I hope everyone's holiday was nice and restful! Back now for 3 days and it seems like Christmas was a long while ago....
We've been busy! Here's the summary:
Writing:
We've been talking about introductions, conclusions and stretching out our sentences. We've examined a variety of ways to start a story and how authors use their introductions to wrap up their writing with a "wrap around conclusion". This week, we examined expanding our sentences by asking a variety of questions. We did a few as a class, in small groups and independently and today, we turned to our own writing. The children were asked to identify sentences that were "shrunken" and try to stretch it out after we played around with two examples. The children are now into our Writer's Workshop routine and all have appointed days to conference with me. This is one on one time where they get to share part of what they are working on. We talk about the strengths of their piece and identify 1-2 things that they may need to try, revise or edit.
Reading:
We continue to work on building connections. Before Christmas, I shared a matrix with the class - it identified what I was looking for when I graded their connections. I think they are starting to realize that they cannot connect to anything (ex. the girl has a red shirt, so do I) - their connections need to help them better understand the text. Now, to work on expanding the explanations in order to deepen the understanding.....!
We will also start to work on identifying the main idea and supporting details in both fiction and non-fiction text. This is an important skill, particularly as they get older.
As many of you have noticed, we also started a 30 day book challenge. The goal of the challenge is to expose the students to a variety of genres that they may not normally choose to read. We've been gradually looking at different genres and their traits. In general, I try to read a couple of examples to them and have them form connections to the examples that we examine.
Math:
Continuing to build on patterning, numeracy and operations! Some students are working on representing double digit addition using the base ten blocks and representing it using pictures, numbers and expanded form (ex: 24's expanded form is 20+4) both with and without regrouping (everyone's working at their own pace), while other groups are working on triple digit addition/subtraction with and without regrouping while still others are working on double digit multiplication.
For some, we've learned a little about perimeter through patterning. I asked the children to identify a pattern through the perimeter of squares - what's the perimeter when you have one square? What about when you add a 2nd square and they are stuck together? How about a third? My hope is that eventually, we can connect this back to algebraic thinking and ask - what's the relationship between the number of squares vs. the perimeter?
This group, a group of students worked on double and triple digit addition/subtraction questions with 1 unknown number. We started off simple:
2+ £ = 6
Knowing that,
£ + 2 = 6
6 -
£ = 2
6 - 2 = £
We tried applying it to larger numbers. It's still a concept that needs practice, but they are starting to feel a little more confident. Once they have addition and subtraction down, we'll work on seeing whether they can identify the relationship between multiplication and division!
Science:
Grade 3's are beginning a unit on Structures and Materials. Yesterday, we examined a bunch of different structures from around Canada and talked about the shapes and materials that we thought might be used. Towards Spring Break, we will be (hopefully), constructing our own bridges. The BC Engineers usually host a Bridge building competition around that time, and it is my hope that someone in the class will be interested in participating! Who knows, perhaps we have some future Iron Ring-ers in the class?!
The Grade 4's are still working on their unit on Weather. They will be having a quiz on Tuesday (I told them what was on it - they should have notes!). Once we finish this quiz, there will be a few lessons on animals and weather and the unit will be pretty much finished. I will be asking them to do a cumulative project at the end. I don't anticipate that the project will be a large one, but it will require a bit of research and they will be required to present it to the class.
Social Studies:
The class will be going to the Cannery in Richmond - relates to our Socials curriculum, particularly about Community (grade 3) and First Nations (grade 4). More details to come!
