Beyond The Desk

As part of how we are striving to keep you up-to-date and informed, we have added the memory verses for the ENTIRE YEAR on to the class calendar. You can access the Class Calendar to see the memory verses by going to the very top of the page and clicking on the Calendar link. This will take you to our calendar where you will see, not only the bible verses but also lots of other important dates as well!

The calendar can get quite crowded so you may see things like +2 or shortened names with …. after it. Just click on the events to see the full name and any details that may be included.

Our memory verses are always given out on the Monday and students will say their verses to me on Friday. WE ARE STARTING MEMORY VERSES NEXT WEEK!

A fun thing we are doing with memory verses this year is to have the students bring in their own or family favorite verses to memorize. These verses are often very important to families for many reasons and it is fun to see the verses that have impacted the lives of our families!

FOR SOME FUN

Here are some fun memory verse printables you can print out, cut out and put together to make some great memory verses for fun!

pandamemorygame

nycmemorygame

nazarethmemorygame

junglememorygame

cookingmemorygame

beachmemorygame

 

As you may have read last time, the class wanted to give the parents a tour of the class to tell you all about the fun things we have going on in Grade 3.Today, we wanted to show you one of our Language Arts boards, which includes the Home Reading Program board, the Calendar board and the computers.

The Calendar board allows us to highlight important dates and show the students how quickly we are moving through the days. While we don’t highlight it everyday, it is still useful for showing students how far away certain events are and remind students of the calendar skills they learned in the previous years. One of the important areas on the board is the “Goals for the Week”. We just started doing this this week and is an important way for students to think about behaviour and the expectations of the class so that we can all work together as a team. These are tough goals this year and we have been working very hard on them. The students come up with the goals themselves. At the end of the week, during class meetings, we will go over the goals and discuss how they went and whether we achieved our goals.

Setting goals is an important skill for children. We will be setting many goals for a variety of things this year, particularly in our Home Reading.

Speaking of which, our next board is for our Home Reading program. Every students has a space that corresponds to an online website called Pockettales. Pockettales allows students to find and share books with their friends. As students read books, they add them into the system. As students read books, they get badges to show their achievements. When they finish their books they can also share them with their friends in the class. We used Pockettales for the first time last year and the students had a lot of fun with it. It is still fairly new, so the Pockettales team is still adding features and working out the kinks. This will be one part of our program which will be starting in October.

As you can see, we also have a computer in the class! I have scrounged up some computers including my old computer, an old computer from the computer lab and the old laptop belonging to my wife. I am still working on getting everything up and running so the students have not had much chance to use it yet. Once they are up and running we will have a number of online and offline resources we will be using on them. It is very exciting to have lots of great opportunities for using technology in the class. Also, if anyone has a 75w power cord with interchangeable ends on it for a laptop, would you please let me know? We seem to have lost the one for the old laptop and I need something that will power it. Thanks!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow, we will have some exciting news about our Science program! Stay tuned. Here is a bit of a hint of what we are learning about.

Tomorrow, students will be participating in our own special brand of the Terry Fox Run. Sometime during the day, we will be taking the students outside to do some running to recognize the special contribution and legacy that Terry Fox left us in the fight for a cure for cancer.

As part of this special event, we are asking students to bring a toonie or loonie as a way to support this cause. We will be providing refreshments for the students after the run as well.

Here is a video highlighting his accomplishments. Terry Fox was an amazing man and an inspirational hero. Take some time to talk to your children about him and why what he did was important.

 

I found a great video taken from the space above us. The video was taken from the International Space Station and is actually a series of photos. The photos were put together to create a video of the Space Station moving around Earth. It is quite amazing.

 

 

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.

You can also see lightning storms lighting up the clouds as the satellite passes over. A really amazing and cool video!

Last year was the first year where I used a calendar on the blog and I have to say that it was a success in terms of communicating dates and events to parents.

This year I have continued with the calendar which you can find by clicking the Calendar link at the very top of the page.

I have already added the days where students have gym, library and music.  In October, I will also be adding the Spelling Lists.

On Friday, I asked the students to bring their favorite bible verses to share with the students. We will be using those bible verses as the memory verses this year. The bible verses can be your child’s favorite verse or the family’s favorite verse. Once I have collected all the verses, I will post them on the calendar so you know which verses we are doing each week.

Enjoy!

Well, we are off to a great start to the year. It has been wonderful seeing all the students get back into the routine of things. It has been difficult to brush off the summer and pull on the work clothes but we are doing it one day at a time.

I’m sure you may have been shocked to see the students come home covered in white dust. After you picked yourself off the ground, I am hoping your child told you that it was Oobleck and that it was 1)not poisonous and 2) that it can be washed off! 🙂 I will be telling you more about Oobleck later on.

For today, though, I thought it would be fun to give you a tour of the classroom so that you can see what we are doing and that you can feel more a part of what is happening! AS there are many parts, I have broken it down into areas starting with the front board.

At the front of the room, you can see our Daily Schedule. We go over the daily schedule every day so the students know exactly what we are doing and, most importantly, when recess and lunch are! While the schedule may change, students like to know what we are doing each day ahead of time.

We also have Music of the Week! Each week I choose a different artist and style of music to play. The music ranges from classical to rock, jazz to broadway! I feel it is nice to have students exposed to wide variety of music they may not have ever experienced before. Who knows? Maybe we’ll develop a bunch of Opera lovers in the class this year!

While our class rules, do not always hang there on the board, I thought it would be nice to have them in the picture for you. As you can see, we developed 5 rules for our class. The students came up with the rules themselves and we pared them down to the rules you see here. Tomorrow, students will be signing their names to the rules to say that they understand them and will try to follow them. Along with the class rules, you can see our Stars chart. This is our record of good behaviour and work. Every time I catch them doing a good job, they get a star. Our goal for the first set is to reach 25. As you can see, they are almost there already though they can also lose stars for inappropriate behaviour!

Hope you enjoyed the tour! I will share more with you tomorrow!

 

Dear Parents,

Welcome to another year at Highroad Academy! If you have made it this far, than you are doing extremely well in your first foray onto our class blog!!! I am pleased to take this opportunity to introduce myself and to welcome your child to Grade 3. A good learning experience is built on a cooperative effort among parents, child and teacher. I look forward to the work and growth we will all accomplish this year. My expectations for conduct and academic standards are high. With your participation both in and out of the classroom, we can look forward to a productive, creative and enjoyable year.

This year will be different in many ways for you and your child. First of all, I am looking forward to continuing to work with my amazing teaching partner. Mrs. Goosen will be teaching Thursdays as I move into an administrative role in the Grades 4-6 area. She is a wonderful teacher and I know you will enjoy the energy, humour, great ideas and love for teaching and learning she brings to the class.

We are looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity to try my hand at new learning experiences and projects. Mrs. Goosen and I believe firmly that all children should have a love for learning and that learning does not just happen in school within our four walls. Our goal this year is to help your child build that love for learning into everything they do and to develop a sense of wonder at the wonderful creation God has made in His love for us. As part of this, we also hope to involve you in this goal; whether it is through our class blog, reading with your child as part of our Home Reading program or through the family projects that your child will bring home, we want you to be an important part of this process.

This blog will be an essential tool for yourself and your child! Please check it often. I will not be sending paper copies of newsletters home. This blog will contain information about classroom activities, resources, project information, homework, spelling lists and more. If you are having problems accessing the blog or any of the resources on it, please let me know.

I have placed a copy of the newsletter down below for you to look at and enjoy in full colour. Please take the time to read through it and answer the questionnaire at the back. If you could send that back completed as soon as possible, that would be great! You can also get it by clicking on the document in the Box.net area on the right hand side or by clicking here.

First Day Newsletter – Grade 3

Another video from one of my favorite bands! They make such great videos! And to team up with the Muppets…well, that is just icing on the cake for me! Enjoy and we will see you soon!!!!!