Well, November has come to an end. Now on to the fun and excitement of December!
Curriculum Update
Reading Workshop
This week we read the "Polar Express" written and illustrated by Carl Van Allsburg. This wonderful book tells the story of a little boy who travels to the North Pole and is given the first gift of Christmas by Santa.
I used this book as a mentor text to discuss the elements of a story by having the students fill in a story map. A story map is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer to help students learn the elements of a book or story. By identifying story characters, setting, problem and solution, students read carefully to learn the details and increase their comprehension.
The students really enjoyed learning new dictionary skills by looking up and recording the definitions of specific vocabulary words from The Polar Express.
Writing Workshop
The students continue to focus on personal narratives during their journal writing each week.
The Devon Dispatch is accepting submissions from schools for their Annual Christmas Greeting issue. They are looking for students to write letters about their favourite Christmas or holiday tradition. Our class decided that they would like to participate in this writing opportunity.They used the Chromebooks to type up a paragraph about their favourite traditions. They really enjoyed using the "word count" option to ensure that their paragraph didn't exceed 50 words. I will be submitting the paragraphs this week. Please keep your eye out for the students' letters in the Devon Dispatch special Christmas edition.
Math
This week the following goals were covered in math:
Differences of 10 and of 100
- recognize when two numbers differ by 10 or 100.
- use place value to say that one number is 10 (or 100) more (or less) than another.
- add or subtract 10 or 100.
- complete number patterns that increase or decrease by 10 or 100.
The class continues to enjoy the "How Many Ways" activity. Many students are very excited to share their equations with the class.
The mental math strategy that we focused on this week was Adding Doubles Plus 1. To practice this strategy the students played the game Be a Doubles Plus 1 Superkid.
Science
This week the students had fun working through seven Hearing and Sound centers. The students are recognizing that pitch is the result of differences in the rate of vibration. The quicker the vibration, the higher the pitch and vice versa. They also had the opportunity to demonstrate a variety of ways to produce a sound.
The students also learned that instruments can be categorized into 3 families: wind, string and percussion instruments. They were asked to cut and sort a variety of instruments and glue the pictures into the appropriate instrument family categories.
Art
The students completed their birch tree are project this week. First they made the trees by cutting longs strips of watercolour paper. They had to made sure that there were no straight edges on the paper. Next they had to paint the trees. Using black watercolor paint, the students varied the intensity of the black paint using water. With a watery “gray”, run a strip of paint along one side of the trees, going from top to bottom. Then they glued the trees to the paper, varying the distance from the bottom that the trees are placed (closer to the bottom, the closer the tree). Using a very small brush, they painted black lines going around the trees for the bark. Finally they painted "shadows" from the base of the trees to the bottom of the page.
PE
The students participated in various Mission Impossible challenges throughout the week.
Have a great weekend everyone!
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