Hello!
We had a fantastic day today! The students worked hard, listened well and made lots of good choices. We had a fun day with lots of great stuff happening. There was a note that went home today regarding the upcoming science projects students will be doing in class as their final projects for our Buildings and Structures Unit. Here is what the note says. I have also put a copy of the note in the box.net widget on the right side of the blog if you would like to download a copy.

Dear Parents

The Grade 2/3 students have been working very hard in Science. Our first unit this year was on Building and Structures. Throughout this unit, students were learning all the ways that buildings can be built to make them strong and stable. This includes using strong shapes like circular columns, triangles and supportive structures like arches and beams.

For their final project, students will be taking everything they have learned and apply those concepts and ideas to building an actual model structure. Using materials brought from home, students will choose one of three structures to build. Through this process, each group will also have a budget to stay within when “purchasing” their materials, as well as strict guidelines to follow in order to successfully complete the project.

As we are building models from actual materials, it would be appreciated if you could send any of the following recycled material with your child to school:

Popsicle sticks                                                               Milk cartons
Cereal boxes/cardboard                                            Shoe boxes
Empty paper towel rolls                                           toilet paper rolls
Scrap pieces of string (any type) and wool         Straws
Yogurt and margarine containers                        Pipe Cleaners
Strawberry baskets
Spools                                                                              Flexible wire
Toothpicks                                                                     Clothespins
Paper Clips                                                                    Egg cartons

Please ensure that containers have been washed before sending them. We appreciate your assistance.

We did our Daily 3 today with all the 3 elements of the program. It went very well, though we had some technical difficulties with the equipment! However, we worked through everything and it very well for the first time. The students also wanted me to put this video on the blog. I don’t know why. I showed them the video today during our Daily 3 time to show what another class did to learn the Acronym “IPICK” which is a way to help students pick books that are a good fit for them. It’s a little hard to understand but the students thought it was hilarious!

It has been a couple of very busy weeks recently. The students have been working hard and we are now just putting the finishing pieces onto our Daily 3 Language Arts Program. It has been a long process but the modeling and all the work that went into setting it and getting the students comfortable with the process is paying off. We started the last piece. “Listening To Reading” today with the introduction of the media players. Students will be listening to audiobooks on tape, CD and the computer. Hearing professional readers reading pieces of literature is a great way for students to build reading fluency. Hearing the reading on the tape or CD while following along in the books helps the brain hear and practice good, fluent reading. As well, we will be using a website called RAZ Kids as part of the Listening to Reading Program. This website allows students to read books at their own level at home. The system has been set up for their level already. Once the students log in, they can read books, have books read to them, and take quizzes about their book to earn stars which they can use to add things to their “Rocket Ships“. Once our program is flowing well, I will release access to the students to work on it at home. For now, we are just using it at school.

So with the addition of the “Listening To Reading” portion of the Daily 3 program, we now have all elements in place. Students will now be choosing on of the three parts of the program to do each day, with most days allowing opportunities for more than one choice. By the end of the week, all students should have had a chance to complete all three areas. This will also be replacing our D.E.A.R time which was a free reading time.

The three areas students will be working on now, in summary, are:

• Read to Self: Students working on reading by themselves focusing on reading the words, reading the pictures and re-telling the story.
• Read To Others: Students read with a partner choosing either to read the same book or read different books. As they reading they are either practicing reading fluency or reading comprehension. Students have summarize each page or section that has been read to them to show that they are listening and comprehending.
• Listening To Reading: The newest section of the program, students read books while listening to them as a way to practice fluency and vocabulary.

We have also talked about how to pick good books that are the “right fit”. A “Good Fit” book is one where the student gets to pick the book, they are picking it for a purpose and they are interested in it. It should also be a book where they are able to comprehend most of what they are reading AND it is a book where most of the words are familiar and can be read by the child with high accuracy.

If you come across any used cd players or tape players you would be willing to donate, please continue to send them our way. We can always use more!

Here is the spelling for this week:

Spelling N 1

I have also included the link for Spelling City here. Remember, if you print off your certificate and bring it in, it will count as an extra point on your spelling test on Friday. Also, parents, if you do not have access to a printer or it breaks down, just sign your child’s planner with a note stating that they did complete the test and got 100% and that will count as well. Make sure to tell your child to show it to me as I may not see it in time otherwise.

Our memory verse this week is from Matthew 7:7:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

The students have once again earned a party, which we will have on Friday afternoon. I have asked the students to bring a snack for the class if they are able to. As the year is now fully into swing and expectations have been set and understood, students will be having to earn more stars in order to earn further parties. They are now working on 50 stars and will then be required to earn 75 stars. I have stressed to the students that these are their choices as to whether they earn stars or have stars taken away. By stressing this, I am helping students to understand that they are the ones that decide their own behaviour; that it is not me arbitrarily deciding when they get stars or have stars taken away. They are the ones that choose. I believe that this is a very important distinction.

Finally, I want to thank everyone for the hard work and effort that went into the Science Challenge. All the vehicles showed great creativity and team work! It was so neat to see how such simple materials could result in so many different yet wonderful realizations. I hope that you also found this a rewarding time as you had a chance to work with your child and see the wonderful capabilities a child has for creativity. Now, don’t worry! We will not be doing this every week but about once a month or so I will throw another challenge out there for your family! I have taken photos of all the projects which I will turn into an Animoto for you. For now though, I thought I would end off with a science video as a reward for getting this far and reading all the way to the end.

We have been using this art website in the class this year and I have tried to add it to our blog links on the side. However, for some reason, it is not wanting to show up. The kids have been asking for it almost everyday. So I thought I would put it here so that you had a quick way to get to the site. The site is called Artpad and it is a really nice and simple site that allows you to create artwork with your mouse, add a frame and display it digitally in an art gallery with your choice of artwork hanging around it. Click on the picture to go to the site.

Please, remember that your Science Challenge projects are due tomorrow! Finally, I found this great site a few days ago and thought you would also enjoy it. It was just an ordinary day at the food court in New York when, suddenly, something strange happened . . .

I couldn’t think of a good name for this post. Usually, on a Monday, I just put on the spelling list and the memory verse. Nothing too exciting. So, I wasn’t sure what I should name this post.

Anyway, here is the spelling list and the memory verse for this week. We will put the memory verse into the planners tomorrow.

Spelling M 7

The link to the Spelling City page is here. Remember, you can do the test and bring it in for an extra point on your spelling test!!!

The memory verse for this week is from Philippians 4:13:

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Tomorrow is our Remembrance Day Service. The service will be starting at 11:00 in the gym and our class will be performing a couple of pieces including Oh Canada. Everyone is welcome to attend. It is still a full day of school and the students have been asked to wear their full dress uniforms.

Our music of the week has a bit of a bluegrass tinge to it. I have always enjoyed bluegrass though I am not normally a country music fan. I enjoy the energy that comes out of the music as well as the sound of the mandolin. We are listening to a bluegrass group called, “Nickel Creek” which has unfortunately disbanded now. However, their albums are really clever and they have an excellent sound. Here is a great video of the song “The Fox”. You will probably recognize the tune and the song as it is an old folk song.

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is Skating for the Grade 1-3’s. We will be leaving the school at approximately 12:30 and arriving at the Prospera Centre shortly thereafter. If you are able to come and help out that would be great!

We have been listening to Bobby McFerrin this week. He is an amazing vocalist that has spent many years fine-tuning the craft of singing and I thought I would share a couple of videos featuring him singing. He makes singing look so easy!

As you may know, I love creativity and getting kids to think outside of the box. I believe that there is nothing more important than teaching students how to think for themselves and not having to depend on others to solve things for them or think for them. Not every problem we encounter can be easily solved and many of the problems facing this next generation will require some very creative thinking. As a result, last year, I came up with the idea of giving science challenges to the students as a way to get them thinking in creative ways and to develop problem solving skills. I also wanted to devise a way for families to do something together to help build parents build these skills in their children. I didn’t want just homework that involved doing the same work over and over that they had already done in school. I wanted something that the whole family could enjoy and work together on as a family; as problem solvers; as teamwork! These Science challenges are meant to be fun, family projects. I will provide plenty of time to work on the projects. There will be no winners or losers. Every idea should be and will be celebrated. However, there will be accountability in that, students will be marked on their completed projects. It will be marked as part of their marks for the report card. The mark will simply consist of 5 points for completed project, 3 points for projects that are complete but are late and 0 marks for students who do not complete the projects.

I encourage you to do these projects as a family. Your child can work with you, with their siblings or anyone else in their families (immediate or otherwise) who is interested in participating. However, the keyword is working with you! Please do not do the project for your child as that negates the whole purpose. If you have any questions, please feel free to come talk to me:

So here it is, This week’s Science Challenge:

Make a car using some/all of the following materials, but nothing else. Scissors may be used in construction but not in the solution.

• 3 cardboard boxes (any size, shape, kind — cereal, crackers, etc.),

• 4 paperclips,
  

• 4 q-tips and
  

• glue.

This project is due Friday, Nov. 13!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. On Friday, we had a great time doing some pumpkin math. Students estimated the weight and circumference of their pumpkins, as well as the number of seeds that were in the pumpkin. Once the estimating was complete, students actually got to weigh and measure their pumpkins! Then it was time to get goopy! We had a great time getting our hands right into the pumpkins scooping the seeds out and counting all the seeds. We learned that there really is no correlation between the size of the pumpkin and the number of seeds inside of it. We then entered all our data into the online Seed Counting Project 2009! Including our school, 246 schools participated with a total of 106, 935 seeds counted!!! We will be looking at the data tomorrow! Once the seeds were all cleaned out and counted (and separated into 100’s, 10’s and units), we talked about polygons and the students learned that a polygon is a shape with three or more straight sides. So, in other words, a triangle would be a polygon as would an octagon. Once students understood what a polygon was, their challenge was to carve polygon patterns into their pumpkins. No simple face carving for us, no sireee! Polygon carving all the way!!! Here are a couple of videos showing us hard at work!

Here are the spelling words for this week:

M-6

And the link to this weeks Spelling City:

Our memory verse this week comes from Jeremiah 32:17

Ah, Sovereign Lord. You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

Check back tomorrow for the start of something exciting!!!!

I found a great site a couple of days ago which allows you to create polls to find out information about various things. So I thought I would try it. I will also put photos and videos from our Pumpkin Math Day up this weekend but I just wanted to do a quick post today. So here is my poll. Try it out and lets see what happens!

I also found this hilarious photo of toy stormtroopers that I thought you would like.

Oh, and speaking of Star Wars, if you haven’t been able to find a costume yet or simply want to add something to the old costume chest for inside playing, check out these great masks you can print out and use. Just click on the picture to get them and more masks!

Unless you have been living in a cave lately, you have probably heard about the new movie, “Where the Wild Things Are” that came out a few weeks ago. Well, today our class looked at the original book with story and illustrations by Maurice Sendek and talked about the various characters, words, and other elements from the story. Tomorrow, we will be using the book to gather ideas as a springboard for our own stories. We will be trying to create new endings for the story that start where the book leaves off. When I read the story, I was very surprised to find out that the story only has ten sentences in it. So, we decided that our stories will only have ten stories in it as well. It should be very interesting to see how the students use the ideas to create their own, creative endings to the story with only ten sentences to work with. We will also be putting the good copies on the blog for you to read and share with your family!!

Here is a video of the story along with the trailer from the movie. Kylie had already seen the movie and told us about many of the differences from the book. It sounds like a great movie!

Here is the spelling list for this week with the link for spelling city. The memory verse will go up on the blog tomorrow. Also a note that Friday will be Fall Colour Day and I am looking for some volunteers for a project we will be doing on that day as well. It would be for the morning. I told the students that they do not want to miss Friday as it will be an action packed day!!!!

Spelling M 5

Here is a story from Storybird.com that Eilidh and I co-wrote. I am really enjoying the ability to put these stories into the blog. If you have a story that you would like me to include just let me know the name of the story and I will keep my eye out for it to embed it in the blog. Enjoy!

donuts anybody? on Storybird