April 17

Whatch’ya Been Up To?

As we make our way towards May, the students have been engaged in a variety of activities within our classroom. We try to have a lot of fun and make learning as hands-on as possible.

Check out our busy bees below:

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April 10

Book Tasting: Part Deux

Our last book tasting in November was a big hit, so it only made sense to do it again! Last week, our students came in hungry and left STUFFED with ideas for books to read.

What was on the menu this time around? Well, Chef Sully, who flew in all the way from Paris, complete with a fancy French accent, was serving up some delicious genres that included:

  • Books in a Series
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Fantasy
  • Picture Books

What’s on YOUR reading menu these days?

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April 10

Eggcellent Egg Drop

As part of our recent Science unit all about Forces and Motion, students recently were given a design challenge and needed to work collaboratively to solve the following problem:

Problem:  A local sports store, “Eggsactly Sports”, is needing new ideas to help improve their line of protective gear such as helmets. They are looking to young, innovative kids to help design inexpensive protection that could inspire the store to make new gear.

Solution: Design safety equipment that will protect your egg from a drop of at least 3 m.

Each group’s design was innovative and well thought out. I was SO impressed! Students used a variety of materials some of which included:

  • cotton balls
  • tin foil
  • a cushion
  • balloons
  • Kleenex
  • Kleenex box
  • parachute
  • paper roll
  • styrofoam

We recruited some help from Mrs. Chapman to be the “tester” and with Mr. Ritchie involved as well, each team’s design was dropped from the roof of the school to the pavement below.

Students looked on anxiously to see what happened as a result. Did the egg survive the fall? Did the design function the way it was intended?

Take a look at the collection of 5 videos from all teams along with some pictures:

 

In class, we watched the videos to reflect on what we noticed or heard with each drop. They were asked to think about what they would change or keep the same if they had to do it again. Was our prediction accurate?

Three out of the 5 groups did not have their egg break. There was 1 egg broken and 1 was cracked.

Overall, we had fun building and testing our designs!

 

If you were to do this experiment, what type of materials

would you use?

 

Category: Science and Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 9

Guitar

Playing the guitar is so much fun, especially when you master a new skill. To master a skill you need to practice, practice, practice. I use a metronome to help me practice. It helps me count my beats my teacher is so nice and he gives me candy if I practice hard enough ! One song I learned to play is from Iron Man. Have you heard this song before? (see below)

 

Category: Student Blogger of the Week | 1 Comment on Guitar
April 9

A Skype Chat with Dr. Jane Goodall

What a special treat this morning as students came in to class, sat on the carpet, and listened to a short, live presentation with Dr. Jane Goodall!

Dr. Jane Goodall is a scientist and conservationist. She is 85 years young and spends much of her time, as she says, in hotels and airports, flying around the world promoting wildlife conservation and empowering people to make a difference in the world. Check out her website here.

Her skype session was public to all students and classrooms anywhere in the world and we were registered as one of those classes.

We learned a little bit about her extensive work with chimpanzees, which started in the 1960s. She answered questions from kids around the world. We added our own questions and followed along with dialogue happening in the moment. We even got to do a selfie with Dr. Jane! Students will go home with a certificate on Wednesday!

Jane urges students to find small ways to make a big difference in the world. She talked about her own program called Roots & Shoots which you can learn about here.

Here is the Skype chat in its entirety:

 

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April 4

Northern Lights Art

Inspired by the Northern Lights, also called Aurora Borealis, students created some beautiful artwork that showcases the dancing colours of the night sky (see video below).

Fun Facts about the Northern Lights:

  • Earth isn’t the only planet to have auroras — scientists have found them on Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
  • The northern lights don’t just produce beautiful colours, they also make sounds like claps, crackles and static. But these are hard to hear with all the other noise around us.
  • The most common colours of the northern lights are green, pink, purple, red, yellow and blue.
  • The northern lights appear 200 to 300 kilometers above the earth and are bright enough to be seen from space.

Click here to learn how the Northern Lights are formed and other neat information about them.

Did you know…

The name “aurora borealis” comes from the French astronomer and scientist Pierre Gassendi. He called it aurora for the Roman goddess of the dawn, and boreas, which is the Greek word for the north wind.

Category: The Arts | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 4

Let’s Make S’more Inferences

What better way to celebrate our learning about inferences than to EAT?! We’ve been exploring several short stories and have been using paper s’mores to break apart the pieces of an inference:

  • graham cracker = Background knowledge
  • graham cracker = Text clues
  • marshmallow = inference
  • chocolate = another inference

We remember that BK +TC =I and that we make inferences all the time and don’t even know we’re doing it. Way to go grade 3s!

Aren’t edible inferences delicious?

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April 1

Spring Has Arrived!

After March Break, time always seems to fly. We are in the season of Lent, moving closer to Easter. The students in our class have been working incredibly hard on their school work. We have been diligently studying and practicing our times tables. Mrs. Sullivan has been impressed!

As a class, we’ve been pushing ourselves to strengthen our Word Study test scores overall and the results have been outstanding!

Several students have been challenging themselves to achieve silver certificates in Mathletics. Wow! Who will earn the first gold?

We continue to move along nicely in our newest writing unit called Realistic Fiction where we are gathering ideas.

Take a look at some of the activity in our room as of late:

What do you like the best about Spring?

Category: Math, Religion & Family Life, Teacher Talk, The Arts, Writing Workshop | 3 Comments on Spring Has Arrived!
March 28

Mystery Reader…Revealed!

Today, our special guest was…Mrs. Cheeseman! She read to us a book called JoJo the Giant by Jane Barclay. It was the story of a boy who is eager to grow bigger. He wants some new running shoes after seeing them in a store window, but they are too expensive. He decides to enter a race to see if he can win the pair, but is racing against bigger boys, including a bully. In the end, JoJo learns about believing in himself and that we can grow in more ways than one!

 

A huge thank-you to Mrs. Cheeseman for reading with us today! We loved the story of JoJo the Giant and thought you were a great reader.

Category: Reading Workshop, Teacher Talk | 2 Comments on Mystery Reader…Revealed!
March 22

Life with three siblings

Life with three siblings is good but sometimes bad.When I say bad I mean we sometimes fight.It might be because I have a teenage sister and a sister that will be a teenager in June.Or it might be my ten year old sister that starts most of the fights.

It’s good to have siblings because we can have fun together when we play games or hang out together. They can also be helpful by helping me on my Kumon if Mom is unavailable.

by: T. N.

 

      DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS?

Category: Student Blogger of the Week | 3 Comments on Life with three siblings