The Final Week of October

Hi everyone,

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend and got outside to enjoy the beautiful weather yesterday!

This past week we have continued to learn about each other via the Golden Eagle presentations. J.H., D.V., J.S., B.M.,  and K.N. presented.  We enjoyed finding out that J.H. has his own YouTube channel.  D.V. shared her music box with all its hidden drawers.  J.S. highlighted his turtle and how it helps him to feel safe.  B.M. shared his Teddy Bear who also helps him to feel brave.  Finally, K.N. shared her Wonder Woman novel that she likes to read when she is alone.  We are looking forward to our final Golden Eagle presentations this coming week.

In other news, we continued with our soil explorations this week.  We examined the results of our shaken soil and water from last week. All five soils had separated but we could not see all of the possible layers in every sample.  As an exit ticket activity, we used all the information we had gathered about our five soil samples to determine which one(s) would be the best to use when planting our spider plants in the next couple of weeks.  We also revisited our roots and stem absorption experiments to see what had happened.





In math, we have begun to explore money.  We have been representing different amounts using bills and coins.  We have also started to practice "spending" it and figuring out our change.  You are welcome to help us by sending in any grocery store flyers you may have as we will be combining this topic with our healthy eating in health.

This week we had our first opportunity to explore some of the technology available to us through the innovation studio.  Students were given free choice to experiment with Pic Collage, Litbot, Moma Art Lab, and the Lego Movie apps.  Stay tuned as we hope to share some of these experiences when we begin working with Seesaw and creating our electronic portfolios.






The Eldorado Excellence and Diwali assembly was amazing with songs by kindergarten, grades 2 and three, a dance by the Diwali dance group and a presentation by the Me to We club. All of us in 3D were proud to have J.T. and A.T. as the Responsibility award winners from our class.

As you know, tomorrow is Hallowe'en. Students are invited to wear their costumes to school in the morning.  They will be participating in the primary parade.  Students will need to bring a change of clothing that they can change into later in the day if they get tired of wearing it or are worried that it will get damaged or dirty before the evening.  Please ensure that they are able to see and breathe easily if wearing a mask and that they do not have any weapons associated with their costumes as weapons are not permitted as per school rules.




All students in class 3D will be participating in a "Pumpkin Inquiry" during the afternoon on Monday.  The "Pumpkin Inquiry" is directly related to learning in both the language and math areas of the curriculum.  It may get messy!




Library will be on Tuesday this week.

Thank you!  Have a great week!
Ms. Sparling

Week of October 17th-21st

Hi everyone,

I hope that you have had a great weekend!  The fall weather seems to have arrived.

We had another full week in portable four, class 3D.

We have continued with our Golden Eagle presentations.  This week A.K, H.I., R.S., A.S., and A.A. were invited to share a little bit more about their lives and interests outside the class room.  We learned that A.K. enjoys writing and drawing in her journal.  H.I. wants to be a police officer and stop crime when he is older.  R.S. enjoys reading and recommends the "Magic Tree House" series for those of you who have not read any of them yet.  A.S. talked to us about enjoying math challenges and his favourite car from "Cars 2".  A.A. was proud of his skills with the cricket bat and with the motorcycle game.  This week we will have five more friends sharing their lives with us.  The students and I are looking forward to what they will share and having the opportunity to ask them questions about themselves.




We focused on balanced equations and fact families in math this week, as well as, beginning to explore arrays with Ms. Powell.  This week we will be doing some work with money so please feel free to have the students helping you make change when you are out grocery shopping.

We had our first spelling test this week and most students demonstrated that they had practiced their words.  We will have new words coming home this Monday for them to practise this week.  We are continuing to focus on some of the most common errors, science terms and personal choice vocabulary.

In science this week we learned about the function of the stems and different kinds of roots.  We also started to explore different kinds of soil.  It has been fun getting to work in groups with students from some of the other grade three classes.

Most of us also finished up our first piece of line art this week.  The results are beautiful!

Our novel is the "BFG" by Roald Dahl.  This week we had the opportunity to listen to teachers from around North America read different chapters and we began to record the personality traits and what we know about Sophie and the BFG.

This coming week we will be continuing to focus on soil absorption and soil layers.  We will also be looking at our leaf samples.  Thank you to everyone who was able to send some in.

Friday morning we will be having a monthly assembly.  This month's themes are Diwali and responsibility.

This week we will also be beginning to explore some of the technology available for use in the Innovation Studio.  Mr. J. will be our guide as we explore together.

The Scholastic Book order will be placed Monday after school if anyone has a last minute order they would like to add.  I will let you know as soon as they arrive.

Have a great week!

Second Week of October

Hello everyone,

Our second week of October has flown by!  It may have been a short week but it was a busy one for all of us in 3D!

We have begun our Golden Eagle presentations and we are learning so much about one another!  What a wonderful chance for every student to highlight their strengths and interests outside of school!


We also use these presentations to help us with some of our in school learning goals of course.  The students have developed a class checklist about how to be the best audience they can be, focused on listening skills while their friends present and how to ask for further information or clarification when they are finished.  We then use this information to create jot notes on a mind map.  Next we participate in shared writing as we generate a series of paragraphs about the presentation we have seen.

This shared writing provides a number of wonderful opportunities to discuss and practice word choice, sentence structure and paragraphing which students are then able to try applying in their own writing.



We have started to generate our spelling lists from words that we have identified as difficult from our writing or new and interesting from our reading.  This coming week the students will be choosing words that should be recorded in their agenda for practice purposes.  Some activities that students might choose to complete to help them to practice spelling these words correctly are:  using them in their own sentences; writing them out on papers and then putting them back together as a puzzle; read-cover-write-check and repeat; putting them in alphabetical order; looking for small words inside larger words; clapping out the number of syllables; etc.

In math this week we have been continuing to solve a series of problems based on "Grandma Eudora's T-Shirt Factory".  All of the related problems and activities focus on developing students' understanding of place value, relationships between numbers, addition and subtraction.

We had so much fun with this that I was asked by K.N. to post a new number string here for students to work on with those of you at home.

It is important to remember that when working through a number string that it is all about representing the ideas many ways and looking for connections between the numbers.  In the photograph below each of the number sentences was presented and discussed one at a time. When the second number sentence was introduced the students thought about how what they had done with the first number sentence might help them with the second, and then again with the third.


 If you want to try a series at home here is an example:

56 + 43  How many ways can you represent this number sentence?

60 + 40  How many ways can you represent this number sentence?
              Do you see any connections between this number sentence
              and the one above?  Could one of them help you to solve
              the other?

50 + 50  How many ways can you represent this number sentence?
              Do you see any connections between this number sentence
              and the ones above?  Could any of them help you to solve
              the others?







In science we have continued to build our knowledge of the parts of a plant and the purpose of those parts. We will be making focused observations about the different parts' purposes this week, as well as exploring the soil they grow in.

Our art is growing out of our plant studies as we examine the world around us for different kinds of lines. Hopefully some of you will have had an opportunity to help your child find various leaf samples for us to examine this week.

I am looking forward to another wonderful week of learning ahead!

Ms. Sparling

Fall is Here!

Hello everyone,

I hope you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Here are a few of the highlights from the last week.

    Visiting the Innovation Studio:

           

   Lego Challenge 

What can you build 

with exactly 25 pieces?

Helping "Grandma Eudora" with her t-shirt sales.

Creating Seed art.

We have also continued to monitor our seedlings' growth and learn about the parts of a plant.  A big "Thank you!" to all the families that have been able to send in extra planting containers.  We are hoping to do some further planting of our "hens and chicks" and spider plants soon.

Another huge "Thank you!" for all the support you gave to the Toonies for Terry drive.  We were able to more than beat our school goal of $1500.00, raising a total of $2387.75 for cancer research.

I am looking forward to another amazing week of learning with the wonderful students of 3D!

Ms. Sparling