I can’t help it…my ‘teacher brain’ won’t shut off…even on a weekend. I was thinking about my students as I picked wild leeks at my in-laws’ property on Sunday.
As we’ve learned about soil and plants this term, I wanted to share what I was up to. It’s so neat to find your own food, either in your home garden, or out in the wild.
PROBABILITY is the chance of something happening. Recently, we played the game “4 Corners” where students have to respond to a question such as “What are the chances you will go out for dinner tonight?”. The students had to move to one of the 4 corners in our classroom labeled “Likely” “Unlikely” “Certain” and “Impossible” and be able to justify why they were there.
Playing probability games is a fun way of exploring this notion of “chance”. One recent game involved a little bit of ‘horse play’. Students worked in teams to race across the gameboard by rolling 2 dice. First, they had to choose which horse they were going to be (from horse number 2 up to horse number 12).
Students were only allowed to move their horse (1 space) if they or another team member rolled their horse’s number! Students noticed that horse numbers 6,7,8 always seemed to be winning. How come? Was it luck? Magic?
After a discussion about the chances of rolling each number of a die, students quickly realized that there are more chances of rolling a 6, 7 or 8 which explained why those horses were winning more often! It wasn’t magic, afterall. 🙂
Here is a video explaining how we play Skunk in class. Note: when we roll snake eyes, we play the version where students would lose all points for the current round and PAST rounds too.
On Friday, our mystery reader was a special member of Brendan P’s family…his sister, Madi!
What a treat to have her spend time with this on a Friday afternoon. Madi treated us with the one and only Robert Munsch. Not one…but two stories! The first story was called Aaron’s Hair and the second one was called Up Up Down.
Madi answered questions about what grade she is in, where she goes to school, and some of her favourite things.
What an awesome day spent together, learning, laughing, engaging. I was so proud of our students who represented our school so well. Way to go!
We started off our day visiting the local Apple Store in the mall. Upon arrival, we became Apple Ambassadors and got to wear a special Apple magnetic pin that we wore for the rest of the day…and got to keep!
The staff were so welcoming and once we split into teams, they advised, and coached in how to use the app called Clips. It’s free in the app store.
The task was to take a poem they’d been given, and to bring it to life using the app Clips. Students spent about an hour exploring the app, working with the Advisor in putting together their project, andthen finally added the fun effects such as filters, emojis, stickers, music, and so on. All groups had brought in some props to help tell the story of the poem. Most importantly of all, the students had fun!
We concluded our visit at Apple by watching all of the groups’ projects on a big screen. Students were given a USB wrist bracelet with their project on it to take home.
Our next mission was to enjoy a picnic-style lunch outside beside Masonville Library. It was a gorgeous day so we took advantage. Afterwards, we went into the library and met the librarian named Linda. She taught us how books areorganized in a library, what a Call Number is, read us a book called Library Lion and invited us to write a short book of our own.
Next, it was time for a library tour. Finally, students were invited to explore the library and sign out a book with their library cards and take them home to enjoy.
Thank you to all of our parent volunteers: Mrs. Franze, Mrs. Paterson, Mrs. deRond, Mrs. Cifelli, and Mrs. Pinto. We appreciated your time and energy today and it made our trip extra special to have you there.
Here are the completed student projects. Fantastic job, everyone!
Sunday was a beautiful day to celebrate Mother’s Day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and the temperature was perfect. Over the past week, students carefully prepared their terracotta pots to house the herb garden (plus beets!) that they planted a while back to give to that special person in their life.
The painted pots looked so wonderful. It is my hope you get to enjoy them for years to come. Great job, Gr.3s!
It’s been a tiring and busy past few weeks, but very rewarding! The curtains have closed and our school show, The Little Mermaid is complete. Hopefully this past weekend allowed some catching up on sleep and looking back on an amazing job. I had the pleasure of choreographing many numbers in the show and will do so next year as well when we perform Shrek!
I am so proud of all students who participated this year. It’s a big commitment but so worth it in the end.
Congratulations to all those involved for a job well done.
We were so fortunate to have another Mystery Reader visit our classroom last Friday. It turns out many students guessed correctly…it was Jacob F’s mom!
Mrs. F read to us a book called If You Hold a Seed by Elly MacKay. This author not only wrote the story but created the illustrations as well. Did you know Elly is from Owen Sound, Ontario? Pretty cool, right?
This book tells the story of a boy who plants a seed and must wait patiently through the seasons as the seed develops into a plant. While there are not many words on each page, the illustrations are so beautifully done and are worth spending extra time looking closely at the detail. This book not only teaches us lessons of patience but also that we can often find the magic in the smallest of things.
Thank you, Mrs. F!
Check out the author’s short youtube video about how she makes the illustrations and her ideas behind the book.
Click here if you want to check out her work on etsy.
Today I am telling you about the Champions League.The UEFA Champions League is an annual continental club football competition organized by the Union of the European football Associations and contested by top division European clubs.
32 teams start in the season. There are 8 groups and 4 teams in each group. Right now their are 4 teams left for the semi finals and they are Liverpool Roma FC Bayern and real Madrid. Liverpool will play Roma and FC Bayern will play Real Madrid and whoever wins will make the Finals. I think FC Bayern will play Real Madrid.
