Updates

What beautiful weather we are having!!

Today, I had the class outside since the activity that we were doing was easily transferrable to the outdoors. If you take a look at our class Instagram, I posted some pictures of what we were doing. A few weeks ago, the children were introduced to the reading power "Inferencing". We practiced finding clues to figure out what was happening in pictures and have been using an activity dealing with emotions. An emotion is taped on someone's back and they have to use three clues given by the class to guess the emotion. They've been having a great time, so much so that all of them want a turn and I'm not sure how long this will take!!

In Writing, we've been working hard on Idioms. Each of them created a flap book of 4 idioms - the literal picture and the actual meaning. I then gave them an idiom that they had never heard of and they were tasked to go online and research it's meaning and origin. They created a larger picture of the idiom and are now working on typing up a story which integrates the idiom they researched.  I'm hoping to have them share this with you at our upcoming parent tea (expecting to hold it in early June).

In Math, we've been working on geometry and fractions. We also began mental math and mad minute. Mad minute is basically "drilling" of make 10 facts (all addition facts that add up to 10) and doubles (number added to itself). We've discussed a number of strategies for applying make 10 and doubles and have extended the list to use friendly numbers, doubles +/- 1, using place value and have begun to look at "borrowing" to round up and then "returning" to get the actual answer. 

The grade 4's were introduced to decimals today. They didn't seem to take it too hard when I told them that the rod that they've come to fondly recognize as a "ten rod" is now a "one". We discussed what half looked like and that it was also known as 0.5. We also talked about how 0.1, 0.5 and 0.4 were all less than 1. The last bit I threw at them was "what does 1.4 look like?" - was pleased that a few of them figured it out after a bit of pondering. We will continue to work on representing decimals in the coming weeks. Once they are comfortable with tenths, we will then make them adapt to thinking that their "hundreds flat" now represents a 1. Thrilling!

The grade 3's have wrapped up their Science unit on Structures. We are now moving onto plants - beginning tomorrow. They are in the midst of sharing their grandparent letters and family photos. It's been fascinating listening to all the stories! We can't help but to all think that life has changed a great deal..

For the grade 4's - I am going to plough through the unit on Light and Sound - this probably means that they will be getting some more homework. We can't afford to use too much more class time to let them finish activities. We will start, and if they don't complete it, they'll need to finish it at home. Lucky for us, we've already covered a few concepts in the coming unit on Habitats and Communities. In Socials, we are nearing the end of our unit and will soon begin to look at Explorers.

A few (??) weeks ago (time really is just flying way too fast), we went to 1001 steps in Surrey. It was a GORGEOUS day. The children all seemed to enjoy themselves and it was just lovely having the beach to ourselves. We discovered a TON of living organisms and Lynn, our guide, had a small fan club following him around on the beach. He and his wife Jacquie, both have a wealth of knowledge of beach organisms and we were all fascinated by what we saw and what he knew. If you are interested, the organization he takes part in is Birds on the Bay. Lynn also emailed me a clip on youtube that TH recommended (Thanks!) to him - click here to view a Giant Spider crab molt - amazing! Got lots of "WOWs" when I showed the class :)


Cheerio!