Our day was super productive!!  We accomplished a lot - especially considering it is November 1.

We have been using 'Finding Winnie' as our mentor text this week and we have enjoyed learning how Winnie-The-Pooh came to be.  We watched a short video today on how the books by A.A. Milne were taken by Mr. Walt Disney and turned into a famous cartoon.  Then, we re-read part of the book and pulled out the verbs, past, present and future.  We are pretty good at recognizing a verb.  Everyone then used their own books and did the same activity on their own.

Sticker math was a bit tricky this morning because a lot of us are finding it difficult to put our thinking into words on the paper.  The word explain causes many of us to panic.  I want my students to take a risk, deepen their curiosity and be up for a challenge not look to me to give them the answers in math.   Time is given for problem solving and we do struggle but it will be worth it in the end.  Support your child at home by making sure there are opportunities for play with blocks, and puzzles and games to help the math thinking along.

We visited Mrs. Paolini in the Learning Commons today so everyone has new reading material tonight.  Read 20/10.

Pause, Point and Proceed

Pause at the corner, point where you want to go, look all ways, look the driver in the eye and proceed when safe across the road.  Have a safe fun filled evening!!

The discussion got rather heated today as we ranked needs and wants.  You will be pleased that we all agreed things like candy, Netfliks, and Xbox are wants while we argued weather shelter or water was the most important need.  It really was a proud moment in the classroom!

Just a reminder that candy is a treat and not brain food.  Please keep the candy at home and the fruit and vegetables coming to school.  We also had a discussion about the sharing of food at school - please remember that we cannot be sharing food/candy.

Movember at Beddington

We held it together pretty well today, for October 30, but you will probably find your child has homework tonight.  It's very difficult to keep our attention focused when tomorrow brings better things.  Some of us are writing what Captain Coleburne meant when he said his heart and his head don't agree while others are trying to finish up number of the day.  Some of us have both pieces of work to finish and bring back tomorrow.

Last week we were comparing fiction and nonfiction texts.  We compared and contrasted their features in a venn diagram.  Today we paired up with a partner and created a dictionary page, focusing on one nonfiction text feature.  We will collect all the pages into a class dictionary that you can see when you come in November for Student Led Conferences.

Black and Orange day tomorrow 

Beddington Heights is showing we care by running a Movember competition to bring awareness to and raise funds for prostate cancer research. Most of our male staff members will be growing a moustache for the month of November. Students may vote all month as often as they like for who they feel has the worst moustache. The cost is $1.00 per vote. $5.00 = 5 votes etc. Mavericks will be set up in the gym at lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays to collect votes. You may also give your vote to Mr. Sadowsky at any other time. All proceeds will be donated to the Movember foundation on behalf of Beddington Heights school. At the end of the month, the teacher with the most votes, therefore the worst moustache will come to work on December 1st with his hair dyed in a bright funky colour. If we raise $1,000.00 or more as a school, all the participants will dye their hair on December 1st. 

Let's show everyone how much Beddington cares.

Thank you for your support!

Participants: Mr. Hebert, Mr. Weins, Mr. Sadowsky, Mr. Lancee, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Shackelton, Mr. Softley, Mr. Berry, 

Mr. Mahon, Mr. Beechey, Mr. Jackson

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

We put on our binoculars and zoomed in on the features of fiction and non-fiction books.  We compared Rocks and Minerals to You Got a Rock Charlie Brown and we found out many different features: non-fiction has photographs and a Table of Contents while fiction has drawn pictures and no page numbers.  We noticed that the fiction story had a beginning, middle and end so it must be read in order while non-fiction can be read in any order.  Tomorrow we will continue zooming in and look closer at the features of non-fiction such as captions, fact books, diagrams etc. because approaching non-fiction reading is different from being a reader of fiction.

Finding Winnie is a non-fiction story about how Winnie the Pooh came to be.  We had a look at the most famous bear today (including a couple of cute cartoons) and the non-fiction text features.  We found out that Winnie was a Canadian bear who went off to World War I with the Canadian army!  We had many questions when we were done reading and we wrote them all down for future reference.

Fun lunch tomorrow
Pillars of Care assembly Friday morning 8:15 am
Tuesday is orange and black day

Geology in room 11

"I can just tell this rock has a great story to tell!"

 Direct quote from a lovely child in room 11 this morning!!  Rock centers are well under way as we work like geologists and complete activities such as a rock interview, weight, using microscopes and reading for information.  Yesterday we read a poem about the layers of the earth.  First we talked about the parts of speech: nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives and what they are.  Then, we went through the poem looking for those parts of speech.  Next, we went outside with our own shovels (spoons) to gather earth materials.  Today we sorted those earth materials and compared them to the poem.  We actually were able to find a lot of the layers of earth.😀

I was out of the classroom this afternoon but children continued working on describing numbers in various ways.  They were rolling dice to create their own numbers writing, drawing and expanding that number.  Some worked with tens, some with hundreds and still others in the thousands.  We had a short math quiz yesterday and I will send home those papers tomorrow after we go over the questions for you to see what your child is able to do.

XtraMath/Mathletics and You

Xtramath is a computer program to help your child increase their basic facts confidence and knowledge.  It only takes a few minutes everyday to help your child build their math foundation.  A letter is coming home with your child today to explain the program and give you their pin.  We will use the website in our classroom everyday.  Basic facts are easily done in the car, waiting at a restaurant, while doing the dishes.  In grade 3 we are responsible for knowing up to 18 in addition and subtraction.  Ask your child 4+5? and have them mentally prepare the answer.  Ask them how they figured it out.  Ask them how they know their answer is right.

Mathletics is a website we used at school last year and your child is familiar.  They all have log in cards today that they can use at home to practice math content.  We will also use this website at school to supplement what we are doing in the classroom.

Both of these websites are great for practicing and when you want a little homework done in the evenings.  Don't forget reading 20/10 as well!!

Some of us have sticker math homework tonight - check with your child some of us did not even start.  Due back tomorrow please.

A Million Fish and place value

A Million Fish... more or less is the book we read this morning that used exaggeration to make the story more interesting.  The author also had the character leaving half behind all the time.  Half of a million, half of 500,000 and half of 10.  It led to a great discussion about the patterns of place value and how we can read a number even if we don't know its name.  Students then wrote their own exaggeration - ask your child what they wrote.

Narrative story writing this afternoon was the grade 3 SLA for today.  Everyone wrote a story about a place they would like to take a trip.  It was a chance to show off our skills as an author and artist if pictures were included to move the story along.  Tomorrow we will write our last SLA - the digital math.

Homework tonight - finish the labels and color the world map - no more class time will be given for this activity.

Early dismissal tomorrow @12:00

Check backpacks the blue important folder has several notices from parent council.