IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We Club Info! The Prince of Wales We Club is holding a fundraiser for Unicef this week. They have 2 activities planned, and to participate is by donation.
Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 21: Victoria Day (school closed) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 151 days down, 29 days left. Students started off their day drawing, labelling, and writing 2+ interesting facts about their K’nex bridges. Most are almost finished with the drawings, and now have to make sure they have their info. We also did our beam experiment. Students had to compare the three different types of paper beams we created (accordion fold beam, rectangular beam, box girder beam) with how much weight they could each hold. We talked about what makes a fair experiment (ask your child what makes it fair), and how we would be recording the information. Students wrote a hypothesis, drew diagrams of the beams, and then tested them. They recorded their information, and then wrote a conclusion of what they learned, using the sentence starter of “I think that _________ because _________.” When a student wasn’t sure about the “why”, they were sent to discuss it with a classmate. Students continued to work on their 12-Room Observation Animal Poetry. Students were reminded to use the Word Bank for their animal, their notes from Zoo School, and to look back at their 6-Room Poetry process. In math, we watched a video about multiplication, which was really the springboard for arrays. We used our background knowledge and experience from the Circles and Stars Game (sets and how many in each set), and number lines to apply it to arrays. We also used grid paper to help us make apparent arrays. Most students picked up on this fairly quickly. We finished the lesson off with a demonstration of how the multiplication chart is an array! (Mind blown!) This is setting everyone up nicely for perimeter and area. I will challenge the class to figure out how much soil I need to order to fill in the ankle twisting, push-mower tire catching holes left behind from those shake-my-fist-at-giving-them-the-stink-eye-nothing-you-can-do-about-it dew worms. 29 days left!! Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We Club Info! The Prince of Wales We Club is holding a fundraiser for Unicef this week. They have 2 activities planned, and to participate is by donation.
Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 21: Victoria Day (school closed) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 150 days down, 30 days left. What a beautiful day for a walk to the ridge to sit with Elder Shirley. She started off our time with a smudge. She talked about the importance of Mother Earth, and how everything we need comes from the Earth. She talked about the importance of water in our lives, and she also shared some Blackfoot words with us. The students did some drawings in their journals about the things we see. We also learned about the butterfly life cycle with caterpillars! Yes, the Grade 3s have Painted Lady caterpillars that will soon go into their chrysalis stage. We are documenting their growth in our journals. The students were able to explain that butterflies have a complete metamorphosis and have a complex life cycle. Ask your child what these mean. The afternoon was all about beams! Accordion, box girder, and rectangular beams. We will be testing them out tomorrow. Oh! Evil Genius Lauf came out to play before our beam build. I gave the students each a pencil, and they had to copy a list of build items from the Smart Board, and they had 1 minute to do it. Why is this evil and genius, you ask? Well, some pencils were 2 inches long, others were dull, and some had no lead. One was even 2” long with no lead. She students complained off the bat, and wanted to sharpen their pencil. They were not allowed. (Where did those pencil sharpeners go?) When the minute was up, they had to talk in their small group, answering the following questions: How many items did they copy? (“None! I had no lead!” “Three, but it was hard because my lead ran out!” “None, because my pencil was too small.” “A lot, because y pencil was fine!”) Did they feel this activity was fair? Why or why not? (“No! I had no lead!” “No! Their pencil was too small!”) Here is the Evil and Genius part of that: this actually taught the students about a Fair Test in science. We discussed what variables are, what controls are, and what the one variable is. Ask you child about the difference. So, we are ready for our Fair Beam Test tomorrow! Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Elder Shirley We will be spending a part of our morning with Elder Shirley on Monday (10:00 - 11:30). We will be on the ridge, listening to stories, and journalling while we listen. I am looking at the weather, and I had a big talk with the class to make sure they are ready for the WARM weather. They need to apply their own sunscreen, and wear a hat and loose fitting clothes. OF COURSE, the weather forecast may change, and I have told them that they should check out the weather on MONDAY MORNING before coming to school. I believe an email was sent to you from the office that we need one volunteer to help out. Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 21: Victoria Day (school closed) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 149 days down, 31 days left. THE PAST 3 DAYS… We went to Weaselhead on Wednesday, and the rain held out during our exploration of backwater river aquatic invertebrates. We also saw cliff swallow nests on the footbridge to the Beaver Lagoon. The rain came down, and the decision was made to try and get the buses to come pick us up earlier. Oh, how I wish I was Ms Frizzle and had a Magic School Bus. Yesterday, the Grade 6s were writing the ELA-PAT (English Language Arts - Provincial Achievement Test) throughout the whole school. The school was asked to be respectful of their written exam, and to be extra quiet in the hallways. Quiet they were! We had our Grade 5 Buddies join us for the morning, and the first hour in the afternoon, as their class is right next door to the Grade 6s. This was fortuitous, as they helped us write our Weaselhead reflections, finish building our K’nex bridges, and create a something for something that is happening on Sunday. (Insert whilst and averting eyes here…) We all had PoWer Hour, and then went home. Today, we used our complete K’nex bridges to draw 3 out of the 5 in our journals, label the important parts, and write 2+ interesting facts about each bridge. A few students finished the task, and many are near completion. We will finish on Monday. Due to the time it took for students to research their Tunisia project, and the fact that we have 31 teaching days left (30, if you take out Last Day, even though I do teach to the sweet end), we did a gallery walk of our learning. Students may create something at home, and then bring it in to share, but this is not an expectation. Cheerios! Ms Lauf FIELD TRIP INFORMATION!
The is a strong chance of rain tomorrow. This means a couple things about our field trip: Plan A: No rain, we go. Plan B: IF IT IS DOWN POURING RAIN, we will call the Weaselhead Society and they will come to us for an in-class presentation. We will assess the weather by 7:30 am, and make the decision then. We would then take this information and the kids on a nice sunny day to Fish Creek, and explore there on our own. Plan C: IF IT IS KIND OF RAINY, we will go to Weaselhead, and enjoy a fresh, wet day. Students need to make sure they have a at least a rain jacket, hat (if no hood), rubber boots. They can also bring rain pants, and anything else they feel will be good. If they do not have rubber boots, I am taking a page out of Ms Konno’s book, and suggest shopping bags over the socks, and in the shoes to keep the feet dry. A large plastic garbage bag would also work as a “rain jacket”. We will let the Grade 3s know at 8 o’clock what the plan is. A reminder that they need a hearty breakfast, and a lunch & snack they pack in and out. There are “washrooms”, which are really more solid looking outhouses. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Field Trip Forms I sill need about 5 field trip forms! PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE make sure your child brings them tomorrow! Bridge Building Materials We will be doing our Build a Bridge in a Day Bridge Build Slam Project in short order. Students will be constructing their bridges out of paper and wood materials. If you have any of these extra materials, can you please send them along with your beautiful child? • popsicle sticks (wood) (varying sizes) • wooden coffee stir sticks • large craft popsicle sticks (ie, tongue depressor size) • skewers • newspaper (no fliers, please) • thin sheets of wood • wood craft supplies • dowels (varying sizes) • duct tape • butcher’s twine (cotton) Please note that these items will be communal, and that they will not be returned after our build. When? For Thursday, May 10th. I will go through the supplies and then we will tackle the bridge! Scholastic Book Orders Order forms are due May 11, 2018. If you pay online, please send the order form to me, as I need to input the book in. I only get an email saying a parent has paid online, but no other information. Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Park Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 10: Bridge Build supplies due May 11: Scholastic Book Orders due May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 146 days down, 34 days left. Wowza! Today, we looked at how we can use a number line to solve a multiplication problem. I would say that students show a solid understanding of this! We also indirectly discussed division without specifically calling it division. Next step: arrays, and then apply it to word problems. I had given the students personalized criteria/question strips they need to address in their Tunisia project. Most students have the information that they need. We will tackle the project on Monday. After recess, we looked at all the different living creatures, and life cycles. We will reinforce our learning with our field trip tomorrow, such as simple or complex life cycles, and complete or incomplete metamorphosis. We also did an activity about conservation, and why protecting our ecosystem is important to us. This was done by learning about biodiversity and how our quality of life benefits from a diverse environment, such as food, shelter, medicines, heating, … . Students finished the day with adding more information to their 12-Room Zoo Poem. One student didn’t want to go home, she wanted to keep writing. Warms my heart! Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Field Trip Forms The Weaselhead Field Trip forms are due ASAP. (Field trip is this Wednesday.) I am still missing 9 forms. Please make sure that your child brings it tomorrow, as I would really not like to bring my mouthguard to school on Field Trip Day. Bridge Building Materials We will be doing our Build a Bridge in a Day Bridge Build Slam Project in short order. Students will be constructing their bridges out of paper and wood materials. If you have any of these extra materials, can you please send them along with your beautiful child? • popsicle sticks (wood) (varying sizes) • wooden coffee stir sticks • large craft popsicle sticks (ie, tongue depressor size) • skewers • newspaper (no fliers, please) • thin sheets of wood • wood craft supplies • dowels (varying sizes) • duct tape • butcher’s twine (cotton) Please note that these items will be communal, and that they will not be returned after our build. When? For Thursday, May 10th. I will go through the supplies and then we will tackle the bridge! Scholastic Book Orders Order forms are due May 11, 2018. If you pay online, please send the order form to me, as I need to input the book in. I only get an email saying a parent has paid online, but no other information. Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Park Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 10: Bridge Build supplies due May 11: Scholastic Book Orders due May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 145 days down, 35 days left. Students began gathering information and planning out how they will be presenting their Tunisia mini-research project. They have now all selected their topics. Students have been given specific information or links to specific sites to help them navigate focus on their specific topic, and waiting for them on their desks are specific questions they will need to address to hep them with their next steps. After recess, Paulo Finkleman performed for the school for Music Monday. After lunch and a read to self, students glued in a variety of multiplication charts in their Visual Journals - a 6x6, a 10x10, and a 12x12. Now, in Grade 3, they only have to know up to the 5x5 chart, however, many math games are played with dice, which go up to six, and even more games go up to 10x10. I threw in the 12 because, well, why not? They are showing a good understanding of the chart and the times table. And we used the 10x10 already when figuring out the dimensions (in cm) our 12 Room Poetry table should be. We had a measurement of 28, and we had to divide this into 3 equal parts. Ask your child how we solved this problem! (There are some very nice looking charts out there…) After gym, students went on to the Blog, where I have put Zoo School Animal Observation pages. This is to support their 12 Room Poetry writing for our written piece for the Zoo (and our learning). We continue tomorrow… Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Field Trip Forms The Weaselhead Field Trip forms were sent home yesterday. They are due ASAP! Bridge Building Materials We will be doing our Build a Bridge in a Day Bridge Build Slam Project in short order. Students will be constructing their bridges out of paper and wood materials. If you have any of these extra materials, can you please send them along with your beautiful child?
Scholastic Book Orders Order forms are due May 11, 2018. Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 7: Music Monday May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Park Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 11: Scholastic Book Orders due May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 145 days down, 35 days left. Today, students finished (or almost finished) their final edits on their Six-Room Poetry. They are truly beautiful poems! The final focus is making sure the format of the poem is correct in the good copy. So, you may have noticed that I have doing a count-up/down for the school year. We have 35 days left! I had mentioned earlier about using our information from the zoo, as well as being inspired from a non-fiction narrative writing unit a Grade 3 class had done, and applying that to our story writing. The past week and bit has been me doing research, which really means going down the rabbit hole of information. Low and behold, I found a unit plan on the mentor text that our class writing would have been based on. The plan is 2.5 months long! Ahhh!!! Inspiration! What can you not come in September?! So, I put my thinking cap on, consulted with some teachers here at the school, and I came up with a proposal for the class. I brought it up with them, explaining that a proposal is a request that should be mindfully considered, thinking about the reasons why. Here is my proposal: We put the non-fiction narrative as we were going to do aside, and change it to a 12 Room Poem about our Observation animal. We would also do a smaller story writing (fiction) to finish up the year with. Here are the reasons:
SO SHINE WE WILL! Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Bridge Building Materials We will be doing our Build a Bridge in a Day Bridge Build Slam Project in short order. Students will be constructing their bridges out of paper and wood materials. If you have any of these extra materials, can you please send them along with your beautiful child?
I will go over this with the students tomorrow, but I am putting it in today so I don’t forget tomorrow. (Strategies!) Volunteer Callout! We still need one more volunteer for next week’s field trip to Weaselhead Preservation Park. It is an all day event of being in the glorious outdoors! Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 7: Music Monday May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Park Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 144 days down, 36 days left. Where has the year gone?! Today, we another great day, full of bridges, animals, discussions, and research. We looked at a variety of interesting bridges (thank-you Pinterest!), figuring out what kind of bridges they were, how we knew that, and some of the features of the bridges. One particularly interesting bridge in China sparked a heated debate of whether it was an arch, cable-stayed, or suspension bridge. General consensus was that is was a fantastic blend of all of them. We also spent 1/2 hour gluing in our Build a Bridge in a Day Bridge Build Slam Project project sheets, so that when we our day comes, we have that 1/2 hour to build. After recess, I read some more of Harry Potter to the class, while they munched on their snack and documented their response. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this is such an amazing book to teach writing to. Our guiding question was, “How do we know this important?”. We talked about how good authors put in information to build an image in the reader’s mind, as well as to put in information that will move the story forward; we also talked about how sometimes the author will put something in that doesn’t come in later, and how can identify that. We paused the story to revisit our Six-Room poetry, where students did a self-edit based on our criteria checklist. This is the second last revision before the final copy. Students that are completely done worked on the felting reflection and the Thank-You Story Stick writing. After lunch, we had PoWer Hour and Gym. We ended our day finishing up our animal questions. We will dive right into our story writing next week. Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Tomorrow is Hats On for Mental Health Day. Students can wear their favorite ball cap or hat for the day to support this cause. Please do not wear zany, or wonky hats. Volunteer Callout! We still need a couple volunteers for our field trip to the Weaselhead Preservation for next week Wednesday. Please email me or Jodi if you can make it! Field Trip Forms will be coming home by Friday. Dead Battery Drop Off The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 2: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) May 2: Hats On for Mental Health Day May 7: Music Monday May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 141 days down, 39 days left. Today, we began exploring bridges with my mum coming in to talk with all Grade 3 classes. She was a Structural Draftsman for 45 years, starting out drawing everything with pen and ink, and retiring using a computer. She shared her favourite bridges and ones that she drew the technical drawings for. She is now acting as an advisor in the construction of the Bridges Slam Project! for the class. We will be presenting it to the students tomorrow. We also looked at some more videos about constructing model bridges, with a particular focus on a grade 3 class going through the process. The class will be constructing a variety of beams and pillars, from which they will decide which ones are the best to use in their bridges, and why. Accordion fold paper beams are not just handy fans on a hot day! We finished off the day outside, alternating between being chilly and sweating as the sun played Hide-and-Seek amongst the clouds. Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Volunteer Callout! We still need a couple volunteers for our field trip to the Weaselhead Preservation for next week Wednesday. Please email me or Jodi if you can make it! Dead Battery Drop Off! The Prince of Wales We Club is asking for dead battery donations. Did you know that zinc deficiency in our diet can have a huge impact on brain and body growth? One battery has enough zinc to be processed into vitamin pills for 6 children! Send any non-leaking batteries down. They are collecting them until end of May. IMPORTANT DATES May 2: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) May 2: Elder Shirley Hill May 7: Music Monday May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! (Come see what we are doing!) May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 140 days down, 40 days left. Our Thank-You Story Sticks are almost done, and they are such beautiful artifacts. We started our day with writing the barking copy (ask your child) of the reflection piece to go along with the Story Sticks. Students were given guiding questions to help plan their piece, such as: What is the story your want to share? When did it happen? (time, time of day, what program/event, …) Who was with you? (only add if the person helps move the story along) Where did it happen? What was involved? What did you learn about your animal or conservation from your experience? A tricky thing when giving guiding questions is that students will answer each question separate instead of weaving in the ideas in a story. Students received feedback, and there were many “AHA!” moments. The biggest “AHA” moment for me came when introducing interesting beginnings, a Grade 3 literacy outcome for writing. In the past, this concept did not immediately click for the majority of the class, and it would take lots of practice, then role-playing, to get it going. BECAUSE of Zoo School, many students understood the interesting beginnings concept right off the bat! Why, you ask? Experiential learning. Interesting beginnings could be a sound effect, a question/worry/wonder, an action, or dialogue (the main four). This is a hook to compel the reader to keep on reading. WOW! There are some fantastic ones that came out after two minutes! This is a great start to bringing this into our narrative non-fiction writing. After recess, and a story about trying to like spiders, we looked at bridges. We have a guest speaker in tomorrow (my mum), who is a retired structural draftsman, with a particular love of all things bridges. She will be sharing her story, as well as knowledge about bridges with the Grade 3s. She will also help our class come up with a project and criteria list for our bridge design project. Students watched a video, and recorded observations in their journal, as part of a Daily Double. The second part is “inferences”, and then, in true Douglas Adams 4 book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, we added a third section for “wonders”.Students will continue to add to this page as we look at more videos, books, and pictures. After lunch and a read to self, we played a game called Circles and Stars. One student immediately recognized it as multiplication (huzzah to you!). Students roll the dice, and draw that many circles. They roll a second time, and this is how many stars they need to draw in each circle. They then need to (preferably) skip count to find their total. Once they have that, they record their total in a chart. This will become a support as we continue on with multiplication. After gym, we almost finished up the story sticks and akan-you panda head cards. Those that were finished went on the computer to play some more math games. I am truly excited for the next few weeks. I am very oh so proud of each student, and the perseverance they are building in their learning. Cheerios! Ms Lauf IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Volunteer Callout! I’m dropping a bug in the ear of you gentle folk that we will need some volunteers for our field trip to the Weaselhead Preservation. Please email me or Jodi if you can make it! IMPORTANT DATES May 2: Fun Lunch (Booster Juice) May 2: Elder Shirley Hill May 7: Music Monday May 9: Weaselhead Preservation Field Trip May 9: Grade 3 presents to School Council!! May 14: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Elder Shirley Hill May 16: Fun Lunch (Wok Box) May 18: PD Day (no school for students) May 25: Volunteer Tea OUR DAY 139 days down, 41 days left. A combined Thursday and Friday! Our focus has been tying up loose ends in the class. We have been practicing our subtraction, continuing on with our Harry Potter Reader’s Response, finishing up the felting of Ukrainian flowers, reflecting and creating an event map of the felting process, and coming up with our Tunisia Slam Project ideas. We will be tackling these next week. Students will have two days to research and create a presentation on their topic they want to learn more about. We wrote our Thank-You Letter to Chevron and The Calgary Zoo, which will go along with our Class Story Sticks. Most students have added onto these sticks, and those that were not here this week, will have an opportunity to catch up next week Monday. We are also heading into our final writing project of the year - the Zoo School Animal Non-Fiction Narratives. Students will be using all their observations from the zoo to help build their story. We will also be doing closed reading on their animals to help fill in any gaps in the different areas (Habitat, Diet, Physical Characteristics, Parental Care, Threats, Defenses/Adaptations, Predator, Prey, and Life Cycles). Our end goal is to create stories about our animals that will promote empathy and compassion for animals, nature, and conservation, which was our focus at Zoo School. Cheerios! Ms Lauf |
AuthorMs Lauf Archives
June 2018
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