Good afternoon!

Today we started our new Math Unit on Multiplication and Division. We will be focusing on the following outcomes throughout this unit:

• Use appropriate estimation strategies to make predictions and check answers
• Use mental math strategies to determine multiplication and division facts to 81
• Demonstrate an understanding of multiplication of 2×2 digit numbers using various strategies
• Demonstrate an understanding of division of 3x1digit numbers using various strategies

Today students started off by completing the introduction problem from pg. 71. Check it out:

Students worked in their new center groups and did a wonderful job today! We all seemed to really remember our expectations from yesterday.

In Social Studies today we started our new Unit on the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Students worked together today to help us to get used to the new chapter. Each group was assigned a few pages from the chapter and then was asked to share the important information from their pages with the class. Students can present their information as a song, skit, or with a poster. I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone’s done on Monday! This is a great activity for students. It has them not only practicing working together, but it forces them to practice our skimming, scanning, and summarizing reading strategies. We will go over pages from the chapter together as a whole class to then reinforce some of the things that we have already learned or are sharing with one another!

Today we also added a new Math Center station… I-Pads! Our classroom has 4 I-Pads in it to use. We will be using them for Math Centers, Literacy Stations, and to meet individual student needs. Today students practiced getting the I-Pads out and using them to log into the Mathletics app. This is one of the apps that our classroom will be using frequently. Students have also been asking about bringing in their own devices. Students are able to bring in their own devices, however, they are not to distract from learning. Students are welcome to use their own device to access the apps that we are using in class, but it will be at the teacher’s discretion whether or not they are being used appropriately.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Math: Unit 2 Review Books (MONDAY!)

Mathletics – 10 mins.

Social – Placemats (Mon.)

Ski Days: Dec. 4th (Wednesday), Feb. 6

Emergency Blankets

Report Card Slips – ASAP

Health: FRIENDS pgs. 32-33 #3A and 3B

No School Tomorrow!

Good evening!

Today we spent the majority of our day reviewing our procedures and expectations during group work and group activities. We work in groups frequently in our class. Group work is a great way to get to know other students, to learn from one another, to ask questions, to learn new perspectives, to accomplish larger goals/tasks, to share ideas, to be a leader, to be a listener, etc. It is something that we strongly encourage our students to explore and it is a very important set of skills that will not only benefit their learning at school, but will help them when they leave school as well. However, sometimes we all get off track or need little reminders. Today we outlined more clearly what we should see and expect during group activities. Want to see our list? Check out the document below:

Group Work Contract

Now that we have reviewed some of the things that we would like to see during our group work, students have all promised to do their best to uphold these expectations and procedures. This document will be great to be able to return to when students ARE struggling in groups, and maybe need some ideas or encouragement to stay on task and to have positive interactions with one another.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Math – Unit 2 Review Book (tomorrow)

Mathletics – 10 minutes

Social – Placemat (Monday)

Ski Day: Dec. 4th and Feb. 6th

Emergency Blankets

Report Card Slips – ASAP

Health: FRIENDS 3A + 3B (pgs. 32-33)

Reminder – NO SCHOOL FRIDAY

Good evening!

What a great day we had. We started off by going to computers and using the Mathletics. We are about to start and new unit in Math (Multiplication and Division) and the Mathletics is a great tool for me to use. I’m able to see from some of the completed activities today were student strengths and weaknesses are, and make some decisions right away about how to direct student learning, building our small groups, planning interventions, etc. Students were very patient today with the internet. It was slower than we usually have to deal with, but everyone was able to get logged on in the end and work on some questions.

In French today we started discussing how to tell time. We started off with this cute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P030_DEL-io

Students enjoy this video because it is so silly, but it is a great introduction to what we are going to be continuing to focus on. Today we discussed the structure and practiced telling time a little bit. In French we do not write the time the same way we would in English.

Eg. 1:00 becomes 1h00

We also use the 24-hour clock most of the time in French. This means that students will need to practice using larger numbers this year! We practiced numbers up to 30 last week, but we will be adding numbers up to 60 next week.

Eg. 1:oo pm becomes 13h00

In French, we always start with “Il est…” to say the time. We also state the hours first and then the minutes.

Eg. 1h00 is pronounced Il est une heure.

When we are adding the minutes, they come after the hour. Also, watch out for the number of hours! More than one hour should be a plural word!

Eg. 2h05 is pronounced Il est deux heures cinq.

If we are discussing a quarter past the hour, we can say it two different ways. We can say it is 15 minutes or it is a quarter.

Eg. 3h15 is pronounced Il est trois heures quinze.

       OR Il est trois heures et quart.

If we are discussing half past the hour, we can also say it two different ways. we can say it is 30 minutes or it is half.

Eg. 4h30 is pronounced Il est quatre heures trente.

OR Il est quatre heures et demie.

If we are discussing quarter to the hour, we can say it three different ways. We  can say it is 45 minutes, it is 15 minutes less than the hour, or it is a quatre less than the hour.

Eg. 5h45 is pronounced Il est cinq heures quarante-cinq.

OR Il est six heures moins le quinze.

OR Il est six heures moins le quart.

We also learned that noon is midi and that in the morning (a.m.) is du matin. We will be continuing with telling time this week and next week. We will then be applying this knowledge to be able to help us plan a school schedule.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Math: Unit #2 Review Book (Friday)

Mathletics – 10 minutes

Social: Placemat (Monday)

Ski Days: Dec. 4th and Feb. 6th

Emergency Blankets

Report Card Slips – ASAP

Good afternoon!

We started our week off with our Appalachian’s Quiz in Social Studies. Students were allowed to work in groups to respond to the questions and this was also an open book quiz. This means that students are allowed to use their textbooks. Allowing students to use their textbook actually means that we require longer more detailed answers regarding some of the topics covered in this region. Students were made to answer questions about provinces/capitals, geography/bodies of water, industries/natural resources, and important symbols of the region. Students did a great job and I saw a lot of important teamwork taking place. Hopefully everyone is excited to start our new region tomorrow!

In Math today students completed their Unit #2 Unit Test. They were given as much time as needed to work through the test. Whenever we write a test in our classroom, we have the following procedures and expectations:

1. Read test through together.
2. Read the test through once more by myself.
3. If I don’t know a question, skip it and come back to it later.
4. If I come back to it and I still don’t understand the question, ask Ms. Barrington or Mrs. Chatterjee.
5. When I’m finished I work on a WORD activity by myself.

The reason we read through the test so many times before we actually start writing it has to do with our schema. This is a word that we talk about a lot in our class! We have been comparing our brains to rows of filing cabinets. Your schema is all the files in the cabinets. They are filled with information on all kinds of things! Things you learned at home, from experience, in school, from books, from t.v., etc. We have so many files that sometimes it can take a little while to find the right one. Reading through the test actually makes our brain start looking for the right file. If we don’t rush and read through it carefully, our brain might already have the file open and ready to go when we get to that question. That is also why we skip questions and then come back to them before we ask the teacher for help. Sometimes it just takes a little while longer to find the right file. Maybe our brain needs a little extra time to think about that question and to find the information.

In Science today we continued our discussion on food chains, but we also added food webs to our discussion! Students helped me to create a food web that we added to our duotangs. Food webs are a little harder than food chains just because they are more complicated. However, they are more realistic. Organisms get energy from multiple sources, not just one, and drawing the food webs helps us to see how interconnected the animals in an ecosystem are. We are going to be discussing human impact on Wetlands yet, and then we will be moving on to Electricity! Check out the food webs we created/studied today:

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes (Reading NINJA tomorrow!)

Spelling Quiz (Tuesday)

Math: Unit #2 Review Books (Friday)

Mathletics – 10 mins.

Social: Calendars (tomorrow!)

Ski Days: Dec. 4th and Feb. 6th

PALS Forms – due tomorrow

Report Card Slips – ASAP

Good afternoon!

What a busy day! We started our morning out with some Yoga. We have done Yoga once before this year, and it is a fun way to listen to a story and get students moving. It is a Yoga adventure story! Check out the link below for the activity we did today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfd6e4wBQho

These activities are targeted at a younger age group, but sometimes it is nice for us to have the opportunity to be a little silly too!

In Science today we had 2 guest speakers come and visit our classroom. We had some Forest Rangers come and share some of their knowledge about weather and forest fires with the students. Weather is one of our upcoming Units in Science, and it was a great way to get students thinking about clouds, wind, humidity, etc. Students were also able to learn about some of the great things that happen in our forests to help control and detect forest fires. We learned all about the towers that are used, and some of the equipment that helps to predict when the conditions are right for forest fires. It was really interesting learning about people who live in the towers, all by themselves, for most of the year. I wouldn’t want that job. It was also interesting to learn how diligently they have to track the weather, something that we are going to be doing ourselves in our Weather Unit! Thanks to all the students for their great questions and their attentive listening this morning.

Today the school had an assembly on Bullying Awareness. Students sang the following song, written by our own Mrs. Power.

Bully song (2)

We also had some of our teachers share some of their own experiences with bullying. The lights were turned off in the gym and as they shared their experience they cracked a glow stick, shining a light on bullying. The students and I discussed the assembly and the impact it had at the end of the day. Students really connected to some of the things that were shared, and we sad and understanding of how hurtful or embarrassing some of the things shared were. They all knew what it would feel like to experience that themselves. Other students shared connections that they made with our class about a time when they were bullied, or when a family member or friend was bullied. Other students shared their amazement that adults and teachers once had to go through bullying too. It isn’t something that we think about a lot, but it was important to share with the students so they know that we have all experienced similar things. We understand how our students feel and really do want to make sure that none of our own students have to feel that way. I loved talking to all of you today about the assembly. We loved it so much that we were still talking when the bell rang! Unfortunately, some students left so quickly at the bell that not all of our Report Cards went home. For those of you who didn’t get your Report Card, my apologies, they will be sent home on Monday.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Spelling Quiz – Tuesday

Math: Unit #2 Book

Math Unit Test – Monday

Mathletics – 5 minutes

Social: Calendars (due Monday)

Social Quiz – Monday

Ski Days: Dec. 4th, Feb. 6th

Benefit Concert – tonight @ 7:00 pm

PALS forms – due Tuesday

Good afternoon!

Another quick post today unfortunately. Our poor class seems to have come down with something! We had so many students away today (8 altogether!) that we decided to move the date of our Math test and Social quiz. We will be getting back on track and finishing up those Units next week on Monday.

In Social Studies today we began building a Geography Lapbook that students will continue to work on throughout the year. Our cover includes an activity called, “A Map of My Life”. This is actually one of our TRIBES activities, and some students might remember it from last year! Students create a visual representation of important places, events, etc. from their own life and lay it out as a map. I also asked students to include a legend and a compass (bringin back some of the things we discussed earlier this year). Students did a great job, they are looking so colourful! On the inside students are adding their region placemats. We finished our Appalachian placemats last week. These placemats included important information on: climate, landforms/bodies of water, natural resources, and how people in this region live. The placemats are going to be the inside pages of our lapbooks, so students will be creating and adding new placemats with each new Unit. We are going to be starting the St. Lawrence Lowlands next week! Want to see some of our lapbooks? Check out the pictures below.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes (no NINJA question this week)

Math: Unit #2 Review Books

Math Unit Test: Monday!

Mathletics – 5 minutes

Spelling Quiz – Tuesday

Social Quiz – Monday

Ski Days: Dec. 4th and Feb. 6th

Good afternoon!

Another busy day. This morning we continued to review for our Unit Test tomorrow. Students were working in groups to complete different review activities, while I and Mrs. Chatterjee answered as many questions as possible. To help review tonight, students are asked to work out of their Unit #2 workbooks (blue). These workbooks are a great tool because not only do they have extra practice problems, but each lesson contains a summary from our textbook lessons. It can be a great thing to read over to help remind a student of different things we have worked on or the different strategies we have been focusing on. Students can also access the Mathletics and work on some of the lessons in the Numbers Unit there.

In French today we finished our classroom interactions Unit with some presentations. Students have been working on small skits using some of the expressions/vocabulary studies in class. Students were asked to create a skit where one student was the teacher and the others were students. The teacher had to use combinations of English and French expressions, and the students had to respond appropriately in English or French. Students had a lot of fun with these presentations and I got to see a lot of creativity. This was also a wonderful activity because everyone SPOKE a little French, which can be very challenging, especially in front of the class. Everyone did well and I am very impressed by what I saw today. We will be moving on to telling time and classroom schedules next.

Earlier this year, we started tracking the progress of a young man named Jamie MacDonald who was attempting to run across Canada to raise money for children’s hospitals. He has made it to Saskatchewan, but he only has a month left on his VISA! Some students wanted to follow his progress at home, so I promised to post the link below. You can watch his video blogs or find out more information about supporting Jamie:

http://www.jamiemcdonald.org/

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes (no NINJA question this week)

Spelling Quiz – Tuesday

Math: Unit #2 Review

Math Unit Test – tomorrow

Mathletics – 5 minutes

Social Quiz – tomorrow

Ski Forms Due – ASAP

Ski Days: Dec. 4th and Feb. 6th

Good afternoon!

As many of you probably have already heard, we had a very chaotic start to our day today! Around 8:15 am the fire alarm went off. Myself, Ms. McNeil, Mrs. Wilson, and Mr. Rutledge had a meeting scheduled for this time, but luckily we were still in our portable when the alarm went off. This meant that we were all able to return to our classrooms to help the TOCs with evacuating. Our class has already practiced our fire procedure more than once this year so we were lined up very quickly, and with the extra set of hands (myself, our TOC, and our EA – Mrs. Chatterjee) we were very lucky in that we were able to get our coats quickly and efficiently before it was our class’ turn to go outside. Once outside we were able to take our attendance and make sure that we were all accounted for. It was then determined that given the weather conditions, we would evacuate to St. Anne’s school. Students did a REMARKABLE job today. Our class was together the entire time, and it was wonderful to see all of our students walking in an organized line and staying so calm throughout. Once we got to St. Anne’s we were able to warm up and even play follow the leader, rock, paper, scissors, etc. Sparksman also came to our aid and provided us with busses to drive the students back to school so that we didn’t have to once again walk outside in the cold. We were back in class and ready to go around 9:40 am. If you would like more information, I believe the Timberlea facebook page has provided updates about the incident, just visit the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Timberlea-Public-School-Fort-McMurray/222004461191455 

As you can image, with all of that going on, our schedule did get changed a great deal today. The students and I both agreed that with the disruption to our day, it wouldn’t be fair for students to write their Math Unit Test tomorrow. Instead, we worked in our review books when I returned to class after lunch, and we will continue our review tomorrow. Our Unit Test has been rescheduled for Thursday.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes (no Reading NINJA this week)

Spelling Quiz – Tuesday (mow, show, rest, warm, horse, shower, hoarse, wreath, armrest, wrote)

Math: Unit #2 Review Books

Mathletics – 5 mins.

Math Unit Test – Thursday

Picture Retakes – tomorrow!

Social Quiz – Thursday

Ski Forms – tomorrow!

Ski Days – Dec. 4th, Feb. 6th

Health – FRIENDS (tomorrow!)

Good evening!

Sorry for such a short post today. The week leading up to Report Cards going home is crazy!

Agenda:

Read 20 mins. (No NINJA Journals this week)

Spelling Quiz – Tomorrow

Math: pgs. 66-67 #1-13

Math Unit Test – Wednesday

Mathletics – 5 mins.

Picture Retakes – Wednesday (must bring original package)

Social: Appalachians Quiz – Thursday

Ski Forms – Due Wednesday

Ski Days: Dec. 4th, Feb. 6th

Health: FRIENDS (pg. 12)

 

P.S. Have you checked out Timberlea’s facebook account yet? There is a picture of all of us at our Assembly today! Students worked really hard on that song, and it was a wonderful, STUDENT RUN Assembly. Honestly, you are all incredible. Special shout out to our MC who kept everything going so smoothly!

Good afternoon!

It is good to back. For those of you who hadn’t heard, I was away for three days this week attending a workshop at District Office. Three days is a long time, and I couldn’t wait to get back into our classroom. Students did wonderfully while I was away, and I received great comments about their behaviour. They also worked on some interesting activities while I was away. They completed their Appalachians placemats for social studies and they created Wetlands robots in Science. The placemat asked students to review and summarize some of the learning that has taken place in our current unit. The robot had students work together to apply their knowledge of animal and plant adaptations. Students’ robots had to have three adaptations that would help it to survive in a Wetlands environment, like having long legs. Moose have longs legs to help them to stay dry and to move quickly over Wetlands. Could this benefit their robot? I’ve seen some creative responses to this assignment already and I can’t wait for students to share their robots with the class next week!

Today we had our weekly classroom meeting. Today we talked about our expectations in regards to leaving our classroom and going to the washroom. This has been a concern for the entire portable, not just our class, but we wanted to review the matter together again today. Students were reminded that they cannot leave the classroom without asking the teacher for permission. Some students don’t want to interrupt me or the lesson, which is a polite instinct. Instead students were reminded of our secret symbol. In our class, if you have to go to the washroom during a lesson, etc. you can hold your fingers up making the letter W. This will let me know what you need and I can nod or say yes quickly without pausing the activity or lesson. In our class students also sign out to go to the washroom. They fill out the time they leave, the time they return, their name, their buddy’s name, and if the washroom was clean. Usually they just put down a smiley face to indicate this. Today we discussed some problems that I have noticed specific to our class. The first is that students have been forgetting to ask me. We talked about why this is important and why it is a safety concern to leave without asking. Another problem we’ve been having is the number of times students leave during the school day. Some students have been going very frequently and have been using the time to communicate with friends rather that going to the washroom. Today we discussed some solutions we could think of to help with this problem and we came up with: have the teacher watch to see if the students go into the washroom, having a time limit, creating a bathroom pass system. After some discussion, we decided that we would like to try a bathroom pass system. What is going to happen is that each student will receive 10 bathroom passes to use throughout the week. They can turn one in when they sign out. However, they only get 10. This is going to encourage students to remember to use the washroom during other parts of the day (in the morning, recess, snack, lunch, etc.) rather than having to leave during class time. Once we get used to our new system, we may make some changes as needed. It is on the classroom calendar so we remember to discuss how the new system is working at next week’s classroom meeting.

Today we started looking at food chains and food webs. We watched an example of a food chain on the Promethean Board. Our food chain looked like this:

What we are going to be focusing on when we return on Monday is that the food chain represents the transfer of energy. The Northern Harrier gets energy from the Northern Leopard Frog, who got energy from the Dragonfly, who got energy from the Mosquito, who got energy from the Labrador Tea, who got energy from the sun and from bacteria. All energy comes from the sun! It just depends where that energy is transferred! We will also talk about how food chains actually work a lot like cycles, which is how we usually organize our concepts, and break them out into larger webs. We also added some organisms to our Wetlands today. We have referred to an ongoing activity throughout the unit, and today we added some plants and animals. Check out our work below! Students set it up and then shared with the class why they placed their organism in that location. It was great to here students discuss and apply what they have been learning. I had people remind us that the cattails were emergent plants so they had to be on the edge, and that muskrat should be on the shore but have close access to the water. Great work everyone!

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Reading Journal – due Monday! (Describe the main conflict. Whose side are you on?)

Social – complete placemats (Monday)

Spelling Quiz – Tuesday (use, quake, quart, square, retreat, heater, request, karate, earth, rake)

Math: pgs. 66-67 #1-13

Math Unit Test – Nov. 20th

Mathletics – 5 mins.

Picture Forms – Retakes Nov. 20th (return previous package!)

Ski Forms – due Nov. 20th

Ski Days: December 4th, February 6th

Health: pg. 12 (FRIENDS) – Tuesday