“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 Comments are closed.
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AuthorMs Lauf Archives
June 2018
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