A Look Back on the Week of January 26th

We had another great week of skating.  Thank you so much to the wonderful parents who came out to help tie skates.  Your help is so appreciated!

On Tuesday the Jump Rope for Heart campaign kicked off.  Heart and Stroke Jump Rope for Heart encourages kids to get active by skipping rope while they collect pledges for heart disease and stroke research. 

Curriculum Update

Language Arts

Due to the short week, the students weren't required to do their weekly Words Their Way sorts or new Word Wall Words.  Instead, we reviewed the 60 words currently on our Word Wall.  The students wrote a test on Thursday that included 20 random words from the list.

During Writer's Workshop we continued to focus on varying our sentence starters by answering the question "how."

This week we continued to focus on Reading Strategies during our Read Aloud time.  Using Tyrannosaurus Drip as a mentor text, I modelled reading with expression to enhance fluency.  We also discussed Julia Donaldson's use of ONOMATOPOEIA, or sound words, to help make her descriptions more expressive and interesting.

Math

This week we reviewed various personal strategies for Adding Double Digits, such as the open number line, base ten blocks and the traditional algorithm.

Science

Before taking their instruments home, the students formed bands and enjoyed having a little "jam session!"  It was so much fun!

The focus this week was learning and describing how the human ear senses vibrations.  We discovered that the ear has three main parts: The Outer Ear, The Middle Ear and the Inner Ear.  We hear sounds with our ears.  Vibrations move rapidly through the air towards our ears and make part of the human ear vibrate.

Social Studies

This week we prepared to fly to our new destination - TUNISIA!  The students brainstormed and came up with 50 things they would like to know about the country.  Each student was responsible for researching 3 questions each.  One of the coolest facts that the students learned about Tunisia was that the movie "Star Wars" was filmed there, in the Sahara Desert!