Thoughtful Thursday, December 15, 2016

We worked in our different literature circle groups this morning. Our groups will continue after the winter break and we will have the opportunity to select new novels to read and discuss. Remember to read over the break.  We were adding the finishing touches to our trading cards today and are handing them in tomorrow. Some of our finishing touches included learning how to draw our animal. The assembly this afternoon was very well attended and fun to watch. We had the opportunity to learn the dances over the past few weeks and our turn is tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. Remember tomorrow is pajama day and early dismissal. Remember to dress for the weather!

Wondering Wednesday, December 14, 2016

We continued with our literature circles this morning. It has been interesting reading and talking in our groups about our books. We will be continuing the literature circles after the winter break and we are being encouraged to read over the break and share what we have read with our parents. The Public Library is a great place to sign out books over the winter break. We continued to finish the research and write up about our animal communication and hearing. In physical education we practiced our dance (Christmas Tree) for the assembly on Friday and we even learned a new dance today (Miracle). Reminder that tomorrow is red and green day and Friday is pajama day. Remember to dress for the weather!

Truthful Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Have you ever wondered how animals communicate with each other? We continued researching our chosen animals today to find out how they communicate, how the hear and what is their range of hearing. We discovered that some websites gave us really good information and others did not. Our trading cards are due on Friday, December 16, 2016 and we will be working on these every day this week. At today's assembly we watched other students perform their dances and sang carols. We perform our dance on Friday and spent our physical education and music class today practicing. During math we worked on estimation and word problems. Reminder there is early dismissal on Friday, December 16, 2016. Report cards are going home on Friday, December 16, 2016.

Thursday is red and green day and Friday is pajama day. Remember to dress for the weather!

Mindful Monday, December 12, 2016

Mindful Monday, December 12, 2016

Brrr! It’s cold outside… a line we hear quite frequently in our room every morning. Remember to dress for the weather coming to school. We started our day by reading our novels in our groups. After reading for a time we got into our groups and discussed our novels. One part that is interesting is that all of our group members are at different places in their stories, but we get to share our understanding with our groups. Sometimes we find an interesting phrase or we ask questions or I wonder about our stories. After discussing our books we then reflect on what we have read and discussed by writing. We continued to finish our human trading card. On our trading card we included how sound travels from the source through the three parts of our ear to our brain. The trading card also contains interesting facts, range of our hearing and safety and protection for our hearing and ears. Some of us even took home our cards to finish them. Today we started researching an animal and how they communicate and hear. It was great to see some students were eager to start their research and had brought in some facts and information. During math, we worked on estimation, basic facts and word problems. We continued to work on skip counting by fours.

Later we continued our visualization with the picture book The Mitten and we compared our visualizations to the actual book. During physical education and music class we continued to learn our dance that we will be presenting on Friday, December 16, 2016 at 8:30 am in the gym and parents are welcome to attend our assembly. We are just one of the dances that will be performed.

Here are our spelling words for December 12-15 (*Spelling test on Thursday*)

meat               meet               might              enough           fight                night

listen              where             bright             better             friends            tight

writes             little                talks                light                wonder           flight

should            quiet               than                high                street              fright

many

Friendly Friday, December 9, 2016

Happy Friday Everyone!

An important reminder for all students: please continue to think about an animal that you would like to research and learn about in relation to hearing and sound. Please consider how this animal hears and the landform in which is lives in! We will be wrapping up this learning next week.

Today we worked on our human trading card, demonstrating our understanding of the different parts of the ear. How does sound travel through it? We also have started exploring some mental math strategies and challenged ourselves with math word problems. 

A few important updates for next week are below - have a great weekend. 

Week of December 12th Updates / Reminders

Hello Parents / Guardians, Here are just a few reminders before we break for Winter Break. Weather Please ensure your child is dressed for the extreme temperatures (hats, mitts, boots, snow pants and warm jackets).  The students will have some outside time for recess when the temperature is warmer than -20c including windchill.  Donations If you and your family have any children’s (G rated) DVD’s that you would be willing to donate for indoor lunch/recess, please send them to school on Monday. Christmas time is traditionally associated with a time of giving and sharing. In keeping with the spirit of Christmas, we will be running a Christmas hamper campaign from December 5th through to December 13th. During this time please send your cheques or cash donations to the school in a sealed envelope marked ‘Christmas Hampers’. We will be distributing gift cards from all funds collected to Evanston families who would appreciate a little extra during the holiday season. Caroling Students at Ken Taylor School have been participating in a Creative Movement unit for the three weeks in December. Together we have learned about a variety of cultural celebrations and dances that are from around the world. Each class will have an opportunity to share what we have been learning during our Caroling Assemblies next week. Below is a list of dates and which class is performing when. We welcome parents and guests to come and share in the magic of the season with us. Tuesday, December 13 @ 9:30am  Pearson/Stewart Brar/Bakkan               Thursday, December 15 @ 1:00pm  (Red and Green Day) Hargreaves/Sayani PM Kindergarten   Friday, December 16 @ 8:30am (Pajama Day)  Carstairs/Witczak AM Kindergarten  Steckly/Fraser/Jordan  Lost & Found We have accumulated many lost items in our lost and found.  Please take a moment with your child to make sure none of the items belong to you.  We will be donating any items left over after December 16th. Spirit Days We will be having 2 Spirit Days next week Thursday Dec 15th Red and Green Day Friday Dec 16th Pajama Day Last Day of Classes Dec 16th is our last day of classes before Winter Break.  Please note this is an EARLY DISMISSAL FRIDAY which means students will be done school at 11:30 and there will be NO PM Kindergarten that day.  Report Cards will be sent home on this day as well.   The Staff at Ken Taylor would like to wish your family a relaxing Winter Break.

Thoughtful Thursday, December 8, 2016

On Friday, December 16 @ 8:30am we will be participating in an Assembly...carolling, dances and fun! Parents are welcome to come and join in. 

Wondering Wednesday, December 7, 2016

We continue to review hearing and sound and in the process of researching and creating trading cards. The first card we are working on is on human hearing, and the second on hearing of an animal of our choice. This has been a fun way for us to communicate all the knowledge we have gained over the last few weeks.

  During our mornings, we also have been reading in our grade 3 reading groups - looking into the books, making connections and generating great group discussions. In gym we have also learned a few new dances during Creative Movement. 

We wondered about the synonyms for "swooped". This is a descriptive word used in the book that we continue to visualize and reflect. We were able to see that the owl was the animal taking this action (as the bear, mole, mouse, and fox had other verbs describing their movement). This is a word that we identified as a verb (action word) that is already replacing/a synonym for 'walked' or 'moved'....

"zoomed down"

"whooshed down" 

"whooped down"

"swept down"

Truthful Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Today we worked on our visualizations. Although we still don't know the title of the book and haven't seen the illustrations, we have been able to identify descriptive language and translated that into pictures. Tomorrow as we finish our drawings, we will take a look into the following words to add more detail to our drawings, and perhaps reconsider how to more effectively communicate our visualization with detail by narrowing down one or a few of these details...

Describing the mitten...

 "white as snow" 

"snow white mittens" 

"swelled and stretch" 

"pulled and bulged" 

Instead of walking or moving...

"tunneling along" 

"hopping by" 

"wiggled in" 

"snuffling along" 

"bumped and jostled" 

"swooped down" 

"lumbered by" 

"nose his way in"

"wriggled into"

Mindful Monday, December 5, 2016

Yikes! The weather was chilly chilly today. Thank you to all the students who came in, cleaned their boots and took them off before walking in the hallways. 

Reminder: Library tomorrow! Please returns books and plastic bags

Fun lunch on Wednesday! 

Today we worked in groups to represent one 3-digit number in as many was as we could think. 

 


















Mrs. Steckly also started to read a book without showing us the cover, pictures, words. This is a part of visualizing to build the pictures in our heads. 

Good readers visualize! 

When I visualize, I...

- use the 'picture words' in the story to help me create pictures in my mind
 - use my own experiences to help
- pay attention to my other senses, like feelings, sounds, smells and tastes 

I'm visualizing...
I can see that in my mind...
I'm picturing...
I'm imagining...

Friday December 2, 2016

CHRISTMAS MARKET - DECEMBER 3, 2016

Christmas Market – Our Christmas Market is this Saturday, December 3 from 10am-3pm in your school gym. 40+ local vendors, Santa Photos, Face Painting, Tattoos, food samples, cotton candy, cookie decorating and so much more! Share our FB event with friends and family “Ken Taylor Christmas Market”

Thoughtful Thursday, December 1, 2016

The week has gone by quite quickly and we continue to explore a variety of landforms. We have shared our information amongst our group members and are currently completing using a Frayer model to display our information. We then had the opportunity to use the computers again to fill in any information that we may have missed.

 From our information we have collected and presented next week we will be choosing an animal and researching how it communicates and hears and explore how its environment may impact its communication and hearing. This information will be presented as a trading card. In physical education and music we continued to explore creative movement to the music of Jingle Bells, but we really enjoy the "freeze" activity. We will have the opportunity to share one of our dances the last week before winter break. Tomorrow there is no school.

"Active listening is when we hear something and understand it."