Do you know the movie, Sound of Music? I bet you do! I bet that you even know the song, “Do, Re, Mi”! You could probably sing it for me right now!! Let’s hear it! Sing it for me right now! Beautiful! You all have gorgeous voices! Would you know how to dance to that song? No? Well, these people do! Watch this video and see how a group of people started dancing to the song right out of nowhere in a train station in Belgium. You know Belgium! That was near where Bob joined that unfortunate dance troupe that he went to India with. Here is a map of Belgium to jog your memory.

View Larger Map

Anyway, this really happened. No one there knew it was going to happen except for the dancers. The dancers only had two rehearsals to get it all right before they did for real. Wouldn’t you have loved to have been there?

Our spelling list is in a bit of a different format this week. I am not sure what is happening to my usual service so this week I will just type the list up here for you. It is also available in the box.net widget:

curb
carry
subject
misspell
drug
erase
fancy
hem
dirt
hurry
conquer
pare
plan
cen tre
prove
cop y
suf fer
sign
mar ket
voice

Here is the link to this weeks spelling list on the Spelling City site. Don’t forget that you can bring in the spelling list from Spelling City for an extra mark on your spelling test!

On Friday, our class will be going on a field trip to the Chilliwack Museum for some Pioneer Christmas fun. Students will be making crafts and goodies like they did from the Pioneer days. We may also have a special visitor from the past as well! If you are interested in coming as a volunteer, just check off the box on your permission forms or come talk with me.

Next week will also be a time of Christmas fun here in the class. From Monday (14th) to Thursday(17th), we will be doing Christmas crafts here in the classroom. If you would like to stop in and volunteer, please let me know. We will be doing crafts on Monday from 10:45 – 12:00, Tuesday 10:45 – 12:00 and Thursday 10:45 – 12:00.

Our memory verse for this week is from Luke 2:11-12 -

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Here are two new stories from Storybird. If you have not gone to Storybird yet, click on the link and get going!!! Storybird is the most fabulous website to write stories with and have fun. The first one was written by Faith and the second one was a story I wrote. Curl up with a nice cup of hot chocolate and let Faith and I tell you a story!

This Is Me and My Friends on Storybird

Walk With Me, My Child on Storybird

Ahh! Flakes falling gently. Snow crunching underfoot! Snowmen being made by little Grade 3 children. Snowballs flying through the air! I love the winter season!

Wait a minute . . .

Oh. Right. I forgot.

I live in B.C now. Rain, rain, more rain and . . . . wait for it . . . that’s right! More rain! I miss the snow. Lucky for you and me. I brought some now from Alberta to the blog. I hope you enjoy it. We had a good start to the week. In science, students are quickly finishing up the first part of the science unit on building. Last week, we learned that stable objects are objects that do not tip over easily and stand up on their own. We did an experiment with a variety of  containers and had a little tournament to see which one would stand the longest as the table they were standing on was tilted slowly up. From that experiment, we learned that the taller and object is, the wider the base had to be and the more weight there had to be on the bottom.

Here is a video of some kids trying to build a tall structure. Do you notice anything about their structure that matches what we learned last week and today?

Do you notice anything about these buildings? (I didn’t write it so the spelling mistakes are not mine!!)

Using that knowledge, students have now been assigned the task of designing a sippy cup for Siena that will be stable and not tip over easily. The results should be very interesting!

Our Daily 3 is now on the way to running smoothly. The Listening Centre area had a few more kinks in it than I expected. But it is working better now. Thank you to all the parents who donated machines to the class. They are working beautifully. My goal and objective now is to start working in small groups with students focusing on books and reading strategies specifically geared to their age and reading level. We will be doing novel studies and comprehension activities as a small group of no more than 4 students. It should be very good. I will also be working with individual students to hear how their reading is doing and  provide individual attention on an on-going basis.

Here is our spelling for this week:
Spelling N 3

As always, here is the spelling city link. Remember that if you bring me your completed test, you can receive an extra mark on your spelling test on Friday!!! The more you practice your words using games and other activities, the stronger your neurons and axons get!!!

Our Memory Verse continues on the Christmas-y theme here at Mrhclassblog! It is from Luke 2:10:

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Finally, I thought this would be good to add to our collection of videos. This is from a cd of Science music we were listening to last week. It is by a group called “They Might Be Giants”. Anyone from my generation might remember them. Anyway, they have been getting into children’s music lately and this CD has a great collection of songs. The added DVD has the songs as videos and I found some of them on youtube. Enjoy!

With all the stuff happening lately, we have missed our chances to do our memory verse on both Friday and Monday (today). My apologizes and we will try to get back to a regular schedule for the memory verses. That said, we will do last weeks memory verse tomorrow. The memory verse for this week, which we will do on Friday is from Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Here is the spelling list for this week:

Spelling N 2

We had a nice surge of users on Spelling City last week. Keep it up and remember, the Spelling City has lots of other great resources including games and printable handwriting practice with the spelling words for the week.

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!