Language We LOVE D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read)! We even have a new theme song for it: D.E.A.R. theme song Gotta Keep Reading. When students walk in from recess and hear that music, they know to find a book they can read (the words OR the pictures) and a comfy spot in the room; maybe on the couch, in a chair, under my desk (!), on their desks (!) or just with a pillow on the floor. Doesn’t matter where you are – as long as you’re reading! Willie Word Choice is helping us make good choices when we write. He reminds us to use words that are exciting! At Young People’s Theatre we saw the play Where the Wild Things Are and it was spectacular! I’ve never been to a more interactive theatre J We started off by sitting on one of three islands (we got the red one!), right there on the floor of the stage. From them one out, we were a part of the production. Dylan was chosen to go onstage and help the storyteller keep the wild things all boxed up; Isabelle and Shawna, Rowan and Tyler helped Max create waves in the ocean; we were all sea monsters as Max sailed to the islands; Kelly got to go pull the vines from Max’s bedroom and pass them along to EVERYONE in the audience; once Max arrived, WE were the Wild Things (and we even got to wear Masks!); he saluted us at the Royal Rumpus with ‘Who Haa Hee!’; then the blue, green and red island Wild Things were all invited on stage to ‘shake our booties’ at the rumpus; Max got lonely though, and sent us all to bed with no dinner; Isabelle told the storyteller it was because he missed his mother; Max sailed home and had his dinner in his bedroom … and it was still hot. Was it all in his imagination, or did it really happen? Ask your son or daughter what they think!Watch the short film here. We’ve done a lot of reading and writing integrated with Science over the past few days. First, to get our ‘minds on’ to the steps of science experiments, we watched Evan make OOZE Is it a solid? Is it a liquid? You decide! Then, we did our first experiment in class: mixing solid baking soda and liquid vinegar … we created a gas, and it filled a balloon! Evan did the same experiment, so we watched him too. To get ready for Earth Hour, we watched Todd Parr’s Earth Book Read Aloudon the Smartboard. We even tweeted to him to let him know we were using his book, and guess what … he tweeted us back! He said he was proud of us “Love, Todd”. So cool! To celebrate Earth Hour, we also looked atUnbelievable Earth Photos – because it’s all made of Solids, Liquids and Gases. For Earth Hour we powered down; turned off all our lights, unplugged the computers, the Smartboard, the pencil sharpener, the CD player – everything in the outlets, we unplugged! We used the natural sunlight to light our room and played good old fashion games! We played Snakes and Ladders, Trouble, Connect Four, did Arts and Crafts and even built with Lego and Popoids. Enjoy this Popoids commercial from the 1980’s … your kids still love to play with them! Math I’ve been speaking a lot to the “W.I.N.ing” strategy to solve math problems (using Words, Images and Numbers) and wanted to offer families a bit more information on the topic. The following has been taking from the Ontario Mathematics Curriculum and should shed some more light on the Mathematical Process. Problem Solving “Problem solving is central to learning mathematics. By learning to solve problems and by learning through problem solving, students are given numerous opportunities to connect mathematical ideas and to develop conceptual understanding. Problem solving forms the basis of effective mathematics programs and should be the mainstay of mathematical instruction.” Problem Solving: * helps students become more confident in their ability to do mathematics; * helps students develop mathematical understanding and gives meaning to skills and concepts in all strands; * allows students to reason, communicate ideas, make connections, and apply knowledge and skills. Reasoning and Proving – the “W” in W.I.N.ing, ‘Words’ to explain your thinking “The reasoning process supports a deeper understanding of mathematics by enabling students to make sense of the mathematics they are learning. The process involves exploring phenomena, developing ideas, making mathematical conjectures, and justifying results. Teachers draw on students’ natural ability to reason to help them learn to reason mathematically.” Representing – the “I” and “N” in W.I.N.ing, “Images” and “Numbers” to show your thinking “In elementary school mathematics, students represent mathematical ideas and relationships and model situations using concrete materials, pictures, diagrams, graphs, tables, numbers, words, and symbols. Learning the various forms of representation helps students to understand mathematical concepts and relationships; communicate their thinking, arguments, and understandings; recognize connections among related mathematical concepts; and use mathematics to model and interpret realistic problem situations. Students should be able to go from one representation to another, recognize the connections between representations, and use the different representations appropriately and as needed to solve problems.” Manipulatives. “Students should be encouraged to select and use concrete learning tools to make models of mathematical ideas. Students need to understand that making their own models is a powerful means of building understanding and explaining their thinking to others.” *We tend to use base ten blocks and snap cubes in Room 102. Here are some of the Word Problems we solved together this week: Try these at home:
Skip Counting Games on the Smartboard Balloon Pop Subtraction OtherMarch’s Character Education Trait is Honesty. A few read alouds we’ve shared are: Ruthie and the (Not so) Teeny Tiny Lie , David Gets in TroubleAfterwards, students role played but added more ‘honesty’ into their skits. It was World Water Day this month and we celebrated by wearing blue on the 21st! The TDSB even retweeted our photo to their 27K followers! We readA Cool Drink of Water and All the Water in the World. Listen to this Read Aloud by Sebastian – he reads with great fluency and expression! Can you hear the WOW words in this story?! New to Listen To Reading Computer: Centre at the Daily 5 Educational Computer Games by grade level abcya.com Sight Word Bingo Sight Word Spelling 100s Chart Number Sense Balloon Pop Subtraction
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anguage Happy Birthday Doctor Seuss! On Monday March 3rd we celebrated this special day by reading TONS of Dr. Seuss books. Some of our favourites during Reader’s Workshop were Hop on Pop, One Fish – Two Fish – Red Fish – Blue Fish, Ten Apples Up on Top, The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Came Back. Students rotated to different books and with different buddies, practicing their fluency, tone of voice and spying sight words. For Writer’s Workshop, we read “The Cat in the Hat” and giggled about the silly stuff that Thing 1 and Thing 2 did once they came out of that big red box. Students were then given the story starter “If Thing 1 and Thing 2 were let out in my house …” and asked to finish it off! Would they be silly and play with them? Would they be responsible and try to calm them down? Or maybe a little bit of both? Ask your son or daughter how their story ended! Remember – we “Think it! Say it! Write it!” As a wrap up to the day, students listened to “Oh The Places You’ll Go”, one of my Dr. Seuss favourites J The following day, we tied this story into our Science unit on Solids, Liquids and Gases – if you were to travel on a solid, through a liquid or gas, how might you travel? For example, buses and bikes travel on solids, boats and water skis travel through liquids, and hot air balloons and gliders travel through the gaseous air! Can you think of other ways to travel? Mathematics This week was all about subtraction strategies. Do you count back on your fingers? Do you use a number line? Maybe you’re in grade 2 and you draw base ten blocks? Whatever strategy you use you have to explain it with Words, Images and Numbers (*To have a W.I.N.ing strategy!). Above are the two class examples we went through as lessons, one for the grade ones (#s less than 18) and the grade twos (#’s less than 100). These are some of the types of questions students answered independently in class: Grade 1s: Isabelle has 8 markers. She gave some to David. Now she has 5 markers. How many did she give to David? Benjamin has 12 pennies. Isabel has 4 pennies. How many more pennies deos Benjamin have than Isabel? Grade 2s: Kojo collected 37 eggs from his chickens. He and his family sold 12 at the market. How many eggs do Kojo and his family have left? Jerome has 86 seeds to plant. He planted 32 before he had to take a break and drink some water. How many seeds does he have left to plant? ** Try to make up some of your own word problems at home! Don’t forget to show how you know what the answer is. The answer is not the most important part – it’s the strategy and the thinking that got you there!! Other We had a special assembly this week to learn a little bit more about anaphylaxis. We talked about food allergies and why it’s important to respect students with these allergies. We even watched a short film - Alexander the Elephant Who Couldn’t Eat Peanuts. Did you hear the GREAT BIG CRUNCH?!? The whole school crunched into tasty, crispy apples on Thursday March 6th to celebrate Food Share’s day of good food education. |
In our Room 108 Classroom Community, we foster an engaging, respectful and caring environment. I aim to balance a consistent program with flexible responsiveness to students' individual needs. Archives
November 2017
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