Hello Everyone!

I hope you are enjoying this gorgeous weather and sunshine today! I’ve decided to grab a few plants today and do my best to nurture…not neglect them!

As you know we have postponed our Outdoor Classroom Day until this upcoming week. The forecast keeps changing on us! First it said 0% chance of rain on Monday, then it said 70% chance and now it says 20%…if it’s nice we will go out as much as possible! Murray will do Yoga outdoors I believe and I will check with Ms. V about music. Creating our “Forest in a Jar” projects will be done outside on Tuesday afternoon, as well as our next Drama project! Hint…Think Classic Robert Munsch!! Please be prepared to go outside as much as possible over the next 5 weeks, but especially on Monday and Tuesday next week 🙂

We’ve really enjoyed watching our first two videos about favourite outdoor spaces! It’s an exciting way to learn more about where our classmates like to play, relax, and Friluftliv! Both families e-mailed me their videos. Perhaps that is the easiest way to get them to me. I’ve decided to share mine here in case anyone was interested!

A Trip to Taylor Bay!

We are still working on fractions, decimals and division in Math! If your child finds multiplication facts challenging maybe together you can find some time to practice those basic math facts (since they do come in so, so, so handy with division!). Need a reminder about division?! Check out this Math Antics Division Video!

Curious about fractions and decimals? Here are a few videos to help with that too! Math Antics: Fractions and Decimal Numbers and Math Antics: Fractions are Parts are great tools to watch (over and over again if it helps!).

We would like students to be able to count by 1/2 (1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2, 3…), know that there is a numerator (the part of the whole you are representing) and a denominator (the whole), be able to count by tenths (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1…), read decimal numbers (1.4 is read as one and four tenths, not 1 point 4), order fractions with like denominators (Example: know that 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 is the order for fourths/quarters), know that 2/4 is the same as 1/2 and 4/4 is the same as 1 whole, name a compatible fraction (in picture form and in fraction form) (If I have 4/5 then I would need 1/5 to make a whole. This is an example of a compatible fraction as we are trying to make one whole). See if you can have fun with fractions and decimals at home, maybe even while you cook!

We have been doing more writing assessments and…wow, our writing sure has improved!! We are using a beginning, middle and end, focussing on an idea and providing lots of detail, paying attention to voice and word choice, using a variety of sentence types (no robot writers in 123 anymore!) and paying attention to conventions (punctuation, capitalization and spelling). We’ve been working on revising our work as well as editing it and learning what the differences between these two things are!

Swimming…everything went well at swimming according to Murray! Thanks for being ready for the pool so you could get to your lesson quickly. The next lesson is on Thursday morning (May 30). The process will be the same this week!

Family Life (Grade 4) and Safety (Grade 3) starts on Tuesday. We will have about 6 lessons over the coming weeks. Have a question? Let me know!

Book Clubs! Overall the students seem pretty excited about the book club. On Tuesday we will have our first book club discussion at school. Students are reminded to read their assigned chapters. These have been written on the board all week at school and is posted to Seesaw, so you can refer to that if you forget!

I know I mentioned Drama earlier! We had a lot of fun presenting our Elephant and PIggie stories to our buddies (and each other). Our next adventure is Reader’s Theatre for classic Robert Munsch stories. The students will find out their groups on Monday or Tuesday. The groups will decide on who will do which part(s) and then each student will get a script to use. Some students may wish to learn their lines…that is perfectly fine, but not mandatory. Students will be able to use their scripts as needed during their performance. We will be using some props and costumes, so if your child asks if they can bring something in then I will be letting them know it’s up to you as a family. Please label things if you are worried about items being misplaced.

Our country studies are in full force. After students have researched a “global issue” within their  chosen country the will continue to research things that interest them about that country. We will be doing more research at school, however for students who are interested they can research at home and use google docs to continue to work on it at school (like we did before). We are reminding students to take notes from the websites and to give credit to the websites used as these words are not our own. We’ve received many photos for our Worldwide Adventurers bulletin board and it’s not too late if you want to send in a photo! This bulletin board is always a good topic of conversation from passers by!

Congrats to our runners from 123 and Montrose School in general. You ALL represented us well! In a few weeks it’ll be time for the main event…the Fit Run at Assiniboine park!

I think that’s it for now…

Until next time,

Danielle

Hello Everyone!

Today I have the pleasure of writing this post from Lake of the Woods. Our cabin is my favourite place to be in the whole world! It also happens to be the place that I will do my “Outdoor Place Video Project” from…with the help of my niece and nephew of course! It’s quite windy here today, so we are going to wait until tomorrow to film! I hope you were all able to take a peek at the Seesaw post to find the instructions for our video project. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

As you already know there are many things happening in 123! Here are a few things that are important for you to be aware of or reminded of!

-Family Life is coming soon! Helen will be teaching the Grade 4 students Family Life and I will be teaching the Grade 3 students about safety. A booklet about Growing Up will be sent home early next week with the Grade 4s.

-The WSD’s water safety initiative starts next week at Pam Am Pool for Grade 4s only! We have 3 sessions (May 23, 30 and June 6). Please send your child ready for the pool (with their suits and towels in a bag, etc.) as students will be leaving right at 9:00 and returning around 11:00. Helen and Murray will accompany the Grade 4s from 122 and 123. The students from 126 will have their lessons after us as there are only so many kids allowed in the pool at once. Ginny and I will stay back with the Grade 3s. *PS-We will have fun too!! 😉

-We had a spelling test on Friday. If your child has brought home a post it note with words written on it, those are the words that they misspelled. Prior to the test the students copied the words, put them in ABC order, wrote them in sentences and did choice activities to help them practice the proper spelling. They were also asked to write only the words they needed extra practice with down and study them at home prior to the test. Once we do our next test I will recopy all the words from the Fry Lists that they’ve made errors on and each student with have their own list to work on. We will start our final words from the 3rd Hundred List this upcoming week and have a test the following week. Have a question…let me know!

-We are starting an optional book club! Due to a change in scheduling in our timetables we are not able to do a formal book club with 122 and 126 as we had originally planned. We are however doing drama with our grade group and will be working on Robert Munsch Reader’s Theatre starting on May 28! Because many of the kids in Room 123 were still interested in participating in a novel study in the form of a book club, I have created one for kids from our class. The students were asked a) if they wanted to join and b) which of the three books they would like to read. From there I have developed a schedule and a list of requirements for the participants. I will send that information via Seesaw so parents will know what to expect. IF you do not receive a Seesaw notification it means that your child was not interested in joining. There are only a few students not wanting to participate which is fine with me as their reasoning was that they already were in the middle of a series and wanted to continue reading that instead. If you are reading this and would prefer to have your child in a book club, please let me know and I will make arrangements!

-We’ve been doing some drama with Elephant and Piggie books and are ready to perform for each other and our learning buddies in Room 124! We will do our best to record some of each performance to send home via Seesaw. After watching the rehearsal process I already know that they are going to be great!!

-We are having an Outdoor Day! May 23rd is actually Outdoor Classroom Day and we were going to use the outdoor day planned by our Earth Day committee for that date, however we realized it’s a swimming date and would miss the morning. So…instead we are going to change it to Friday, May 24! The schedule for the day as set by the students includes read aloud, writing, math, a soccer game, a community walk, planting something, a visit to the new playground by Pan Am Pool and some choice time. Sounds like a great day to me! If anyone would like to spend the day or part of the day with us let me know! Please make sure your child is dressed to be outside all day. *If it rains we will postpone our outdoor day of learning!

-The Grades 4-6 students in Rub Club are going to River Heights for the Mini Fit Run on Wednesday, May 22! Notes with more information were sent home on Friday. Didn’t get the note? Let me know!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Until Next Time,

Danielle

First off I wanted to wish all you marvellous moms a Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you all have a fabulous day in a way that is most special to you! I always like to take the time on Mother’s Day to thank all the moms out there for all they do! Of course there is my own mom, whom I won’t get to see until next weekend. Then there is my sister, my grandmother and aunts and close friends.  But…I’m also so fortunate to have a whole set of colleagues that are there to act like  moms to me and the students, when our mom can’t be there! I get advice, homemade food and treats, invitations to spend time at their houses, and tips on how to remove a pesky stain! They say it takes a village to raise a child…that seems to be true even when the child is a grown up! So thanks to everyone out there who acts like a mom. May this day be special to all of you!

What Took Place Last Week:

-We continued working in math groups with 122 and 126. One day per cycle we are working with the same groups as we did from the our last common learning cycle. We will continue to work on fractions, place value, representing numbers, rote counting and other skills that need a little extra practice

-We spent lots of time outside and have really tried to soak up the spring weather! Please have your child ready to spend time outside each day as we will be working outdoors any chance we can. It’s easy to pick up our read aloud book and listen outside, or take 10 minutes for a movement break, or a walk to help clear our heads or do mindfulness while the warm sun and light breeze touches our skin. We are so fortunate to have this green space around us and we intend on using it as much as possible!

-We did a fun 75 minute outdoor activity with 122 on Friday. In groups of 4 the students had to read through a set of simple instructions and complete tasks such as gesture drawings, estimating steps for a distance across the field then finding the actual number of steps it took, writing poetry, measuring objects found in the schoolyard, looking for or creating arrays, figuring out a yoga sequence to do, etc. The weather perfect day for the task and things went really well. *You may have seen the Manitoba birthday post on Seesaw! The most challenging part of the whole activity was reading and following the instructions independently. This should not have been an issue as the instructions were quite simple. We will continue to work on developing this skill as it happens on a regular basis in the class. For example: A student will say I don’t know how to do this and when asked if they read the question/example/instructions the answer is most often no. I think it has to do with having so many things happen instantly for us. We expect an answer immediately because we are so used to the immediate response we get from technology. If you have a chance at home, try writing out some instructions and see how your child follows them. Of course, there may be questions that haven’t been addressed in the instructions. Then it’s a perfectly acceptable time to ask further questions, but not when the instructions are clearly stated. It’s easier for us (as in all people) to have someone tell us what to do instead of reading through the requirements, but what happens if we don’t develop this skill?!

-If you loved your card you have Ginny to thank! She helped the kids make them…as she is the best card maker in town 😉

What’s Happening This Week:

-Monday is a Murray Day! I’m doing a forest exploration with the 1/2 classes. He plans on doing Genius Hour and starting some research for our country study!

-We have decided to go back to our morning edits! I will write up a short paragraph and fill it with the types of errors we commonly forget to edit in our work (but know how to do when asked the rules of conventions). I encourage you to do these at home as extra practice too!

-We have some major reading to do in Front Desk! We need to finish it in an amount of time that will allow us to read one more book! Natalie Lloyd, author of The Problem Children, A Snicker of Magic and The Key to Extraordinary has written a new book. It’s called Over the Moon. I have it a home now and will give it a pre-read to make sure it’s age appropriate, but the consensus is that the class would like to read it before June 28!!

-We will continue to work through some division and make the connections to multiplication, subtraction and fractions. The students who have recall of their multiplication facts are finding division to be much easier than they thought!

-It will be a fairly ‘regular’ week, which is nice as things have been so busy lately!

Have a wonderful Sunday celebrating all the moms out there! Take a second to wish Manitoba a  149th birthday and thank it for being our home!

P.S. Hudson wanted to share that she was photographed at the Andrew Dunn walk in Oakbank. She loves a good walk for a good charity!

Until Next Time,

Danielle