Happy Saturday! Well…I hope none of you are suffering with the cold I have. At least I feel up to updating the blog (which is an improvement from yesterday)!
Here is a little about what we did last week and what is coming up this week!
It was so nice to see all the smiling faces welcome me back to school! I always feel so happy to hear the friendly “Good Mornings” and all the students were to interested to hear about my trip. We started Monday off with some sharing about our holiday and then turned that into a writing assignment. It was a narrative piece about some aspect of the holidays that I really enjoyed reading! We also worked on persuasive writing and informational writing this week. These were meant to guide me in my teaching and see how we have progressed since the last time we took a sample of these 3 types of writing. The persuasive piece was about each student trying to convince me to read their choice for our next read aloud. Let me tell you…it is very difficult to choose! It’s narrowed down to three…Matilda, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightning Thief. I’ve got some decisions to make! I think Listen to Reading is one of my favourite times of the day. I love meeting as a group, then reading for 20ish minutes. It is how we start our day and I love that routine. It isn’t just me reading a story. It is a discussion about vocabulary, making predictions, finding connections, discussing plot and characters, etc. I often get persuaded to read just one more chapter or find an extra few minutes throughout the day to read!
Matilda Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Our informational piece was “How To” writing of their choice. We will be working more on organization in writing (starting with an exciting lead sentence (the appetizer), forming paragraphs (the main course), and ways to end our work that make it feel finished (the dessert).
We also worked on Time and Money in math, and are hoping to finish those two units up soon. We will do some graphing and then jump into a big unit on multiplication! We will have an exciting piece to show you about multiplication one day…it’s is quite the representation of how talented and capable these students are! (Just a teaser…stay tuned!). Note: the Ask Me.. question this week is about drawing ways to make $5.00 using coins. Can you fill that box?!? I’m interested to see if anyone does some really ‘non standard’ ways to make $5.00! Again-I remind all students and families that Home Reading folders need to come to school each day. Please fill out the reading tracking sheet at the end of each week and the Ask Me… question on the weekend. I’ve asked that any student who didn’t fill in their monthly reading graph for December to please do it at home. *Reading sheets for the holidays as well as last week are in the folders 🙂
Something new for us was…DRAMA! We started to work on some tableaus which will lead into doing a whole class mannequin challenge! The kids are so excited about that!!! Check out the link below for an example of another’s class’ mannequin challenge!
Mrs Cauldell’s Mannequin Challenge on youtube
We also worked with Cathy on our Ancient Civilization tube people green screen pics! I think we’ve decided to print these out in colour and turn them into post cards for our student portfolios. As soon as we are all finished I will post some pictures. They are turning out awesome!!! or Awesomely Epic as the kids would say!
It felt nice to get back into a routine this week. Murray is no longer doing Inquiry with us, but that does not mean that we are no longer doing Inquiry! Our next theme is countries from around the world, with a special focus on materials and structures. I’m not 100% sure what this will look like because I want ideas and input from the class. All I know is that there will be student voice, hands on activities, research, sharing, the 4Cs and helpfully some special guests. If you would like to come and share something with us about a destination you have travelled, or a country that is part of your heritage please, please, please let me know. It would be fantastic to have family come in and do some cooking with us, or show pictures, or share a slideshow, or teach us a craft or part of language. Since I love to travel this really is the most exciting unit for me to do with the class! Also-an at home project will be coming soon. More details to come!
This is an example of the tube people on location! Cathy did this for us…so fun!
Apologies for the long post…but now you are in the loop!
Danielle
