October 26 - 29, 2020

We had a busy week learning about spiders through the story Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin. The story started with 3 lessons from grandpa spider and we drew images to represent his lessons. Then we had to decide if his lessons were fact or opinion

As the story moves along, spider shares how he practices moving.

We brainstormed verbs to describe how a spider moves then using Scratch (a coding site) we explored how to move a spider through a series of commands.

As individuals discovered a new command they shared it with the group. The last day we started to explore and learn about the spider’s web. Using measurement (cm), patterning (AB) and art we created our own webs.

Next week we are going to add a spider to our web. On Thursday, we were challenged to build a web that would hold an insect. We were given a mason jar lid, string, a kidney bean and tape. We could work in pairs or by ourselves. 

This week our walking stories focused on pumpkins and costumes. We had to add descriptive details to our stories. Our planning started on Monday and we had choice if we used a picture planner or a web. Tuesday was our draft day and on Wednesday we revised and edited our stories.

Reminder:

November 9 – Picture retakes

November 11 – Remembrance Day

 

Our Pumpkin Patch

Pictures went  home today.

 

Oct. 19 – 23

This week we listened to the story, Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin. While we were listening to the story and looking at the pictures in the book we focused on three things: I see, I think and I wonder.We had some really great questions and observations come from the story about spiders that we are going to explore further in the upcoming week. 

In math, we focused on representing the numbers to twenty in a variety of different ways. 

Also, we finished drawing our pumpkins and they went up on the wall for display to make a wonderful pumpkin display. 

Upcoming Dates:

October 30 - Non Instructional Day 

November 9 - Picture Retakes

November 11 - Remembrance Day

 Week of October 13-16th

Literacy

It was a very busy week as we worked toward our reading goal of 20 minutes and we reached it by the end of the week. For the upcoming week we will continue to practice reading 20 minutes each day to build up our reading stamina. 

During our guided writing we selected one of our "About Me" walking stories and worked on revising and editing it.

Here are a few examples of our "About Me" walking stories.

Math

We continued to develop our understanding of odd and even numbers, counting backwards by 2s, 5s, and 10s, raced to 100 and started looking at geometric shapes in art (circle) and science (rectangle).

Science

We started to represent our insect research that we have collected through observations and online information. We found out some interesting information that we shared with each other. Our displays contain our photos from the week before.

 

Art

We drew and used crayons to create our pumpkins that are going to be displayed in the hallway outside the classroom for the upcoming week. During the week of October 26th we are going to use geometric shapes to create our own Halloween Pumpkins!

Have a wonderful week!

 October 13, 2020

Just a reminder tomorrow is picture day!

 October 5th – 8th

What a busy week we had exploring the great outdoors for any insects we might find and find we did. We discovered an assortment of insects and other crawling things that we could not identify. In small groups, we went outside with our iPads to take photos of our finds. The next day we made observations about our finds. Our observations were about the physical appearance of the small crawling and flying bugs we discovered. 

We also spent time logging into the computer and the Google Classroom. Our goal is to try and remember our username and password. In writing this past week we listened to the story, “The Hello, Goodbye Window” by Norton Juster. After listening to the story, we discussed special places from the story and our own special places. The topic we were writing about this week was our “special place” and what we did in that place. For the upcoming week, we will select one of our previous writing and work on creating details as we revise the first draft. 

In social we created a map of our desk and discovered where north is located from inside our classroom. This week we are creating a map of our classroom using geometric 2D shapes such as a rectangle, circle, and a triangle. Once we layout our maps we will be placing a compass and title onto our maps. We will also be creating a legend for the shapes.

We listened to the story by Todd Parr, "Thankful Book". One of the writing elements we noticed was the pattern the author used in his story. We used that pattern when we shared three things that we were thankful for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp3EiSTywX4

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Sept. 28 – Oct. 2

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to our Meet the Teacher Night. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sept. 30 – Orange Shirt Day – To learn about the importance of Orange Shirt Day and residential schools we listened to the book “Shi Shi Etco” shared with us from the grade 4 students in Mrs. Sayani’s class. Then we brainstormed how we could offer a helping hand to others. We came up with some very thoughtful answers, “Learn another language, so we can talk to other people in their language”, “help with little things, like opening a door”, asking people how they are, “donate food or time” and learn about other people.

Math

In math this week, we collaborated on word problems in small groups. We talked out our thinking and made suggestions to each other. It was quiet at the start, but once we got into the problem it was a little easier to share our thinking. Our first problem was the Checkerboard Problem and we had to find out how many squares were on the board. 

We also worked on skip counting by 5s up to a 100. For this we clapped out the count, then counted out high fives and put them into our math books. 

On Friday, we looked at pointillism and the work of George Seuart. We created art using groups of fives, geometric shapes like a circle, square or a triangle and warm or cool colours. The finished results were great. 

We also used the Terry Fox run as a starting point for our travels across Canada. We learned about Terry and where he started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland. During the week, we listened to a song about Canada and by the second time we heard it some of us were singing it in the class. 

Here is the link to the song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J66pYqmlXc

On Friday, we participated in the Terry Fox run.

Upcoming Dates:

Oct. 9 – Non-Instructional Day – No Classes

Oct. 12 – Thanksgiving – No Classes

Oct. 14 – Picture Day

Oct. 30 – Non-Instructional Day – No Classe