We had great fun swimming. Here are some pictures!!!!

We are still busy with a few projects. One of our most important tasks is to complete out fractured fairy story to read to our Kindergarten friends. Some student shave also created a picture book with fewer words that they think their younger friends may enjoy to look at as they read the more complicated version. As I look through  the work the students have completed through the year, I see huge improvements, both in the quantity and quality of the work. Grade three is such a great year for student growth.

We are doing our best to stay calm as the end of the year fast approaches. We have been doing Zentangles and listening to calming music to help us. Photos to follow once I get into school.

We had lots of fun last week with all the different fun days last week, from crazy hair to beach wear!

 After all that excitement, we were glad to drop everything and read! That helped us to calm down!

In between the fun, we have been busy writing up our own fractured fairy story. We are hoping to share them with our kindergarten friends when we are finished.

We have also been researching our chosen animal from one of the four counties. We have been finding out information about the life cycle, food chain, habitat and adaptations of our animal from one of the four countries (Tunisia, Ukraine, Peru or India).

Next week we begin swimming, so here are a few important things to remember:

Students have to change quickly so they will either come to school with costumes under clothes or have to change at recess time.

There is no time to have a proper shower at the pool so no shampoos or soap, please.

I have suggested to the students that they bring spare underwear to have in their bag all week, in case they forget theirs or their pair falls in a puddle of water at the pool!

If swimming costumes are forgotten, students will use the ones from lost and found at the pool (so don't forget!)

We will be eating lunch late so a big recess snack is suggested.

Our wonderful parent volunteer will meet us at the pool. Thank you so much:)

 This week we started our gym/music Drum fit. Great exercise and great fun!!

We had great fun yesterday creating our peacocks from India. They turned out really well! Ask me what class they belong to and what characteristics that class has:)

We really enjoyed our special guest speakers today from Calgary Humane Society. We learned a huge amount, including which amphibians and reptiles are indigenous to Alberta and which one venomous snake and one lizard lives in Alberta. We also learned about how the salamanders cross the road in Waterton Lakes National Park, that the crested gecko licks its eyeballs, what a hibernaculum is, what indicator species are and ......

We will be unpacking some of the information over the next week and letting you know what we found out. In the meantime, here is our cute visitor ....

 Ask me if she is a reptile or an amphibian and how I know it. Ask what happened to my tail and if it will grow back again.

 Ask me how we had to stroke her and why.

In social studies, we have been researching UNICEF. We researched independently, using what, why, who type questions to guide us. Ask me what UNICEF stands for and where it was founded.

Housekeeping:

Thank you everyone, we have all of our swimming forms back! We could still do with volunteers. We only have one! Even if you can just volunteer one day, we would love to see you.

Home reading books must all be returned on Monday so they can be sorted and organized for next year.


The following week is very busy with lots of things happening:

Sunday:  Fun Lunch Orders due

Monday: Read my Shirt Day – Wear a shirt we can read!!

       Tuesday: Colour Day – Wear your favourite colour!

               Calgary Ride Your Bike to School Day

Wednesday: Crazy Hair/Hat Day – How crazy can you make your hair?

Thursday: Crazy Sock Day – Wear a crazy pair or just mix and match!

Friday: Beach Day – Dress in your favourite beach wear (no bathing suits please)

             All Library Books Due!

             The Great Book Exchange (students can purchase previously owned books for $0.25!)

             Fun Lunch

This week we have been researching about James Orbinski. Ask your child about him, including what organization he works for, how he helps people and most importantly who he helps.

We continued our water theme and are deepening our understanding of the importance of clean water. We took another look at The Rights of a Child and discovered links to many of the articles.

We cannot help the way James Orbinski does, so we are beginning to think about the way ordinary Canadians can help make this world a better place. So far we have thought about charities. That led us into an interesting dilemma. Mrs Njie said she might buy us caterpillars so we can look at their life-cycle. A few people have done this before at school but most people wanted to do it again! Then we contemplated that maybe we should donate the money it would have cost, to a charity. Most people decided this would be demonstrating goal citizenship by thinking about those people who do not have clean water.

Tomorrow we will continue this conversation and look at examples of charities that help people in other countries, such as UNICEF and the Red Cross.

On a lighter note, we took part in our shared art project. Today we went to another grade three class and made some Indian peacocks. We have now made Ukrainian Pysanki eggs, Peruvian weaving and Tunisian mosaics!

In math we are looking into different types of graphs. We are getting good at interpreting graphs (but some questions are harder than others!), drawing our own graphs and making up our own questions. Your child can practice these skills at home by surveying the family! Find out more about everyone's favorite color, animal, sport etc. Draw a line plot or a bar graph. Write some questions about your graph.

Don't forget that daily reading with your child is still very important even if you feel your child is a great reader. As well as practicing reading, you can take on Grand Conversation roles (like you did at Student Led Conferences). This will help your child develop their comprehension skills.

Housekeeping:

Please return swimming forms ASAP
Remember, we need volunteers (particularly men!)
In house field trip from Calgary Humane one Friday
Please make sure your child knows if you ordered a fun lunch for them.

Water Water Everywhere!

We concluded our hard work on slowing down the action in the main event today with an 'all by myself' piece of writing. Ask your child how they made their piece of work interesting with dialogue, action, variety of sentence beginnings etc. We are all ready and looking forward to looking at fractured fairy tales and writing our own version! We are ready!!

In science we have been looking at classification, mainly using the observable characteristics that the scientists used long ago when they decided to organize them. We have studied why we tend to write the class of animals in the order:

fish, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal

Ask me if I can explain some of the reasons.

 These are created creatures that had to follow the characteristics of that class of animal. so, if it was a reptile it had to be cold blooded, lay eggs etc.

 These are 'I can' statements we have covered:

 This was what we found out as we researched each class of animal:

We have started to look at life-cyles. We chose the very relevant lifecycle of the mosquito! This parasite will lead us nicely into other parasites that live in water in part of their lifecycle. This will allow for a cross curricular study of water through the lens of health, social studies and science. We will then look at various charities and relief organizations. So, if anything related comes up in conversation, that would help your child gain some more background knowledge ...

Housekeeping:

We are starting to organize the school yearbook so know that all students will be included unless I get specific notification, either by email or in a written letter.

Field Trip!

We had a great day out on the field trip! We learned a lot (visual journal entries to follow) and had a fun learning in a place that was new for many of us. We hope that you will be able to have the chance to revisit the area soon:)

Ask your child to explain about each picture! What were we doing? What is this photo showing?