December 7
Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday we were packing to leave the old portable and here we are settled in and working away. Thank-you to everyone who offered to help us move in. We were fortunate enough that we did not require any extra hands as the maintenance department handled most of the heavy lifting for us, and the students assisted with the smaller, lighter loads. Many hands definitely made lighter work.
We had a very successful learning period even though we were in the midst of a lot of changes. We have been continuing to learn about Waste and Our World in our Science unit. The students have done a lot of research into packaging and have created beautiful, educational flow charts of how both a product and its packaging go from raw materials to disposal - and disposal doesn't always mean the garbage. We are continuing to work on types of garbage as we move through biodegrading/composting and other creators of waste. It is my hope that we will be finishing this unit prior to the Christmas break.
Our math class has been progressing at the students' pace. Each child is within the Number Sense unit; however, I have chosen to do many mini-lessons with small groups of children rather than trying to keep everyone at the same pace. It is seeming to be working well, as the students are better able to understand the material before moving on to a new concept. It is my intention to continue working like this throughout the remaining months. There are a few exceptions where we will be doing whole class instruction such as today, when we all took a look at telling time on an analog clock. We will be finishing out this week with telling time as it has become a more important skill in real life due to having to monitor time out of the classroom. It is also a good life skill and would normally be covered in a later unit.
Reading has been a focus of ours all year, and we are beginning to focus on how to apply what we have read rather than just learning to read. We are working on designated reading comprehension activities with a focus on different skills to assist us in finding the information within the passage. We have been recommending to the students to highlight in their passages the 'proof' of the answers or support of their belief of why something is the response. It has helped students to realize that support of a decision is quite important, and this has lead to improvements in student opinion writing as well.
Overall, students' quality of writing has improved a great deal in their KidBlog entries. If you have not had a chance to review your child's writing through this format, yet, have him/her log into his/her KidBlog account through Google, and read some of the posts from early October and then read some of the recent posts. You will be able to see the difference in quality! Of course there is still room for improvement, but generally speaking, there has been good progress. We will continue to follow the same format of KidBlog posts for the year: Monday - My Weekend In Review, Talk About It Tuesday - opinion writing, WeSearch Wednesday - students use provided links to research a topic and then write about the topic, and Thursday - A Week's Reflection - 3 things I learned, 2 things I liked, 1 question I have. We do not write in KidBlog on Fridays because of the assembly.
If you ask most Albertans, I think we could easily say that we have a great energy sector. In social, we have been learning about our most prominent energy sector the oil sands. We have learned how oil is taken out of the sand and how it is used for so many daily items that we don't realize. We have also talked about how one day - far in the future - we may run out of oil and what we may use as alternative energy sources. We have focussed on wind power, solar energy and piggy power. The students have been working very hard on creating cartoons using PowToon and/or Book Creator. We hope to finish these cartoon tomorrow, and they should be available for you to view through your child's Google account. We will be discussing the importance of Alberta's second and third leading industries - agriculture and forestry - in the next weeks.
Please encourage your student to cut out, print or email to me a new Current Events article every week. We use these articles to summarize and present to our classmates as part of our Social Studies curriculum. Students have been forgetting, lately, that a new article is required each week and that it is their responsibility to have an article.
A few reminders of upcoming events:
We had a very successful learning period even though we were in the midst of a lot of changes. We have been continuing to learn about Waste and Our World in our Science unit. The students have done a lot of research into packaging and have created beautiful, educational flow charts of how both a product and its packaging go from raw materials to disposal - and disposal doesn't always mean the garbage. We are continuing to work on types of garbage as we move through biodegrading/composting and other creators of waste. It is my hope that we will be finishing this unit prior to the Christmas break.
Our math class has been progressing at the students' pace. Each child is within the Number Sense unit; however, I have chosen to do many mini-lessons with small groups of children rather than trying to keep everyone at the same pace. It is seeming to be working well, as the students are better able to understand the material before moving on to a new concept. It is my intention to continue working like this throughout the remaining months. There are a few exceptions where we will be doing whole class instruction such as today, when we all took a look at telling time on an analog clock. We will be finishing out this week with telling time as it has become a more important skill in real life due to having to monitor time out of the classroom. It is also a good life skill and would normally be covered in a later unit.
Reading has been a focus of ours all year, and we are beginning to focus on how to apply what we have read rather than just learning to read. We are working on designated reading comprehension activities with a focus on different skills to assist us in finding the information within the passage. We have been recommending to the students to highlight in their passages the 'proof' of the answers or support of their belief of why something is the response. It has helped students to realize that support of a decision is quite important, and this has lead to improvements in student opinion writing as well.
Overall, students' quality of writing has improved a great deal in their KidBlog entries. If you have not had a chance to review your child's writing through this format, yet, have him/her log into his/her KidBlog account through Google, and read some of the posts from early October and then read some of the recent posts. You will be able to see the difference in quality! Of course there is still room for improvement, but generally speaking, there has been good progress. We will continue to follow the same format of KidBlog posts for the year: Monday - My Weekend In Review, Talk About It Tuesday - opinion writing, WeSearch Wednesday - students use provided links to research a topic and then write about the topic, and Thursday - A Week's Reflection - 3 things I learned, 2 things I liked, 1 question I have. We do not write in KidBlog on Fridays because of the assembly.
If you ask most Albertans, I think we could easily say that we have a great energy sector. In social, we have been learning about our most prominent energy sector the oil sands. We have learned how oil is taken out of the sand and how it is used for so many daily items that we don't realize. We have also talked about how one day - far in the future - we may run out of oil and what we may use as alternative energy sources. We have focussed on wind power, solar energy and piggy power. The students have been working very hard on creating cartoons using PowToon and/or Book Creator. We hope to finish these cartoon tomorrow, and they should be available for you to view through your child's Google account. We will be discussing the importance of Alberta's second and third leading industries - agriculture and forestry - in the next weeks.
Please encourage your student to cut out, print or email to me a new Current Events article every week. We use these articles to summarize and present to our classmates as part of our Social Studies curriculum. Students have been forgetting, lately, that a new article is required each week and that it is their responsibility to have an article.
A few reminders of upcoming events:
- December 18 - Christmas Concert dress rehearsal at 1:10. If you are unable to attend the evening performance, please join us at the afternoon performance. Evening performance - please have students at the school by 6:15. The performance begins at 6:30.
- December 19 - Grade 1 and 2 performances. Same format as ours on Monday night.
- December 20 - kindergarten performances.
- December 20 - afternoon - building graham wafer houses with our grade 1 reading buddies. Don't forget to send in milk cartons (250mL) and candies with which to decorate.
- December 22 - PJ and Stuffie Day. Students are encouraged to wear their most comfortable pajamas and to bring ONE small stuffed toy. There will also be a movie shown in the afternoon; however, there has not been a release of title yet. I will share that information as soon as I know it.
- December 22 is also the last day of school for the 2017 calendar year. Classes resume January 8, 2018.
- You can buy tickets online now for the Comfy Couch Raffle!
Have a great Christmas season and best wishes for 2018!
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