Mindful Monday, October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween! 

We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe evening. Today we continued our study around poems and began to write onomatopoeia poetry. In the afternoon we were very excited about our Halloween costumes and participated in the costume parade - going around to each classroom and showing off our fantastic attire. We also watched a demonstration of an in-class science experiment "Screaming Balloon" where we predicted and observed what happens/happened when you put a 6-sided nut into an inflated balloon. What actually happened? The balloon made a high-pitched 'scream-like' noise. Some students said it sounded like a racecar, while others said it was similar to a "zooommmmm!" A fun and easy experiment to try at home.

Thoughtful Thursday, October 27, 2016

We started creating our 6 questions with our  Grade 1 buddies about what is peace. Our questions consisted of descriptive detail and personal connections from our own experiences. It was really interesting sharing ideas back and forth with our grade 1 buddies. During IS we began exploring the problem as to why he was the only animal to hear the Whos. We brainstormed questions we needed to ask in order to answer our questions. We watched a video about the parts of the ear. The video can be found on the Brightspace. During math we continue to explore place value and estimating. Mrs. Steckly began to infer about a number that changes everyday. It grows and is displayed on a screen where we hydrate our bodies. Hmmmm, what could it be? Some of us began to make connections with these clues and noticed she was talking about the digital display on the water fountains. It counts the number of plastic water bottles that have not been used by using the filtration system. We collected the data from all four of the fountains and were challenged with some word problems. Which fountain will reach 1000 first? Why do you think? Which one be last to reach 1000? If you doubled the amount of water bottles saved at each station, what would it be? Tripled? We were prompted to show our work in numbers, words and pictures. 

We will collect the data and record it every day. We will look for patterns in these numbers, so stay tuned! 

Wondering Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Today was a fun lunch day. We continued reading in our R-T-R (Read Talk Reflect) groups and some students were able to share their responses to the text within their small groups. During math we worked on skip counting (2's, 3's and 5's) and completed constructing our 100's chart. To end the day we had KETCHUP (Catch Up....haha) where students worked on their self-evaluations, goal setting, onomatopoeia art, reading, "My Community if Bigger Than" and the Important Thing About writing (Wow! There was a lot going on this afternoon). We had a wonderful opportunity to work with Mrs. Witczak"s Grade 1 class on our Remembrance Day contribution, "What is Peace?" Tomorrow we will working with our Grade 1 buddies to create a poem about peace for the assembly in November.

Truthful Tuesday, October 25, 2016

It was picture day today. Today we took the time to write a letter to Horton sharing with him a good deed or action we have done for a friend, family member or classmate. We will finish writing them tomorrow. In the afternoon we worked on constructing classroom expectations as a group, went to the learning commons to exchange our books and began sorting wants and needs. During math we played a skip counting game (1, 2 POOF!)

Mindful Monday, October 24, 2016

We continued to make observations and insightful comments about how Whoville, and Horton’s homes were similar and different. One of the insightful observations made was that Whoville, the spec of dust, on the clover was like us in the universe. We also discussed some of the problems that appeared in the movie. Some of our brainstormed problems were: how to design and construct a building to withstand natural disasters like an earthquake, how can we amplify our voice through a variety of material, how can we design and construct a bridge to cross a gully or ravine? These were but a few of our ideas. We are hoping to design and create answers for these problems in the coming weeks.  Later groups were posed with a problem such as: on island, what do you need for survival, 40 years in future designing a new community, living in Hollywood, throwing a reunion party and throwing a birthday bash - what are the needs and wants?  Tomorrow we will contrast and compare our needs and wants. In math we counted by 2s on a hundreds chart and explored what is an even number and how do you know.
Remember tomorrow is picture day!

Fit Friday, October 21, 2016

Today we brainstormed a list of onomatopoeias and constructed sentences using these fun words. This learning activity was similar to a character in a book we just read (Max from Max's words). We are beginning to learn what makes a clear and descriptive sentence. While some of us finished our onomatopoeia art project, others continue to improve their work based on constructive feedback (we reviewed this today!). 

Happy weekend everyone - enjoy the sunshine and outdoors. 

Thoughtful Thursday, October 20, 2016

We continued to learn and make connections about hearing and sound while watching Horton Hears a Who. Today we noticed more similarities and differences between Horton and the Who including the landscape and the environment, which influence and shape our communities (think about our immediate community of Calgary and consider how has the landscape influenced our identity?).  After lunch we worked through some math and reviewed skip counting by three's. "Why do you think we are learning this?"  Mrs. Steckly asked. One student pointed out that counting by 3's is almost like multiplication (YES!) and we constructed some visuals to break this down a bit. The day ended off with working on our onomatopoeia art, and we were prompted to consider our first draft, give and receive immediate feedback from both the teacher and our peers. Tomorrow we will aim to finish these art pieces and share them on our blog. 

Wondering Wednesday, October 18, 2016

Today we started to look at the film based on Dr. Seuss' picture book Horton Hears a Who!

 

We are learning about the importance of community - Why are we a part of a community? How we are a part of a community? How listening in the community is important? What makes a community important? Each of these big questions can be answered using this film, and we are starting to make connections to the real world. 

"We are global citizens" one student said. 

Yes! Our community is so much bigger than just Evanston. We ARE a part of the bigger picture. Today we also learned that we need to take care of ourselves (be happy and healthy) in order to contribute to our bigger community.  We all have needs and wants, but need to realize that what we do can make a difference in our world. 

Together we constructed this image - ask us how math was involved in making this (hint - counting by 3's).

Reminder: Book Orders are due tomorrow Thursday, October 20. 

Half Day on Friday, October 21.

Truthful Tuesday October 18, 2016

Today we started to thinking about our community - what is in our immediate community (Evanston)? We began to consider that our community is more than homes and buildings. Since we have been exploring sounds (in our listening walks and onomatopoeia) we asked the following questions... 


Why is listening important in the community?
Why do we have ears?
Why are ears important?
Why do we need ears?
How do we hear?
Why is hearing important?
Why do we have to hear?
Why do we go outside (community?)
Why do we have a community?


We are building our vocabulary! Mrs. Steckly asked what she should be for Halloween (she is having a hard time deciding)  except the catch was that we had to describe the character and be specific as possible. Here are our answers...

Zahed - Red Jolly Rancher

Noah - Turkey Taco 

Suleman - Elsa

Manar - An Astronaut  

Kian - Bat Girl 

Asia - Fluffy Black Cat 

Zahra - Princess Venelope  (Wreck it Ralf)

JT - White Squishy Big Marshmallow

Ryan - The Wizard of OZ

Peyton - A Deviled Egg 

Owen - Star Wars Force Awakes Captain Fasma (girl storm trooper)

Rayme - A Devil because you have red hair

Ivana - Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad) 

Khushi - Vampire Princess 

Darya - Anna 

Alice - Hotdog

Giovanna - Pepperoni Pizza

Adam - Cheese Pizza

Alvin - An Evil Witch

Alyssa - to be determine 

Logan - Toast with chocolate sprinkles  

Cairo - Alex from Minecraft  

We are working on our onomatopoeia art project...



Reminder: This Friday is early dismissal at 11:30am.

Mindful Monday, October 17, 2016

Today we continued our "Listening Walk" by not walking, but sitting and listening for five minutes in the classroom. We heard many sounds including "stomp" "tap" "swish" and "beep". We also watched this video and then added to the sounds we heard in our classroom (the minions were some of our favourite).

















  We also considered and discussed the importance of self-evaluations. By checking in with yourself and evaluating your learning (using 1, 2, 3, or 4), we always have the opportunity to make our work better. To help us understand this process of learning, we took a look at Austin's Butterfly and in our table groups ordered them from the first to final draft. "It was easy to see the best one because it had the most detail and really looked like a butterfly" one student said. 



This lead into us revisiting our onomatopoeia art work we started last week. We asked ourselves "On a 4 point scale, what would I give myself and why?". We recorded our reflections on a sticky note and will share with our table groups tomorrow.

Thoughtful, Thursday October 13, 201During math we used base ten blocks to represent numbers

Mrs. Steckly read "Max's Words" by Kate Banks, although she didn't show the students the illustrations in the book. Why?! The students were prompted to visualize (make their own illustrations in their head) by listening to the descriptive language in the book.



The student's then identified some of these descriptive words...



...and then translated their visualizations into their creative journals using drawings and some words (including the onomatopoeia "HISS").




We also visited the Learning Commons and took out one book. Please note - if your child did not bring home a book, they have outstanding charges at their previous school and are not able to check out a book at Ken Taylor's Learning Commons. Please contact your child's previous school to resolve this issue.

During math we used base ten blocks to represent numbers.Remember tomorrow is our first spirit day. It's Blue Day! Don't forget to wear blue! 

Wondering Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Wandering While Wondering Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Today we listened to the sounds in our school. Our walk took us down and around the hallways as we discovered talking, clicking, beeping, laughing, whistling and beeping. Many of our sounds tied into our work on onomatopoeia from the morning. We learned that they are sound words. Zip, splat, boom, pow, bark, rustle were a few of the words that we brainstormed and shared with others. We continued to develop our ideas about the important numbers to us. Another aspect of writing we looked at was descriptive language and providing evidence when we write.

Truthful Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Truthful Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Thank you to all the parents and students who attended Parent Teacher Interviews on Thursday night and Friday during the day. We explored and constructed 3D shapes out of toothpicks and clay. If we encountered any challenges building our shapes we were able to help each other by asking questions, or taking a gallery walk around the class to observe others’ shapes. It was interesting to discuss how 3D shapes could be sorted into groups. We decided that we could use the number of vertices, edges or faces. During physical education today we worked in small groups of four or five and worked our way through a variety of fitness activities that focused on body awareness and skills. We also read the book, The Important Book and used this idea to brainstorm important numbers to us.

Thoughtful Thursday, October 7, 2016

Thoughtful Thursday. October 6, 2016

Thoughtful Thursday led us to explore the idea of listening and what active listening looked like. We listened to the story about Harold B Wigglebottom Learns to Listen by Harold Binkow and discussed how do we know he was listening? What evidence demonstrates him listening? We worked on proving what active listening was and why it is important to our learning? This led to use creating a journal page to show how we listen with our whole body. Tonight is parent teacher interviews from 3:30 to 7:30 pm and tomorrow from 8:00 until 1:00 pm. We look forward to meeting with the parents and students. A letter went home today welcoming Mrs. Steckly to our grade 3 class. Mrs. Steckly will be teaching the period before lunch and for the afternoon.

Please remember there is no school on Friday and Monday is Thanksgiving. We will see you Tuesday, October 11, 2016.