September 19 - 23rd

Congratulations to our first VIP of the school year! We really enjoyed celebrating our friend and learning so many new things about him!

Cole and his buddy Kade.

Cole's 5 Special Items.

Mrs. Bertrand joined us to read her awesome letter to Cole!

"Friend Friday" lunch buddies!

Reading Workshop

During reading workshop we continued to focus on analyzing character traits. Using the book "Terry Fox - A Story of Hope" as a mentor text, we discussed the difference between character traits and emotions. I tell my students that a character trait is the way a person acts: it’s a part of their personality and it comes from inside. Emotions are usually fleeting feelings that may be due to an outside force, such as good news. Using this knowledge the students were able to generate many words or "character traits" to describe Terry Fox. Specific traits that the students came up with were: brave, kind, generous, caring, determined and hero.



Writing Workshop

Our discussions about Terry Fox inspired the students to write about their real life heroes.  Our goal for this writing project was to use appropriate "character traits" to describe our real life heroes. The students were also asked to focus on proper conventions which includes spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraph structure. 

This week during writer's workshop the students also completed their "heart maps."  A heart map is a visual representation of the people, places and things that are important to the students.  The heart maps go on the inside cover of their writing notebooks.  When the students run out of writing ideas, they can re-visit their maps to find a topic that is close to their "heart."

The students also wrote their first personal narrative based on a picture prompt.

Word Work

We just completed our first week of Word Wall Words.  I introduce 7 words per week to the students.  These words are written in the agenda on Monday and are practiced at school during the week.  On Fridays, I include these 7 words in a dictation activity.  The WWW's should be committed to memory and used properly in your child's writing once they have been put up on the Word Wall.

This week's words were:

off, they, said, have, want, people, because

Math

The following curricular outcomes were covered this week:                         

• find a number that is more than another number by a given difference. 
• extend simple number patterns made by adding a constant difference. 
• solve word problems involving number patterns made by adding.
• find differences between numbers by counting backwards and by counting up.
• use number lines to help with counting backwards.  

Social Studies

This week our focus was on learning about the 7 continents and the 4 oceans on earth. 

Lord Strathcona Musical Ride

The students thoroughly enjoyed the "Lord Strathcona Musical Ride" presentation on Wednesday. The Troop is reminiscent of Lord Strathcona’s Horse in the nineteen twenties and thirties. The twenty-horse, twenty-five member Troop performed the Musical Ride. The ride is drawn from the Regiment’s traditions of the nineteen twenties and thirties.

Art

This week we used the technique of "dot art" to create fall trees.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!