Language After Reading Todd Parr's "The Thankful Book" students used the sentence starter on the Smart Board "I am thankful for ..." and had to remember to include the word because in their journal entry. As they write they do their Five Finger Check - 1) I use capital letters in the write places 2) I use punctuation 3) my word wall words are spelled correctly (the 100 Most Frequently Used Words List) 4) I have proper spacing 5) I can reread what I wrote, and it makes sense! (e.g., the printing is legible and I can sound out all the words).
Math On Tuesday morning we had an outdoor classroom and took a walk, noticing all the different fall leaves; their shapes, sizes, textures, colours etc. Each student collected three leaves to bring back to the class and we let them dry over night. The next day, the students practised sorting leaves in their table groups and then, as a whole class we sorted according to colour. But before we did, we used OK Google on my smart phone to pick some more creative labels for our sorting rule. Rather than red, brown, yellow, green and purple we picked cardinal, chocolate, golden jade and violet. After we sorted as a whole class on the carpet, each table group had another responsibility, to count the leaves and organize them in such a way that when the reader looked at their work, it was simple and easy to tell how many leaves they had altogether. In effect, they were using words (the colour labels; number words) images (the leaves themselves) and numbers (tagging each leaf with a number label like 1, 2,3; writing a number sentence like 7+7=14; writing the final number somewhere visible, like with a big defining circle around it). Students used W.I.N.ing strategies to show their work! One group even decided to draw a ten frame, place the leaves inside and then with the remaining four leaves, they placed them in a straight line just to the outside of the frame with a number sentence of 10+4=14 ... so proud! On the third day, we looked at all the data we had collected and worked together to organize it into a graph! Now, this data management lesson took a bit of a turn when the kids wondered, 'how do the leaves change into these different colours'? We took a break from our Social Studies to leap into Science (even if Living Things is scheduled for 2nd term!). I signed out books from the library and we watched some films on the Smart Board, Real World Science, Plants and Seeds and found out that it has something to do with chlorophyll and photosynthesis. Ask your son or daughter if they can explain it to you! Social Studies We watched and discussed Franklin Helps Out, Mama Bear's New Job and did lots of book browsing through our themed book bin family/school/community. As we browsed students came up with a lot of wonderings that we'll delve deeper into over the term (one of my favourites - how do teeth really fall out?!). Other
Swim class! We had another successful swim class - everyone participated! *If your son or daughter ever forgets to bring their suit, they can always borrow one from the HPAS Swim bin; we have some gently used suits that students can use, take home to wash, and then return for the next forgetful one :) **If YOU have any gently used suits that your little one has grown too big for, please consider sending it in for our shared bin. Thank you muchly!
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Rainy Days: *If it’s raining in the morning, students are asked to proceed to their classes for early arrival at 8:45 am. We get started with some Bookflix or Storyline Online on the SmartBoard while everyone filters in. Please send indoor shoes to be kept at school in our red ‘shoe bin’! It’s that time of year when students wear rain boots J
Daily Five Word Work - we learned the procedures for how to use our spelling materials; how to set them up, how to use them, and how to tidy them up. We realized that it's important to spell our words correctly when we're writing, because we care about our ideas and the people who will read them. Spending time practicing our spelling (and our printing!) will help us to become not only better spellers, printers and writers, but also better readers! Our new Scrabble Scramble “Say Cheese on Class Photo Day” – how many new words can you make? A second Word Work activity we started was “Give me Five” – choose five words that you KNOW how to spell, copying from the Word Wall, a book, a poster in the room, our daily schedule etc., and take the time to print them properly on our printing paper (no capitals, proper sizing etc.) Once they’re printed, choose one word and use it in a sentence. Star Wars Reads Day was a great success! It helped us launch another Daily Five centre, Read to Someone. Ask your son or daughter what EEKK! means and the steps to follow to be a successful reading buddy. And what are the three Ways to Read a Book? Read the words, read the pictures, retell a familiar story. Books we watched and read this week: Bookflix: Bear Has a Story to Tell (under Animals & Nature), My Neighbourhood (Family & Community) Storyline Online: I need my Monster Class Picture Day, Say Cheese I Just Forgot (all about responsibility, October’s Character Education Trait) The Night Before Thanksgiving Wind in the Willows – a year has passed and it’s summer again! Toad is still obsessed with his shiny motor cars so Rat, Badger and Mole have decided to move in to Toad Hall and help their friend realize the err of his ways. Social Studies During a Writer’s Workshop this week we talked and wrote about our needs, wants and how places in our community provide services. With the sentence starter on the SmartBoard “When I need ___ I go to ___” students worked in their writing journals. The second day, we used the same sentence starter but students worked on achieving an individual writing goal “My sentences start with a capital; My sentences end with punctuation; I spell my Word Wall Words correctly; there are spaces between my words; I can read my sentence and it makes sense”. Math We continued to work with data this week, starting by taking surveys with simple yes or no answers (Do you like dogs?), then moving into multiple options (Do you walk, bike or drive to school?). We played some sorting games on the carpet and built ‘human picto graphs’ as we labeled different spots on the carpet, for example lunchroom, home, daycare and students lined up to show where they usually ate lunch. The Overall Expectations for Data Management: organizing objects into categories using one attribute (grade 2, two attributes); collecting and organizing categorical data; reading and displaying data using concrete graphs and pictographs (grade 2, line and bar graphs); Drama We used the Feelings Flash Cards by Todd Parr to act out emotions, focusing on facial expressions and body language. How would you look if you were: confused, exhausted, silly, frustrated? XCountry – congratulations to our first timers, Julian, Findley, Gabriel H and Duncan! We had a great day at Ashbridges Bay, running with other grade 1 boys from across the South of TDSB. A great way to celebrate Fun & Run Club J NEXT week is Galina's last week :( She has been an amazing asset to our room 102 community and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors! We'll have a little farewell celebration on Thursday the 16th. The warm weather may be a bit unseasonal, but the grey skies and shorter days are definitely signs that the seasons are changing. This week we integrated the science (Daily & Seasonal Changes) and language curriculum throughout our Reader’s and Writer’s Workshops. After reading Fall Changes students were asked “How do you know it’s fall?”. We worked together on the carpet to brainstorm ideas with a sentence starter written on the Smart Board “I know it’s fall when …” then they chose one of the 5 senses, see, hear, smell, taste, touch. They then write in their Writing Journals, copying the sentence starter off the white board and completing it with their own ideas, or ones that had been shared by their peers. Ask your son or daughter which senses they use to discover the fall changes! During our language block this week we also started learning about our Daily Five literacy centres, a literacy structure that allows for differentiation in the classroom. It is an integrated literacy instruction and classroom management system, which includes five literacy tasks (Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, Word Work) that teache students self-regulation and independence. This week, we started with a Word Work activity called Scrabble Scramble. When students choose the Word Work centre, they go to their Word Work Folders in their cubbies, choose a new worksheet and the materials that go along with it, then get to work independently (this week, we did it as a whole group). To play Scramble you read the sentence that is posted on the window in the classroom “See the Fresh Fall Leaves”, copy it into your worksheet, then use the Most Frequently Used Words list at the table (and your own schema!) to write NEW words with only the letters found in the sentence. The next part is an integrated math task – what’s the point value of your new word? If you spell ‘have’ that’s 4+1+4+1= 10 points! Pretty easy but lots of fun. We watched two Toronto Public Library Tumblebooks (email me for login info for at-home use!) this week. One is a Drummer: “This lively concept book shows that the world around us is filled with things to count. Three are the dim sum carts filled with yummy treats, eight are the candles on a birthday cake, and ten are the bamboo stalks growing in a garden. Many of the featured objects are Asian in origin, but all are universal in appeal. With brilliantly colored illustrations, an ear-pleasing text and an informative glossary, this truly multicultural book will make counting a fun part of every child's day!” Counting Coconuts: “Monkey has gathered a huge pile of tasty coconuts. Before he can enjoy them he must count them. He discovers counting in sets is the fastest way to complete the task.” The big idea from counting coconuts (counting in sets, like, 2, 5, 10) helped us with our Data Management work this week. Galina taught our first lesson on taking surveys and collecting data; she had a survey sheet for us titled ‘how are you feeling today?’. It listed all our classmates (by their work cubby #s) and offered them 5 choices, happy, sad, angry, tired, other. On our first day students collected the data, on the next day, we organized our data into a chart called a picto graph – because it’s easier to understand the data when it’s organized, just like when you’re counting in sets! A picto graph has two axes, along the bottom axis we list the emotions and along the vertical axis we list the # of students. Once we tally up all the data for each emotion, we draw little pictures as symbols above each emotion. Check out thisinteractive Picto Graph online for more info and to create your own at home. For Drama this week, students were challenged NOT to use voice, only facial expressions and larger body movements to show emotions. We read Todd Parr’s The Feelings Book to activate our schema and get our ideas flowing. Then, I re-read the book as students spread out around the room and acted out each emotion. “Sometimes I feel lonely” Some kids crouched into little balls, some crossed their arms, others laid down on the ground, and there were lots of frowning faces. “Sometimes I feel proud”, lots of tall standing, shoulders thrust back and heads held high with smiles and wide open eyes! Try playing this game at home too! *Recognizing facial expressions and body language can help us understand other people’s feelings when trying help a friend, solve a problem, end an argument etc. We had our first swimming class this week and it was so awesome! Emily and Jessica were really clear about the expectations: we go into the change room, take off our clothes, leave them in a neat pile on the bench, then put on our suits, shower and bring our towels/shoes/caps/goggles/earplugs out to the pool deck. The best part, everyone participated in swim J The grade 2s who had done this before, showed our grade 1s how to slide into the pool and touch the bottom (everyone can in the shallow end). Then, some of our grade 1s wore life jackets, but they all got into the water together! Emily and Jessica did short lessons on blowing bubbles with your face in the water, kicking with your feet when you hang on to the side of the pool etc. Afterwards, we got out really early because we weren’t sure how long it would take us to change back into our school clothes. Oh my goodness – was I impressed! They went in, they changed, they came out! There was no wasted time, playing or being silly in the change rooms, which means, next time they can use that extra time as free play at the end of the lesson. They followed the three easy steps: suits off, clothes on, out to lunch! What a week it’s been. Despite the warm weather, many of us in the Room 102 community (myself included) have been off sick this week with a nasty cough and cold. Here’s hoping that with a little rest this weekend, lots of sleep and healthy eats, we’ll be back at it next week at full speed ;)
The Terry Fox walk was on Monday and it gave us the opportunity to discuss our feelings; how did your son or daughter feel after the walk? I told students that while I did feel sad and a bit lonely because it made me think of losing my dad to cancer, it also made me feel hopeful, to see so many people raising both awareness and funds to support cancer research. Galina then read us a book How are you Peeling? that helped us identify some other emotions that we may feel from time to time. Afterwards, we played a fun game called ‘Zap’ – we walked around the circle saying “Hi my name is Kelly and I’m feeling excited” – I’d then shake hands with someone else and ‘zap’ our names and emotions would switch places! I would walk to a new person and have to say “Hi, I’m Isabelle and I’m happy”, and Isabelle would say to her new person "Hi, I'm Kelly", then it would get all zapped again! The following day Galina told us that when she came to school she was feeling really excited, because she passed a park in her local community and that reminded her that she planned on visiting it later this week. Is there any place in your local community that makes you feel something – excited, sad, confused? We had a group conversation and then wrote about our ideas in our writing journals. Here are some example of how the local community makes our students feel: - excited when they go to a restaurant, because they can order fun drinks like Shirley Temples! - sad when they pass by the funeral home, because it reminds them of the friends and family that have passed away - lonely when they see a business that their parents work at, because sometimes they have to work on the weekends We read parts of the book The World Around Us throughout the week, starting with the section all about people, as individuals. A great storybook onTumbleBooks that illustrates this big idea is Leo the Late Bloomer; we watched it as a class and then read the hard copy book to add to our Books We’ve Shared bin in class (*if you want to watch it online, email me for the TDSB password!). We then read parts about families, and wrote in our Writing Journals about the people in our families and then different types of homes we live in. Then when we moved on to the parts about our local community, we drew pictures and wrote about our ‘community helpers’ – the people who work here, the jobs they do and where they do them. To celebrate the official start of fall, we headed out into our food garden and butterfly garden on Jennings Ave to see what we could notice, using our eyes, ears, noses and hands. This inquiry led to a lot of questions – how DO the leaves change colour? How can the squirrels eat so many acorns? Where did all these wasps come from?! We’ll see if we can answer some of these questions over the coming weeks. In our Poems and Songs book this week we added Five Little Pumpkins, but the paper version of our poem was a little different than our classe’s big pocket-chart version. Ask your son or daughter if they could spot the changes! *Even if your son or daughter is an emerging reader, this activity encouraged them to look at the text of the poems, line by line, to examine each word and letter. They had a lot of fun being my editors! They also enjoyed practicing their ‘Visualizations’ again – when you close your eyes and listen to this poem, what do see in your mind? Students illustrated the poems J Language
We communicated with THREE different children's book authors this week on Twitter, pretty cool huh?! Adam Lehrhaupt @Lehraupt is the author of 'Warning! Do Not Open This Book!' a favourite of ours because it's silly. It's a lot of fun to read with Voice - danger, quiet, urgency, fear, scheming - so many voices we can use! Peter H. Reynolds @peterhreynolds author of the Dot favourited some of our Dot Day tweets and Todd Parr @ToddParr favourited some of our Writer's Workshop pieces. Todd is a favourite author of mine - he writes purposeful picture books, with easy text, colourful images and meaningful big ideas. This week we read Reading Makes you Feel Good - to support what we've learned about making good book choices. Afterwards, students went to their writing journals and wrote their own page for the book; they were asked, "Why do YOU read", and "What do you read that makes YOU feel good?" I took a few pictures and tweeted a few tweets ... and Todd Parr, took the time to favourite them :) So cool when we can connect with other authors, because it gives purpose to our writing! Todd has a new picture book out and it's available in SeeSaw this month! "It's OK to make mistakes" D.E.A.R. time is Drop Everything and Read time! We have a theme song and every time students hear it, they stop what they're doing, choose a good book (we've practised various ways to make good choices), and settle in to read independently. We've got couches, benches, pillows, carpets and mats in addition to all our table groups - there's lots of space for everyone to get comfy and read! I rotate around to ask students 1) How did you choose this book? 2) How are you reading this book? - we learned this week that there are three ways to read a book. You can read the words (or play I Spy with the ones you do know how to read), you can read the pictures and tell your own story, or you can pick a familiar book and retell the story using both the words and the pictures! As your son or daughter 'reads' at home, ask them which of the three ways they are reading - words, pictures or retelling?! 'Visualizing' is a comprehension strategy that we're practising as we read aloud from Wind in the Willows. After reading the paragraph that described Toad Hall, students went to their Writing Journals to draw their mental pictures and write about it. Poetry & Songs Folder is a new routine we've started. We read the poem 'September' on chart paper together, added a copy of our poem to our Folder and then drew and wrote about our Visualizations. Students had the opportunity to sit in "The Author's Chair" to show how they understood the poem. It's interesting because we all have different schema (prior knowledge) so all our images were really different! Math This week we started using Snap Cubes to help us with Number Sense. For example - for the number 11, we locked 11 cubes together and then 'cracked the train' to break it into two parts; we then counted the two parts to see how many were in each group. This helps students understand the part+part=whole relationship; 11 can be 9+2, 8+3, 7+4 etc. While the grade ones were encouraged to simply explore with the snap cubes, the grade twos were challenged to find EACH and EVERY possible combination. Soon, we will work all the up to #20! To reinforce the strategies we've been learning about, we played Math Games on the interactive SmartBoard. Concentration (choose #1-10) helps students recognize that whether a # is represented as a numeral, a ten-frame or a word - it's still a number! Ten-Frame is AMAZING! Please play this game - with all the different settings (How Many?, Build, Fill, Add) - with your son or daughter at home. This will help with quick number facts, memorization, relating #s to anchors '5' and '10'. For example, in 'How Many?' if you see a row of five and a row of three, that illustrates that 8 is three more than 5, or 5 is three less than 8, or 8 is two less than 10, or 10 is two more than 8. LOTS of practice with counting, addition and subtraction skills in this one! *You can find more games like these on the Links - Extra Practice page. Other Dot Day was so much fun! We listened to the bouncing dot song as we rotated through three stations 1) respect as we took turns adding dots to our HUGE dot painting 2) number sense and writing as we created dot pictures with stickers and wrote about them and 3) cooperation as we used our dot shaped manipulatives (corks, bungs, film canisters etc) to build dot themed structures! (check our private Instagram page hpas.kellys.class Terry Fox Walk is THIS MONDAY! Fundraising packages came home this weekend. If you are able, please take the time to donate online or you can always send in your small change collection :) Community Circle; Friday afternoon we had another problem solving meeting as a community. Please encourage your son or daughter to come to me if they have ANY questions, problems, or worries about school. I'm here to help them problem solve :) Where did the past four days go? We've already accomplished a lot in Room 102 :)
Please remember to send back 1) Home Notes 2) School Forms 3) Family Questionnaire ASAP Here are some highlights from our week: Read Alouds: Chrysanthemum (we RESPECT one another) Clifford's First School Day (we PARTICIPATE) Wemberly Worried (it's ok to be nervous) We played outside with our swim instructor Emily! Before we can take part in the swim program, Emily and Jessica must be able to trust us; we need to be good listeners! We played a lot of 'follow the leader' type games outside 'on land' to earn Emily's respect. We have to prove that we can take part in the 'land' lessons before we can start to swim. We'll have one more practice session and THEN we'll get to go to the pool. Tribes is a behaviour management and self-regulation program that many teachers and schools use throughout the year. This week, we learned about the four agreements 1) listening 2) participation 3) mutual respect and 4) appreciations. Check your backpack for our Four Agreements Book - we worked hard to draw pictures and label them all week! 'Bucket Filling' is something that many of you might be familiar with. When an individual does something nice, good, something without being asked, then they help to fill MY bucket. When a students is spotted doing these good deeds then they get to write their name on a little paper water droplet and place it in our 'class bucket'; later on in the week I pull a droplet out to see who wins a prize (a pencil, a sticker, the chance to pick free time centres first, the chance to choose a read aloud book for us etc). We started creating our own Number Sense Math booklets today. We'll work in this book and create a page for each number from #1-#20. How can you represent the #2 for example? - write the word two - the number 2 - draw a ten frame - tally marks - draw a die (one is a die, more than one are dice!) - addition sentence - subtraction sentence - 'number' sentence (e.g., 10 + 10 - 18 = 2) - draw an image (e.g., two eyes) This Number Sense book will help to form a foundation for problem solving and explaning our thinking later on. Students will learn to 'show what they know' using a 'WINing' strategy - using words, images and numbers. The more ways they can represent and understand a number, then the more strategies they will be able to use when they problem solve. We met our book buddies from Arthur's Grade 5/6 today! Ask 1) what'd your buddy's name? 2) what books did you read? 3) where did you read? Woohoo! We found many of our lost lunch bags today :)
I did a quick check-in with the students after morning arrival; thumbs up for 'excited to be back', thumbs sideways for 'meh, school is ok' and thumbs down for 'I don't want to be at school' ... and we had NO THUMBS DOWN! I'd say that's a really good start. As students entered the room they had a lot to do, on their own. Right from the beginning of the school year I support our students with self-regulation by asking them lots of questions: - did you hang up your bag? - did you check your bag for your Home Notes Folder? - did you put the folder in the bin under the SmartBoard? - do you have a morning job to do? (Our "Super Kids" do things like unstack chairs, sharpen pencils, check and tidy our table top cubbies, empty the recycling and more!) - are you sitting quietly on the carpet and reading? - are you quietly chatting with friends? if so, be sure they did their morning routines too! *After a few weeks, students should be able to follow these steps on their own :) After arrival, we went through our schedule for the day, located in the blue pocket chart next to our calendar. Giving students the chance to ask questions about what to expect during their day and what they are expected to do, helps them with the transitions later on. We had an assembly! We met Mrs. Wheeler our Prinicpal and Mr. Szonyi our new Vice Principal and all the other primary teachers at both HPAS and Annette. The best part is that WE EARNED THREE GEMS! Students earn 'gems' as a class as positive reinforcement, when they ALL take part in achieving a goal. Our 3 goals were 1) walk to the assembly respectfully through the halls, 2) listen quietly to the speakers 3) walk back to class without disturbing the other classes - way to go, we did it!! After recess, we listened to the story David Goes to School and learned that David, wasn't a very good listener. We all promised that we would be respectful listeners throughout the whole school year. To keep our promises, we started writing our own 'Four Agreements' book (we'll learn about the other 3 agreements soon!). To finish off this lesson, we listened to another read aloud I Love School and realized that if we all cooperate and treat each other the way that we'd like to be treated, then we'll love school too! After lunch, we took a break from the heat and watched 2 Franklin filmsFranklin Goes to School and Franklin's New Friend - both very on topic for this week ;) Then we met Helena, our Gym Teacher. We're going to see her twice a cycle (5 days) for Physical Activity AND we get to go swimming at the Community Centre Pool every other cycle too! (more info to come). After recess, we're going to have centre time again; we'll rotate around the room, see what fun toys and activities we have and make some new friends. Another great day in Room 102! Phew - that went by fast! What a FANTASTIC first day of school at HPAS in Room 102!
I admitted to the students ... I was a little nervous :S So many new faces and people to meet!! But by dismissal - I couldn't believe how much fun we'd had and how fast it had all flown by! Here are a few highlights: Morning Entry - "I Spy" the Room - what are some things that are similar or different that your class from last year? Read Aloud - The Night Before First Grade Recess Routines - always eat a snack before you play, it gives you the energy you need! Ask a teacher wearing an orange sash if you need help solving a problem, want a drink from the water fountain or if you have to use the washroom. Read Aloud - Don't Be Silly Mrs. Millie! What characteristics make a 'good teacher'? Students did a Think / Pair / Share; first we think quietly, just to ourselves, then we rotate on the carpet and pair up a few times to share our ideas with a small group, finally if they'd like to - students share their thoughts with the whole group! Writing Journal - students did their first entry in their journals, either copying from the anchor chart we created as a class or coming up with their own ideas ... what makes a 'good teacher'?! Lunch Routines - students were dismissed home, to daycare or to the lunchroom. DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR LUNCH BAG IN OUR YELLOW BIN! *We went searching for lost bags, hopefully they'll turn up soon. Quiet Reading OR Work in your Math Folder or Word Work Folder Music with Violet! End of Day FREE TIME! Students rotated through various centres in our room - computers, listening centre, puppets, library and buddy reading, games, puzzles, bin toys, blocks ... you name it, we've got it! Read Aloud to close out the day - First Day Jitters; even teachers get nervous :) For some tips on how to ask your son or daughter about the first day, clickhere Here's to a new school year :) 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 |
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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