"I am honored to be able to tell my story so that others may benefit and understand, and maybe other survivors will feel comfortable enough to share their stories." - Phyllis Webstad, Inspiration for Orange Shirt Day IMPORTANT INFORMATION
PoWer Hour! PoWer Hour Forms are DUE MONDAY, OCTOBER 2. Please read the information carefully with your child.You can access the PoWer Hour webpage from the Prince of Wales school hime page, or clicking on the link below. http://powerhourpow.weebly.com Students select their 3 favourite courses. Please note that your child’s selection is not ranked in order of preference, just the 3 they would like to get into. School Pictures School picture order forms are due October 4th. You can submit your order online, or send it to school and I will pass it on. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 2: PoWer Hour Forms are due. October 4: School Picture orders are due. October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 18 days under our belt, 162 days to go! My heart is full. I feel like that’s all I need to say for today. Full. Full of love, admiration, pride, and respect for the kidlets. They really stepped up to the plate, and hit it out of the park. It takes a ton of courage to stand up in front of an audience and share your words, and courage they had. After assembly, one student asked if we can keep learning stories about residential schools, so we don't forget. Heart. Full. (And I’m not going to lie, some tears in my eyes.) Students had a more relaxing day after the assembly. They had Music with Mrs Dennill (“I like chicken, you like chicken, we like chicken togeeeeethhherrrr…”), and after I began reading the book Frindle, by Andrew Clements, to them while that had snack. After, we looked back on our first day, where we created a Visual Journal title page of our hands, and wrote “10 Things About Me”. Today, we looked at it, and now we are going to add colour! But colour with intention. Each student is referencing different Zentangles, drawing different designs on the background, leaving their hands only with the words. Once they have their designs, they will use pencil crayons and markers to colour them in. The day ended playing Compound Games with our Buddies. I hear the summer is slowing packing it in, so we have to enjoy the short-lived beauty of this time of year. My wish for you this weekend is to venture out into nature and watch the shimmer and sparkle of the dandelion-yellow poplar leaves against our deep Alberta blue sky. It truly is breathtaking. Cheerios! Ms Lauf
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A quick reminder: Wear an ORANGE SHIRT tomorrow if you have one!! Assembly is 8:30 to 8:50 am in the gym. And now for The Blob... I mean The Blog. “No one ever accomplished anything great sitting down.”
- Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” IMPORTANT INFORMATION Orange Shirt Assembly Grade 3s will be leading this assembly, observing children of residential schools and the impact it has had on our First Nations friends and families. The assembly begins at 8:30 am and concludes at 8:50 am. PoWer Hour! PoWer Hour Forms are DUE MONDAY, OCTOBER 2. Please read the information carefully with your child.You can access the PoWer Hour webpage from the Prince of Wales school hime page, or clicking on the link below. http://powerhourpow.weebly.com Students select their 3 favourite courses. Please note that your child’s selection is not ranked in order of preference, just the 3 they would like to get into. Milk Program Milk Forms are due TOMORROW, Friday, September 29th. First delivery is October 10th. School Fee Form School Form Fee Agreement Forms are due. School Pictures School picture order forms are due October 4th. You can submit your order online, or send it to school and I will pass it on. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES September 29: Orange Shirt Day - Grade 3s are leading a 20 minute assembly in the morning. October 2: PoWer Hour Forms are due. October 4: School Picture orders are due. October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 17 days under our belt, 163 days to go! Yesterday’s tomorrow is now today, and it arrived in a glorious golden splendor! A perfect day for our Fish Creek walk. Students practiced their newly learned Event Mapping skill on our walk. A solid start to this technique. We will continue to practice it throughout the year. As is common within the theatre (Thee-ahh-tahh) field, last minute changes have happened as we delve further into our Orange Shirt understanding, and wanting to sow the proper respect this observance deserves. We will be having some students share their thoughts about Orange Shirt Day and residential schools. As we have 75 Grade 3 students, and 20 minutes allotted for the assembly, about half of the students will share their reflections from all Grade 3 classes. Ms Parent came into our class this morning to share four First Nations artifacts she has from her personal collection, and the students created a page in their journals to document their reflections. (I was in Ms Parent’s class showing them the Event Mapping technique). Students drew a circle in the middle of their page, and sketched the object and labelled it. They then drew lines to create four sections titled: I see…, I think…, I wonder, I know… . Guiding questions were given to them, and they were encouraged to used their 5 senses to react to the artifact. Well, tomorrow is Friday. It will be another wonderful day. Cheerios! Ms Lauf A quick reminder:
Wear an ORANGE SHIRT if you have one!! Assembly is 8:30 to 8:50 am in the gym. More blog to follow shortly... “My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I'm luckier than other mortals, and they sure don't come from visualizing victory. They're the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it.
- Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” Fish Creek Walk We will be leaving the school at 12:30. Please make sure your child has proper walking shoes. It is supposed to be +23°C tomorrow! Wahoo! But with that, hats and water bottles will be in order. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Orange Shirt Assembly Grade 3s will be leading this assembly, observing children of residential schools and the impact it has had on our First Nations friends and families. The assembly begins at 8:30 am and concludes at 8:50 am. PoWer Hour! PoWer Hour forms have come home today. Please read the information carefully with your child. We did go over what courses/programs are available in class, however it was not in depth. You can access the PoWer Hour webpage from the Prince of Wales school hime page, or clicking on the link below. Students select their 3 favourite courses. Please note that your child’s selection is not ranked in order of preference, just the 3 they would like to get into. Milk Program Milk Forms are due. Last day to order is this Friday, September 29th. First delivery is October 10th. School Fee Form School Form Fee Agreement Forms are due. School Pictures School picture order forms are due October 4th. You can submit your order online, or send it to school and I will pass it on. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES September 28: Grade 3 Fish Creek walk in the afternoon September 29: Orange Shirt Day - Grade 3s are leading a 20 minute assembly in the morning. October 6: Terry Fox Run November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket OUR DAY 16 days under our belt, 164 days to go! Holy busy beavers, Batman! If we were the beavers in Fish Creek, we would have a lake the size of Texas. You know, when the kidlets are challenged to get their work done, they certainly rise to the occasion. We focused on completing our Orange Shirts reflective writing for the assembly on Friday. We read the story When I Was Eight and Not My Girl, both written by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. It tells the story of Olemaun, an 8 year-old who wants to go to residential school like her sister, Rosie. Her greatest desire is to read; unfortunately, when she arrives there, she is mistreated. Olemaun, or Margaret as she is called at the school, is determined to read, and so she does so on her own. The students were captivated by this story, and showed great empathy for Olemaun. Many students shared how they would escape, and how unfair it was that she was treated by her teacher. I assured the students I would never do any of those things the teacher in the story did, and I would be right there with them helping them out. We continued to work on our Orange Shirt Reflections. We did a guided event map in preparation for our walk tomorrow in Fish Creek. The is a mapping technique where observations are documented in a wavy, wonky line, with important, or critical, information included. We used the story Chickens Fly the Coop as a prompt. We also explored our math pattern tubs some more. Beginning next week, they will be documenting their learning from the tub activities in their math journals. Soon, they will be seeing patterns EVERYWHERE. We finished the day outside, with the glorious sunshine shining down on us. I can’t wait for tomorrow. Cheerios! Ms Lauf “It’s not enough to shelve your own competitive streak. You have to try, consciously, to help others succeed.”
- Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” Oh fussy Weebly... (If you are reading this post, then Weebly has decided to come to the table.) IMPORTANT INFORMATION Fish Creek Field Trip Just a quick heads up that we will be going to Fish Creek on Thursday afternoon at 12:30 pm. We will be looking at what animals are doing as we are heading into Autumn. We will also be taking the long way there, as we will be looking at how we use rocks. Our observations will be documented in our Visual Journals. *We have enough volunteers for this excursion. Milk Program Milk Forms are due. First delivery is October 10th. School Fee Form School Form Fee Agreement Forms are due. School Pictures School picture order forms are due October 4th. You can submit your order online, or send it to school and I will pass it on. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! IMPORTANT DATES October 27: Fun Lunch September 29: Orange Shirt Day - Grade 3s are leading a 20 minute assembly in the morning. October 6: Terry Fox Run OUR DAY 15 days under our belt, 165 days to go! A bit of a longer message, but very important, nonetheless. Orange Shirt Day - A Message from the Grade 3 Teachers: Today, all Grade 3 classes continued our conversation and developing an understanding about Orange Shirt Day and residential schools in Canada. We watched some videos (or parts of), and then had our discussions. Our guiding questions and statements to help the students were:
We are also guiding them towards empathy. A question that came up was “How can we stop this from happening again?” We discussed that when we know about it and we have empathy towards it, then we collectively have the power to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This is an emotional and intense topic. We stressed many times that our biggest priority is to make sure our students, all students, are loved, valued, and are safe. Some students were concerned that these schools still exist in Canada, and we assured them they do not (the last one closing in 1996). In Grade 3, we look at quality of life critically, and school is a safe place to explore this. Some of these ideas may come up during conversations. If they do, please reiterate with them that they truly are loved in this school, and that we will always take care of them. Finally, we, the Grade 3 teaching team, would like to let you know we are taking care to make sure the information we share with the students are Grade 3 appropriate. Included are links to the videos we looked at. 1. We watched the first one in its entirety. https://youtu.be/NueIHENCckw l 2. We only watched the first 1min 55 secs of the next video. https://youtu.be/V1NQ_tgR_oA 3. We also watched a video about Phyllis Webstad, whose story was the catalyst for Orange Shirt Day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3vUqr01kAk _________________________________________________________ Our day also included gym outside (2 intense games of Grounders). I am always amazed at their agility on the monkey bars, and wish I still had that. Alas, old age and arthritis creeps into the bones, as well as I just can’t lift my weight anymore. Guess I’ll stick to decaf non-fat lattés and Coffee Haagen Dasz ice cream. I also introduced “Just Write” to the kidlets. This is a quick activity that builds writing stamina, strengthens those wee writing muscles, as well as being able to jot down ideas about any topic hey want. The only rule is you must keep writing for the allotted time, and not stop. If you can’t think of anything else to write, copy what you already wrote. It is a fun activity that also has students pay attention to their thinking voice and stream of consciousness. We also began looking at our Math pattern bins, which will be part of our Math Centres. When we get this going, I will do pullouts for guided instruction with students, as well as to check for understanding. Handwriting continues with the letter “p”. We can now add the words “patch”, “pad”, and “chap” to our repertoire, just to name a few. Finally, our class pet has a name! Clover. Clover will spend the week in the classroom, watching over us, and helping us with our learning. On the weekend, he will be sent home with one student. I will select students using a complex formula, with lots of numbers and carry-overs, a nap to regroup, maybe some nachos to keep the energy up. Or I may draw the popsicle sticks with their names on them. And still eat the nachos. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Good Morning Friends!
Just a quick heads up that we will be going to Fish Creek on Thursday afternoon at 12:30 pm. We will be looking at what animals are doing as we are heading into Autumn. We will also be taking the long way there, as we will be looking at how we use rocks. We will documenting our observations in our Visual Journals. We need at least 2 parent volunteers for this exploration. Date: Thursday, September 28 Time: 12:30 - 2:00ish pm Where: Our neighbourhood and Fish Creek If you can volunteer, please email me to let me know. [email protected] Cheerios! Ms Lauf “That doesn't make sense to me; but, then again, you are very small.” - Treebeard, The Lord of the Rings IMPORTANT INFORMATION Milk Program Milk Forms are due. First delivery is October 10th. School Fee Form School Form Fee Agreement Forms are due. School Pictures School pictures have been sent home today. The orders are due October 4th. You can order online, or you can send form to school, and I will hand them in. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! IMPORTANT DATES October 27: Fun Lunch September 29: Orange Shirt Day - Grade 3s are leading a 20 minute assembly in the morning. October 6: Terry Fox Run OUR DAY 14 days under our belt, 166 days to go! Another full day! We started off the day doing a Sharing Circle. This is an opportunity to share who we are based on a guiding question. Today, we shared something we made or did with our mom or dad. She answers included “build a birdhouse” and “bake cookies”. I like doing these throughout the year as this helps build relationships with each other. We also did some housekeeping (i.e., talk about the Agenda; introduce Quiet Critters - ask your child; and talk about the past couple weeks). While we were doing this, we aw a package was waiting in the Hand In/Hand Out Box. What?! Another package? The keen guesses from the students were correct! We have a REAL class pet. It turns out the previous one was NOT a class pet, but a tricky friend of our Real Class Pet, a lovely green puppy. Boo is a bit of a rapscallion - he has already tipped over some markers and written his name on a piece of paper. Oh Boo. We also went over some more of our math assessment, this time looking at the information provided in the following chart. We looked at the rows and columns, and analyzed the data Anandi had collected. When I asked the students what they thought the Anandi’s question might be, we had “How many animals are there?” or “Do you like animals?”. When I asked the question back to the students, knowing that the answers given (based on the chart) were either “cow”, “horse”, “chicken”, or “pig”, those answers didn’t fit in with the question. We eventually go to a specific question of, “Out of chicken, cow, horse, or pig, which is your favourite animal?”. Tomorrow, we will look at the second part of this problem.
We looked at our planning sheets for “The Best Part of Me”, where four students shared their organizer with the class. We then went over the criteria, and constructive feedback was provided, with reminders that each student should be thinking of their organizer, and how might they improve it based on the feedback. I will now go over each student’s planning sheet, and provide specific feedback. From here, we will begin writing our rough copy. In the afternoon, students gave me a name suggestion for our Class Pet. After, we joined the rest of the Grade 3s to Ms England’s room to watch a (kid-friendly) video of Phyllis Webstad’s story of her orange shirt and her experience at residential school. After, we talked about how we can move forward. We did a writing activity on paper orange shirts, which will be part of our Assembly on Friday. A full day indeed. Cheerios! Ms Lauf “Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: it’s productive.” - Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” IMPORTANT INFORMATION Milk Program Milk Forms are due. First delivery is October 10th. School Fee Form School Form Fee Agreement Forms are due. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. IMPORTANT DATES September 21 & 22: Meet the Teacher Conferences September 21 & 22: Scholastic Book Fair September 29: Orange Shirt Day October 6: Terry Fox Run OUR DAY 13 days under our belt, 167 days to go! We started the day strong, as in STRONG VERBS. We read Don’t Fidget a Feather and pulled out the descriptive verbs and made a list. We now have two solid lists, and next week, we will do a sorting activity with them. We also created a KWL chart for Rocks and Minerals. A KWL chart is a double-T chart, and stands for What I Know, What I Wonder, and What I Learned. We filled in the Know and Wonder columns, and we will address the chart throughout our learning process, adding more to the Wonder and then Learned column. Last week, I gave the students a diagnostic math assessment. I am in the process of marking and analyzing them. This will help guide me in creating Guided Math Stations and lesson plans. Today, I gave the students another copy of the assessment, and we went over the first section. The word problem was: I went over the problem with the students. We discussed what pictures means (T-charts, Base-10 representations, circles/squares for groupings, as opposed to drawing 86 tiny cows), how numbers are integrated in the drawings, showing the work (even if it is mental math), and then answering the problem in a sentence. We also discussed units of measurement, and the C.U.B.E.S strategy. This was a guided lesson. At the end of this lesson, I had the students reflect on what they learned, and had them write it on their sheet. Written reflections (math, science, writing, social, …) will happen frequently during our year.
In the afternoon, we learned another Math Game, Race to 100. Pairs of students play. They roll a dice, and add that amount to the pervious total on the same hundred-chart. The winner is the one who gets to 100 first. A variation of this game is each student gets one chart and they play adding on individual charts, with the first arriving at 100 wins. After gym (a rousing game of Paparazzi - ask you child to describe the game), students were going to work on Rights/Needs and Wants, except we received a delivery of a Class Pet - a wonky looking blue stuffy with three eyes, long arms, and wee legs. Apparently he has been seen around the classroom. Perhaps he has been inspired by Elf on the Shelf. The Class Pet (he is yet unnamed) will come home with one student on the weekends. Students will be expected to write in the journal about what they did. Full instructions and activity suggestions are in the journal. I did talk with the students about protecting the Class Pet from becoming a chew toy for their Home Pets. I look forward to meeting and seeing you all at Meet the Teacher Conferences. For the children of Room 18, REST UP! We have another exciting week coming up! Cheerios! Ms Lauf “If you have the time, use it to get ready”
- Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” IMPORTANT INFORMATION Milk Program Our milk program is starting up right away. The form is being sent home with oldest and only. Milk (regular or chocolate) will be given on Tuesdays and Thursdays. School Fee Form A school fee form has come home today. Please read. If you have any questions, please contact the office. School Forms All school forms are now due. Remember to look on both sides of the sheets to read and sign. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. IMPORTANT DATES September 21 & 22: Meet the Teacher Conferences September 21 & 22: Scholastic Book Fair September 29: Orange Shirt Day October 6: Terry Fox Run OUR DAY 12 days under our belt, 168 days to go! Students began their day finishing up their The Best Part Of Me organizer sheets. I will look them over, provide feedback, and we will pick this up again next week Monday. We had a pattering activity, where I too about 8 students and put them in a pattern. The class then had to figure out the pattern. Some take-aways: you know a pattern when you see at least three sets; patterns have a rule which tells you what the pattern is; and patterns can be repeating, increasing, or decreasing. We also had an activity where students were placed into groups of three, and they had to sort various items, such as clean water, a personal computer, or nutritious food, into needs/rights and wants. there were some lively discussions amongst the students. We will review our posters tomorrow. We learned the letters “h” and “t” in handwriting. We can now write words such as “chat”, “catch”, and “tag”. Cheerios! Ms Lauf “Having a plan of action, even really mundane action, was a huge benefit in terms of adaptation to a radically new environment.”
- Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” IMPORTANT INFORMATION Fun Lunch A How To Order Fun Lunch sheet came home today. It is a shockingly bright pink sheet. This was handed out to Oldest/Only students. Musical Theatre Musical Theatre begins tomorrow. School Forms All school forms are now due. Remember to look on both sides of the sheets to read and sign. Book Fair Students had an opportunity to look at the Book Fair books with their Buddies, and they are coming home with a list. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. IMPORTANT DATES September 21 & 22: Meet the Teacher Conferences September 21 & 22: Scholastic Book Fair September 29: Orange Shirt Day October 6: Terry Fox Run OUR DAY 11 days under our belt, 169 days to go! Today, we looked at string theory, parallel universes, and how can we get through worm holes. Oh wait, different universe. This morning began with students listening to a story called Windblown by Édouard Manceau. It is a whimsical story about cut pieces of paper that form animals. We will come back to this next week and create extra pages for the story. Students were in Music today. When I went to pick them up, I could hear Mrs Dennill ask the children to practice the Mini-Mac for the Gilly, Gilly, Gilly Good Morning song. This is hand clapping that goes along with the song. Mrs Dennill tried to show, but unfortunately (or fortunately) my inner drummer is strong and I couldn't even begin to tell you the pattern. When the students came back into the classroom, we discussed how we can organize our information for writing, in relation to the book, The Best Part of Me. I modeled to the class how this looks like, and then had then watch again. Then it was their turn. They wrote their favourite part, and then circled it. The next step was giving explanations WHY. For instance, if they wrote “Feet”, and the why is “Running”, why is is running? What makes it special? Why is it important? We we will continue writing this tomorrow. I also gave the students a diagnostic math assessment, which will help guide me in creating effective lessons and tasks. I reiterated a few times that this was not a test for marks for me, and if they did not understand it, to not be stressed. I also let them know that this is an assessment to show me what they remember from Grade 2 Math. If your child is nervous or upset about this, please reiterate for me that this is for me, and then if you could let me know. I want to make sure everyone is happy in the class. We learned the letter “g” in handwriting. We also started thinking about goals in the classroom. We will dive into this tomorrow. Cheerios! Ms Lauf |
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June 2018
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