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?

Hello, 

On Tuesday May 15th we will be going on a field trip to Weaselhead Park, if you have not brought back your field trip form, you will want to do so by Monday. Students who do not return this form will not be able to join us on this trip. We will be leaving the school at 9:00 am and returning around 12:30 pm. When we return at 12:30 pm, we will have lunch at the school. The entire field trip will be held outdoors so please consider the following. 

Don't forget to bring:

- Snack

- Water

- Comfortable walking shoes - we will be hiking a short way

- Sunscreen

- Weather appropriate clothing

- Hat

- Backpack

Thank you!

We were very lucky to have two visitors visit for an assembly on Monday. They drummed and sang for us. Some students remarked that when they first started, they felt it sounded weird but once they got used to it, they really liked it. What a great perspective on acceptance of things we do not yet understand. If we keep on trying to understand different people and cultures, we get to know them and we get to appreciate them.

One person from our class kindly stepped down last week as a drummer in the assembly because the drummers were too loud. He got asked to accompany the First Nation drummers. It was a lovely surprise to the student, who did not expect anything in return for his kindness. All four specially chosen drummers did a great job. We were so proud of you!

Our display of mosques is growing. Apart from the math of symmetry and shapes, art of drawing a complex design, we again expressed our appreciation of different cultures.

We continue to read traditional fairy stories and simplify them into a summary.

The students are learning how the summary of the story is actually the same as a story plan! We use the plan and take each main event and think about the following techniques we have learned to beef it up into an account that readers would enjoy reading.

Yesterday we practiced in small groups. Each group took a main event from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We pieced together the elaborated main events. It was fun listening to what we could do in a short space of time!

A huge thanks to the parents who are sharing fairy stories with their child! When we write our own fractured fairy story, this will be a tremendous help to your child.

Housekeeping:

Please keep toys at home. It is sad if they get lost or broken at school.
Join us for Stampede Breakfast on Friday morning!
Please bring back field trip forms ASAP.
Please consider volunteering:) 

We are getting good at understanding the content vocabulary of structures. Ask me about the different parts of a bridge.

We finished our Found Poem that we began to craft after our bridge walk. It shows what we know in a poetic way. It took the whole class and a couple of days to write this poem!

We combined structures and story writing. Rapunzel made our tower unstable! We were only allowed to use plasticine, a piece of card and 12 popsicle sticks to stabilize it for her. Ask me how I made mine stable!

Some people thought about foundations, like the piles of bridges. Some people thought about weight at the bottom of the tower. Some people thought about making the base wider. Some people combined many of these ideas!

We listened to a traditional telling of Rapunzel (ask me what that is!). We then condensed the story into a brief summary, with the main events part of the story on the biggest piece of card to help the students visualize that the main events of a story need to be the biggest part of the story.

We then used our senses with a barebones sentence to practice using our senses to S-T-R-E-T-C-H out an idea.

Once we all helped to fill this in (ask me for an idea for each sense), we collaborated in a group to create a MUCH more interesting piece of work.

Our next task will be to work by ourselves to create a slow motion paragraph about a fairy story. Keep reading these tales at home! The familiar they are with them, the easier it will be for them to write their own version based on one of the traditional ones!