April 17

Writing Poetry: Using an Image as Inspiration

Pictures are worth a thousands words…as the saying goes. Lately, we’ve been looking at images to spark ideas, questions, thoughts, emotions. In class, we’ve brainstormed ideas and words that come to mind regarding certain pictures. 

Look at this poem we wrote together about a shark…

 

Jumping

Leaping

Exploding

Screaming teeth

Rocketing out

Thrashing fins

Black-tipped

Enormous body

Powerful, strong

Apex predator

 

Students have been asked to select a picture we showed in class or to find their own and write a poem about it. We are encouraged to use some of the strategies and techniques learned in class to make our poems come to life!

 

Category: Teacher Talk, Writing Workshop | 2 Comments on Writing Poetry: Using an Image as Inspiration
March 29

Addition Strategies

We’ve been learning about different ways to add 2 and 3 digit numbers. Here some tutorials from a few students in our class.

 

What’s your favourite way to add 2 and 3 digit numbers?

This is a tutorial by one of our amazing students talking about using the no regrouping strategy. 

Have a look at one of our amazing classmates giving a tutorial called ‘Break Apart’.

 

Another strategy being taught by this superstar is called the ‘traditional algorithm’.

Category: Math, Teacher Talk | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 28

Happy Easter!

Easter is the most important time of year in the Catholic church. In class, we’ve been learning about Easter symbols such as Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, the Paschal candle, and water.

What is Holy Week? Right now, we are in the midst of Holy Week with today being Holy Thursday. The week is a very sacred time where we gather to remember the Passion of Jesus Christ in the time leading up to his crucifixion. Have a listen to this quick summary:

We listened to a book called Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco, one of my favourite authors. Check out the book reading below!

Check out some of our March memories!

Category: Religion & Family Life, Teacher Talk | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 21

Biography in a Bag

As part of our nonfiction unit in reading, our class recently presented all about a person of interest to them. During the process, we learned so much about these amazing people. Some of the presentations were about:

  • Tom Longboat
  • Vivienne Westwood
  • Anne Frank
  • Taylor Swift
  • Mohammed Ali
  • Therese Casgrain
  • Auston Matthews
  • and so many more!

In addition to their oral presentation, students created a tri-fold lapbook which will will be on display on our bulletin board.

I am so proud of the amazing efforts to present everything they learned. I personally enjoyed listening to every presentation and loved the props/outfits you put together. Incredible work, Grade 3s!

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February 26

February This & That

It’s hard to believe that the month of February is coming to a close. This year is a leap year. Do you know why we have a leap year? Check out Mystery Doug’s video explaining leap years.

Click here to watch the video.

Check out some snapshots of Valentine’s Day, cursive writing practice, our math project involving perimeter and area, and reading practice using Lexia (we aim for 60 minutes per week).

 

Category: Math, Reading Workshop, Teacher Talk | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 15

Grammar

This year, we’ve been practicing a lot with writing sentences. We’ve learned about making our sentences varied and more complex, bumping up our sentences with juicy words, and much more! Many students get confused with where to put punctuation which affects the flow and comprehension of their piece.

Every morning, Mrs. Sullivan leaves a message on the Smartboard riddled with ‘mistakes’ that students must then have to correct. Today, we learned what must be a part of a sentence which is 2 things: a subject and a predicate.

We watched this video to help us understand these words and followed up with some independent practice. 

 

Can you figure out if these are sentences or not?

  1.  Mrs. Sullivan’s class decided to
  2. Where in the world
  3. The squirrel in the tree
  4. Under my desk is some dirt
  5. The puzzle on the table
  6. Sam is wearing a red top

 

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February 11

Fun in February

The recent weather we’ve been having has given everyone more reasons to get outside! We did just that on Friday and enjoyed the sunshine while playing on the school yard. 

Recently we’ve enjoyed some watercolour painting and preparing ourselves for Valentine’s Day and Lent. 

How do you like to spend time outdoors?

 

Category: Teacher Talk, The Arts | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 11

Marvelous Measurement

Measurement is all around us! We use it in so many different ways.

When we began our measurement unit, students brainstormed many things that we can measure some of which included:

  • time
  • distance
  • speed
  • length
  • width
  • height
  • depth
  • mass and weight
  • temperature

What other things can we add to our list?

What sorts of careers or jobs would require you to use measurement?

We’ve been busy bees measuring all sorts of classroom items. Have a look!

The metric system uses units such as meter, litre, and gram to measure length, liquid volume, and mass. The metric system is based on 10s, and some of the different measures for length include kilometer, meter, centimeter, and millimeter. Notice that the word “meter” is part of all of these units.

Did you know that there are only 3 countries in the world that have not adopted the metric system? These include the US, Myanmar, and Liberia.

Category: Math | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 4

Welcome to February!

January has come and gone and the learning continues in our classroom. Students are hard at work learning about nonfiction text features, how reading nonfiction differs from reading fiction, and more. We are being encouraged to explore nonfiction text both online and on paper. Miss Jeffries, our librarian, came in to teach us about an online database called Britannica School. It is a great way for students to research topics of their choosing. The articles can even read to the students! 

We’ve wrapped up our Social Studies unit on communities in Ontario and played a review game called “Quiz Quiz Trade” to help prepare us for our final test. 

Our Snowglobe stories are published and hanging on display in our classroom for all to admire. They are a fun read! We have such imaginative students in our room.

In math, we learned about movement on a grid along with cardinal directions (N,S,E,W) as well as directional turns (clockwise, counterclockwise, quarter turns, half turns).  Our current unit is all about measurement, including telling time! Stay tuned for another post about that.

Feel free to leave us a comment and ask us any questions about our learning.

We hope you all have a great day!Happy Groundhog Day Gif

 

 

Category: Math, Science and Social Studies, Teacher Talk, Writing Workshop | LEAVE A COMMENT