Facts (most are finished), Flags (we are about 2/3 finished), Lego symbols (1/5 finished), Food (making a local dish out of plasticine), Language (sharing how to say words and phrases), Postcard writing and Human Rights activities.

-We are going to finish our bridges with Murray on Tuesday afternoon!!! We are also going to construct another structure that we are creating for the purpose of testing strength! It will be an instant challenge, so we will need to think quickly!

-We will work though more multiplication facts! Most of the kids are really liking multiplication. After understanding that multiplication means ‘groups of’ and how multiplication can be represented, students enjoy learning their basic facts and like to share how quickly they can recall the facts!

Need more practice? Try coming up with a fact and represent it in these four ways (Commutative Property-“turn around fact”, Repeated Addition-using adding to represent multiplication, Groups of-use objects and put them into equal groups that match the fact, Array-an arrangement of objects in columns and rows that match the fact

-Canada 150: We are having our first Vertical Group activity day on March 9. We will find our who is in our group and which station we will start at. I’m looking forward to leading my station about Aboriginal Languages and excited to hear how the students in the other groups (Dance, Drama, Drumming) enjoy their experiences as well. Reminder that throughout the rest of the year all students in 123 will be part of all four Language and Culture stations.

-February is over…we should all be finished reading the I Love To Read Chapter books chosen by each student. Students were asked to read a new chapter book that they could do a little project on. These projects are starting this week! If you have not finished reading, please spend some time this week finishing up your book!

-We are going to do our final copies for the Narrative writing that we wrote awhile ago. This piece is meant to be published and shared at conferences. I am still missing a few narrative writing pieces. If I do not receive them ASAP then I will  not be able to edit the work and students will publish without teacher edits.

-Book orders are due this week. I am hoping that this order will not take as long as the last order did. It is very unusual for Scholastic to take more than a week (in my experience). Apologies to any inconveniences from the last order.

Have a great, great weekend!!!

Danielle

Music Festival

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Here is a little clip of one of our songs from the Music Festival today! I tried to post it on Instagram…after i removed the audio from the video. Turns out I couldn’t figure it out! If this works I will do the same process with the second song.

The kids were great today. Very well behaved and they sounded beautiful. After we got back to school we listened to the performance and the kids could really hear how we sounded more like one voice than like 70!

Bravo 3/4 Choir!