Rocks and Rolls

Visiting with Mrs. Paolini is the best part of our Wednesday.  Every week.  Your student should be bringing new books home every week to read with you.  Read 20/10 everyday and then returning them to school on Tuesdays to get new books.  We have lots of great titles in our library and I am more than happy to help find new things to read.

Magic School Bus is always a student favorite!  We looked at Rocks and Rolls today and then tested our rocks for hardness.  Some rocks were very soft and could be scratched by a mere fingernail, other rocks were soft and could be scratched by a penny.  If a metal nail scratched our rock it was considered medium and a glass scratch makes our rock hard.  Tomorrow we will do a vinegar test for the presence of sea creatures that died long ago!  Science test - Rocks and Minerals will happen Friday morning.

Counting Frames

Nelson shared his counting frames with us today after we read, "The Warlord's Beads."  We were all fascinated by his knowledge of a simple way to quickly and accurately count larger numbers.  We talked about the efficiency of the base 10 system but also questioned if we could use a base 2 system.  The story itself gave us a look at the history of the abacus while telling us how they could be helpful.

We tried a new method for gathering information from a nonfiction text today.  We used the acronym PEEK - P is for reading the picture, E is for each heading, E is for ending - good information is given at the end, K for what I know.  Each one is to prepare the brain for important information to come.  We then practiced using a graphic organizer and our social studies text books looking at a page about the traditions and celebrations of Tunisia, Ukraine, Peru or India.  Ask your child what they learned about the traditions of their country and what they will be teaching the rest of us.

We are trying to wrap up our science unit on Rocks and Minerals and finishing centre work up.  We will be having a science test.  Check with your child and see how they are feeling about their science work.

Mavericks are selling Kernels Popcorn at lunch time - $2.00 a bag goes toward their fundraiser.

Mathman Rounding

The website Mathman Rounding was being played during math this morning on the Smartboard - it appealed to a lot of the children and they wanted to play at home.  It can be set to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.  Sit with your child as they play and see what they know about rounding numbers.
We used a number line to round numbers today - keeping in mind the strategy of the poem we learned yesterday.  Children were then rolling dice and rounding the numbers to the nearest 10 or 100.

We've noticed that nonfiction books, such as our social studies text book and the rocks and minerals books we've read, have a lot of information in them and sometimes it is difficult to determine the important information.  Good readers are able to sort the information and figure out what is most important.  We were given six items to take camping - a sleeping bag, a deck of cards, a flashlight, lipstick, T.V. remote and an umbrella.  Students were to determine which was very important, kind of important and not important at all and provide a reason.  Part of the challenge is to convince me that they have made the right choices.  We will play games like this in several different ways several different times to help students determine importance.

Pillars of Care Assembly Friday @ 8:15 - congratulations to Sadie, Yoyo and Tahseen

I'm off to Ottawa tonight for the Grey Cup so a substitute will be here tomorrow and Monday.  I will be back Tuesday to send you all the news of the classroom.

Go Stamps GO!

Introduction to Rounding

'I can round numbers to the nearest 10 or 100.' is the math strategy we worked on today.  It is the beginning step for creating personal strategies for addition and subtraction - if you can round a number to a more 'friendly' number to work with it will make things easier.  Ask your child if they found the chant we learned helpful for rounding.

Four or less,

let it rest. 

Round down.

Five or more, 

Raise the score 

Round up!

We talked and wrote about our personal family traditions and customs and then tomorrow we will look at traditions and customs in other countries.

We read a great new story today called 'The Raft' - we looked at it for how the character changes, all the animals that appear on the raft and the relationship between the boy and his grandmother.  Everyone had some word work to do afterward.

Sticker math homework tonight.  Due back tomorrow
Fun lunch tomorrow

Zones of Regulation

The four zones of regulation were introduced this afternoon to help students describe how their brain and body feel.  We created an anchor chart together of each zone, blue, green, yellow and red with a short description of each zone.  We then played a game of charades and acted out an emotion - guessing which zone they were from.  Teachers at Beddington are using the zones to help students with their peer relationships and understand their own personal feelings.  This will be work we carry on all year.

Everyone started with a series of numbers this morning in math.  If they were in order from greatest to least correctly they were put under the TRUE label if not we put them under the FALSE label.  We looked at our data and found WAY more were under the false label so we looked for other ways we could sort the numbers.  Some of us then played Deal It with a partner to compare numbers while others used computers or wrote riddles on ordering numbers.

A good first impression is important for an author to hook their readers and get them interested in their work.  We spent time working on getting our stories finished and editing them.

Pillars of Care assembly Friday @ 8:15

I can construct, label and interpret bar graphs.

Everyone was randomly dealt a playing card to begin our math lesson.  We then created a bar graph in the pocket chart by the suits - hearts, spades, club, and diamonds to answer the question:
"Which suit did you draw?"
Everyone then colored their own graph to match the data on the class graph and answered a few questions.  A journal entry was written with 3 things Mr. Hebert could learn by reading our bar graph and 1 question he might still have.  We were then all exhausted and went for lunch!

First Impression - a writer needs to make a good first impression on their readers so the reader will want to read on!  Students shared the opening sentence of the books they have been reading and we noticed that authors make a good first impression with:

• a problem
• conversation
• fact
• a question
• action
• a sound

and then we went off to practice by writing our own first impressions in a story written by us!

"Which earth material will absorb water the best?"

We started science this morning with the question; "Which earth material will absorb water the best?"  Using the scientific model for experiments (because we are scientists😉) first we made a prediction about the earth material (clay, gravel, sand or soil) we thought would absorb water the best.  Everyone wrote in their notebooks a prediction and voted on the class chart.  Soil was the winner during predictions.  Ask your child which earth element they predicted.  We used inverted water bottles and put each earth material into the neck of the water bottle and added 1/2 cup of water.  We watched all the water pour right through the gravel, the sand immediately went through before the water was even added, the soil didn't have room to hold the 1/2 cup and the clay held all the water added to it.  It was great fun and we learned a lot.  We will finish up our scientific writing of our results tomorrow.

If there are any geologists out there who would consider answering a few of our questions about rocks and soil we would love to have you as a guest in our classroom.

We shopped at the book fair for some new reading material.  Book fair will be open Thursday night and Friday morning during interview time so be prepared - some of us have wish lists!

Book orders due tomorrow
Fun Lunch order due Monday