Spring Break!

Well, we made it to Spring Break!

Hopefully when we get back we will be getting some nicer weather. A friendly reminder that Calgary weather can be very variable, so make sure your child has the right clothes and shoes to stay warm and dry for the whole day. A spare set of clothes is not a bad idea.

We spent our last couple of days this week looking at the Ukrainian tradition of decorating Pysanki Eggs. We practiced drawing traditional patterns before designing and decorating our own eggs. Ask me if I can remember any of the symbols and what they represent to some people.

We ended the day just before our holiday having an egg hunt. The kids really enjoyed themselves. There were no complaints about the math questions they found inside their eggs. It was a fun way to practice going back and forth between multiplication, division, addition and subtracting! Maybe this is something you can do at home.

Have a peaceful break and enjoy family and friends.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The highlight of our week finally happened! We did inline skating!! Look at the concentration on our faces. Balance is an important part of functional fitness. Ask me what the other two important things are.

 For Saint Patrick's Day, we played a three digit addition game. This gave us the opportunity to revisit addition with regrouping. It's always good to practice skills we have not used in a while. Ask me a few questions at home. Don't forget, there are bonus points for being able to explain my answer in more than one way.

We also learned about Celtic designs. Then we tried some art, based on Celtic patterns. There was lots of math involved, including symmetry, shape and patterns. We learned a new word, 'ellipse.' Ask me what it looks like. We also learned about how to join materials by weaving them together, which is part of our Building unit. Plus, it was fun - even though it was very tricky and tested our following directions carefully skills! They all look so pretty!!

Housekeeping:

Don't forget, out last day of inline skating is on Monday.
Half day on Thursday
No school on Friday
Spring Break!!! (Please tell that to the weather:) )

March 13

As part of our work looking into non-fiction books, we have noticed that informative diagrams and pictures often have captions with facts next to them. Using some more photos from St. Vlad's Museum, we thought about the facts that were shown as well as a personal response to the picture. Ask me what I wrote about.

Our task was to write in these two different ways to explain each picture:

In math we have been learning how to draw graphs. Who knew there were so many things to remember! Ask me about the three most important parts of drawing a graph. We need to get good at graph drawing so we can use our skills when representing data in science.

Housekeeping:

INLINE SKATING IS ON THURSDAY AS WELL AS FRIDAY!
Fun lunch Friday.

This week we did a whole lot more writing! We each chose a spot in the school that we liked and wrote about why that spot was special to us. Our writing has a very important purpose as when we have revised and edited this work, we will be putting it up on display around the school. You will be able to read it at our next student led conferences!

In science our student teacher, Mr. Waters showed us how to test the strength of a beam and an arch. Before we conducted our test, we predicted which shape would be the strongest. Ask me what I thought and what happened in the mini experiment.

We then got a chance to design our own experiment using another type of beam. As we are out and about this warm weekend, help me look for as many different beams as I can.

In math, we have been looking at different ways to divide numbers. Have me show you. Remember that in grade three, we are looking for a deep understanding of small numbers, rather than a shallow rote learning of big numbers, so help me choose numbers 25 and under that will divide equally. Then I can show you what I know without frustration.

A highlight of our week was getting to hear the singer songwriter, Michael Mitchell. We enjoyed joining in with songs we knew and learning new Canadian songs!

Housekeeping:

The one event I have had the most questions about is the inline skating. All classes have three sessions. This upcoming week, we have one of these sessions. Our day next week is Friday, so if you want your child to wear their own helmet, please send it in on that day. If you are not planning on cycling over the next couple of weeks(!) you might like to leave your child's helmet at school until all three sessions are over. Please also make sure your child is wearing suitable clothes (not dresses) and that they have socks! Thank you for sending your forms in good time for this event. Nothing makes me happier than being able to hand in a complete set of forms in alphabetical order and being able to cross one more job off the list! 

This week we have continued to dig even deeper into our writing. We are getting really good at generating word referents. Ask your child for three alternate Adjective/Noun combinations to use instead of cat. (So you could say, fluffy feline, for example). Using referents helps avoid repetition when writing about  topic. Today we practiced when we read a picture book based on Little Red Riding Hood. Every second or so time we came across the word, 'wolf,' we used a referent, such as 'growling beast.' Try this at home! It's a lot of fun and provides lots of practice.

After our visit to the Ukrainian Museum, we brainstormed all we could remember. We then circled all the like ideas together. From these, we decided what the global, or main idea, of all the ideas was. This helped us to decide what paragraphs we could write about. We decided that we did not have many details about Pysanki Eggs, so that would not be a good choice to write about.

We then used our bank of main idea starters to craft a great topic sentence for our paragraph. Next we planned out our paragraph by choosing four details. We looked closely at each detail by asking ourselves the questions, 'What does it look like?' and 'Why is it important?' These questions help the students to add more depth to their work.

We took time from our work to create Found Poems to thank the wonderful volunteers at St Vladimir's Church. Found poems are a great way to access student understanding. You have to know what is important and what can be left out, as well as how to weave the lines of the poem so they have flow and they make sense.

We all created our own Found Poems but this is the one we created during guided practice:

Volunteers

We could not have wished

For anyone better than you

Outstanding educators

Thank you for guiding us

Round your amazing Ukrainian Museum

Everything was one of a kind

I saw colorful windows

Sparkling with light

The icons and pictures

Were standing with pride

I saw displays in windows

Yummy wedding cakes

Made out of bread

Doves to give away

Volunteers

Kind, loving and caring

I hope we see you again 

Housekeeping:

Acorn Art deadline extended to Friday. You can also use other art work that you can glue on. See the school email for further information