April 4 - 8th

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and Spring Break! I can't believe that it's already April.  Where has the time gone?

We have a new VIP for the week. Thanks Miss M for sharing your poster and special items with the class. It was fun to get to know you even better!

April is National Poetry Month! Throughout the month we will be reading and writing various forms of poetry.  This week we read acrostic poetry, discussing and recognizing the pattern, flow of ideas, and word choice involved in the poems.  During Writer's Workshop, the students developed acrostic poems for the word "kite."  They used exciting verbs and descriptive adjectives related to kites and spring in their poems.  These poems will become the tails on kites that the students will be making in art.

Words Their Way - This week we tried a new activity to practice our vocabulary. The students were asked to randomly pick four words from their list to "draw and label." This was an excellent activity to really get the students thinking about the meaning of their words.

The students are really enjoying our poetry focus this month. We read two of Shel Silverstein's poems from "Falling Up." 

The students were asked to put their vocabulary and poetry writing skills to the test with a fun Word-Lib activity. They wrote their own version of "Headphone Harold" by filling in the blanks in the poem with different nouns, verbs and adjectives. I asked them to be creative - the sillier the better! They loved sharing and reading their poems aloud to the class.

During our read aloud time this week we also focused on using text features of expository, or non-fiction books.  Non-fiction texts contain information that is true. They also contain features such as titles, headings and subheadings, captions, maps, diagrams, charts and graphs, legends, bold and italicized text, glossaries, indexes, and cutaways. These features are a common part of non-fiction reading that we often use or reference to help gain understanding of what is being read. As experienced readers, we do this without notice. When students read nonfiction material, they will also encounter text features that are different from those they come across when reading fiction.

Math

This week we started our Measurement unit. The following goals were covered:

• Estimate measurements in centimetres.
• Take measurements in centimetres on a ruler.
• Estimate lengths in metres.

Social Studies

This week we began our study of Ukraine. The students drew and coloured their duotang title page.  We also had the opportunity to work with 3B on a Ukraine research project.

Art

While I was away on Friday, Mrs. Tewitz taught the students how to create an optical illusion on their kites. Once the students are finished we will be attaching their acrostic poems as ribbons to the kites.  I will post the finished project next week!

Congratulations to Mr. T for being chosen as the Student of the Week. He is a very kind student who is a role model for his peers.  Great work on your Ukraine research project this week!

Mental Health Day

The students had a great time rotating through various activities to acknowledge Mental Health Day on Friday.