Truthful Tuesday, January 31, 2017 (February at a Glance...)

February at a Glance...

As we look ahead to the month of February, we will consider the question: How do international organizations support communities in need throughout the world? For example, we will consider Unesco, UNICEF, Red Cross, Free the Children, and Doctors Without Borders.

We will be using the UNESCO World site (you can visit it here). Students will be creating an informational poster on one of the organizations based on the 5 W's (who, what, where, when, why).





Do you know where this is? Click on the image above to find out!







Students will also be exploring how do rocks and minerals affect our daily lives.

In math we will continue to work on three digit addition and subtraction. We will be introducing multiplication and division

- arrays
-repeated addition and subtraction
- skip counting
- number line
- fact families

When students complete their work in class, they are always given the option to complete challenge activities!

The Grand Conversations occur three times a week, for 1 hour at a time. Students will continue to read novels at their own pace, and discuss the novel with their group and write to further and deepen their understanding.

During Health we continue to learn about the Ken Taylor School values (H.E.A.R.T Values) and will focus on Nutrition.

Art and technology is integrated in everything we do!

Reminders:

We are looking forward to seeing you over the next few days for Student Led Conferences!

Please return any overdue library books.

Ken Taylor School Grand Opening is February 10th. Next week we will busy preparing as students complete projects and attend rehearsals!

As always, please dress for the weather!

Mindful Monday, January 30, 2017

Today we finished working on our recycled instruments. There is a variety of drums, string and wind instruments. Tomorrow we present the our instruments to the class.

   


Reminder Student Led Conferences Thursday, February 2 from 3:30 - 7:30 pm and Friday, February 3 from 8:00 - 1:00 pm.

Spelling Test is on Thursday - the words are...

wood     through    badge    judge   from   porch   spoon   people    ridge   truck

believe  these   watched   fudge  think   building   black   tough   sick   moon

rough  writes   bridge   other   enough  

Don't forget to read!

Thoughtful Thursday, January 26, 2017

We continue to work on our instrument building! Please bring in materials if you haven't done so yet.

Spelling test tomorrow :)

Terrific Tuesday, January 24, 2017

If you have taken your visual journal home to work on the passport title page and Dear Ada's page, please make sure you bring it back to school tomorrow :)

We have our spelling test on Friday....here are this week's words:

would    meat     room  food   tape    want    boot    away   these   broom   today   bright

soon   listen   which    spoon   sport   them   mood   breakfast    brush  

noon      think     escape   cool


Please continue to use IXL and Razkids!

Mindful Monday, January 23, 2017

At Ken Taylor we are Ambassadors! We know that Ambassador's demonstrate the "H.E.A.R.T" values and we have been working on these, especially empathy!

This week we are focusing on giving compliments. Today we looked at a few ways to do this...

"I want to compliment you on..."

"I like how you...."

"I feel thankful for you because..."

Each of such pulled one of our peer's name out of a basket and have been giving the important assignment of watching this person. On Thursday we will be able to share and have the chance to give this person a compliment based on our observations. 

Reminder: Library Tomorrow! 

Friendly Friday, January 20, 2017

As we continue to prepare for our Ken Taylor School's Grand Opening Ceremony, we are looking for photos! If you have any photos of the school development (the land, during construction and finished building) please email them to Mrs. Steckly! Thank you!!


Have a lovely weekend - please continue to use IXL Math and Raz Kids for reading :)  

Thoughtful Thursday, January 19, 2017

Have you checked out IXL Math? Check yesterday's blog for information on how to log in!

Here are a few examples of the pitch art project we have been working on...we will extend this into writing to demonstrate our knowledge of pitch and it's relation to the instrument we have chosen.









Reminder: Half Day Tomorrow!

Wondering Wednesday, January 18, 2017

A great idea for math practice and challenges at home is using IXL math.

https://ca.ixl.com/signin/kdtaylor

This program adjusts the difficulty based on whether the user (student) gets the answer correct or not. To login click on the above link, students use their first initial and last name (for example: rsteckly). They should know their password as we practiced this today.

Please continue to bring in materials for designing and building our musical instruments.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Mindful Monday, January 16, 2017

We continue to connect our learning to hearing and sound and began a project around pitch. Students have started to bring in their materials to make their instruments. Please continue to do so :)

In math we looked at estimating and finding strategies to count objects efficiently. Counting by 10's is one way to do this.

Friendly Friday, January 13, 2017

On our Friendly Friday, we had a sharing circle to talk about the emotions in others we have witnessed. We realized that when we have the opportunity to observe, reflection and then take action, we can practice empathy. In grade three that could mean playing with someone who is alone at recess, asking someone how they are feeling if they look somber/upset. As Ambassadors of Ken Taylor School, we will be working on practicing more empathy.

During I.S. we completed 3 different science labs all around hearing and sound/vibrations.

 

The Diving Tuning Fork 

Rubberband Serenade 

Ruler Vibrations

The Lab Write-Up process including making a hypothesis with a detailed and labeled drawing, understanding and going through the procedure, and then reflecting and answering a few questions. We will extend our learning into math next week. :)

Have a wonderful weekend - enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather. 

Thinking Thursday, January 12, 2017

This morning we had the privilege of participating in an Aboriginal storytelling experience in the gym. Denise Miller from Swansong Storytelling presented a few traditional stories. Below is a clip of what we heard and saw. 

During I.S. we continued to learn about Paraguay. Since reading Ada's Violin, we have discovered the country is not covered in garbage, and that Paraguay is a beautiful country. So far we have researched the landforms and wildlife. We also are noticing the similarities and differences between Alberta and Paraguay, including they are both "land-locked".

Spelling Test Tomorrow :) 

Wondering Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Today we read Thank you Mr. Falker. It was a chance for us to learn about empathy, one of the HEART values at school. We have been asked to observe emotions in others everywhere we go, even the grocery store. On Friday we are going to share our observations and experiences as a large group. Our grand conversations and literacy has started up again. Some of us are continuing to read the novels we selected before the winter break and the rest of us will be selecting new novels this week. We are using a chart to help us connect our learning to our observations and what we thinking. This is helping us to create a deeper understanding. Tomorrow we have Swansong Storytelling presenting First Nations/Metis and Inuit traditions through story. Reminder dress for the weather!

Mindful Monday, January 9, 2017

What a way to start the week with  our "Reading Buddies". This provided us a wonderful opportunity to share our enthusiasm for reading with the Grade 1 students in Mrs. Witczak's class. Our buddies shared their stories, poems and a book from their bins.
Afterward back in our class, we brainstormed questions about Ada's violin and it was interesting to think about how they made instruments from trash and that they sounded like the instruments in an orchestra. We then began to explore the instruments found in an orchestra and wondered about the drum. In Ada's story the drum was made with an x-ray and the base of a drum. It was interesting to see how First Nations people used the drum as part of their ceremonies and their stories.
Last week we created a chart that had us sharing our observations about what we heard then recording our feelings and why and from this information we started a letter to Ada. We started composing our letters on Friday and continued them today. In the afternoon we mapped where Ada lived and tomorrow are going to compare the country of Paraguay to Canada.
Reminder to dress for the weather and we have presentation on Thursday with a First Nation storyteller. What an exciting opportunity!

Friendly Friday, January 6, 2016

We trust everyone has a safe and warm weekend! Today we worked on letter writing. After reading and discussing the book, Ada's Violin, we were able to observe, think and feel a number of different emotions in the story. Many of us found this book inspirational, and were left questions for Ada. 

 

In math we continued estimating and skip counting. Next week one student will share how he was able to estimate the number of rice grains in the kindergarten sensory bin, so stayed tune!

Thoughtful Thursday, January 5, 2017

Change in our schedule - as a reminder to the students, we will be postponing our spelling test until next week :)

We continue our estimating in math, and considered the grains of rice in the kindergarten sensory bin.

5 students counted 20 grains of rice, so we had 100 in total...

And used the "clumping" method to quickly estimate groups of 10. 

But then we started to think, how many grains of rice are there in the whole bin?

Here are our estimations.

Truthful Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Happy New Year! 

We trust everyone had a safe and enjoyable Winter Break. It was great to see everyone today and continue our learning together. We began our morning with picture prompts - making connections between what we see (seeing/observing) and what we think (thinking/inferring). Through this we are building our vocabulary and interpreting skills. During math we began estimating and looked at a number of different objects (both large and small) comparing quantities. We also worked on a few math games counting by 2's and 4's.

Here are our spelling words for the week - test is on Friday. 

for       writes       shy         might        talks         bananas         try        flight        grandmother                      

enough        keep     shove       breakfast         sight            listen           done            fly      


 thought        should        green      tight         cry         light       little       some




Reminders:
- return any overdue books asap :)
- sign and return report card envelopes
- sign and return December 16 spelling test