TWAS September 14th

Hello Everyone,

I hope your weeks went well and you are staying warm on this very chilly September Friday!

The students were great little participants in our archaeology program today.  The archaeology team brought in some worksheets for the children but they are really designed for slightly older students.  So .  . . I've sent them home with the students to give you an idea as to what the program was about, and as a starting point for some continued conversations about discovery archaeology (which is what the actual name of today's program was, not dinosaur archaeology, because, as Mr. Nathan told us, that would be paleontology!  I was wondering what 'dinosaur archaeology' was going to look like and I'm still not sure where title came from — haha!)
Thank you a million times over to the parent volunteers who were able to help out and make this program possible for us!

Dates to Remember 

Meet the Teacher
This Thursday, Sept. 20th, is meet the teacher.  This year the teachers have been asked to provide a short presentation in our classrooms that outline curriculums etc..  We present two times so that parents with children in different classes can make both presentations:  6:30 and 7:00.

Room 73 Family Picnic

 Weather permitting, I am hoping that we can have our class family picnic Wednesday Sept. 26th.  All siblings are welcome!  We will meet just after 11 and will walk to the 'rock' playground with our lunches.  Picnic blankets are always appreciated and enjoyed :) Just a reminder that we do have nut allergies to be aware of.

Terry Fox Run

 September 28th

 During last week of September daily morning announcements will have students (grade 3’s) share a fact about Terry Fox, and ask for $2 donations (Twoonies for Terry).

 TWAS

 Because of our in-school archaeology program today, we weren't able to get our usual TWAS letter writing finished, or started, so I'll give you a basic outline and leave your little ones to fill you in on the rest!

 LA
  • Home reading went home this week.  I'll give more details at Meet the Teacher, but basically this is student driven.  They are to pick 'just right' reading levels from our Grade 2 reading cart and practice making predictions and connections while reading these texts, when they have a little extra home time to do so. 
  • Visualization
    • noticing the pictures we make in our head when we hear words, poems, stories and songs. 
  • Sentences
    • learning how to recognize fragments and then turn those fragments into descriptive sentences. 
    • new 'no excuse' words:  be but big by before been back because
    • thinking about independence and connecting the concepts to several read-alouds.
  • Daily Reading and Writing in our Daily 5 stations and DEAR (Drop Everything and Read)
Math

  • number families and number relationships
  • breaking the "math brain" myth.  Learning that not understanding something right away actually helps our brains to grow. 
  • kinesthetic math (finger mazes)
  • pattern challenges
    • increasing patterns
  • math problems. 
    • See if your child can demonstrate this math problem we worked on in class
      • Using 6 red blocks, 3 green blocks and 6 blue blocks, create a pattern that uses each block. 
  • introduced math stations
Social Studies
  • key aspects of community
  • designing communities
Science
  • Hot and Cold temperatures
    • hotter than . . . colder than statements
    • science experiments (see if you child remembers which heating or cooling process what conducted on each material; there's an after-experiment picture below to help trigger memories)
      • cooking, melting, freezing and burning
      • candle, water balloon, egg, marshmallow

Art
  • Picasso self portraits . . . to be continued next Thursday. 
Health
  • Thinking brains and feeling brains and some breathing strategies to help them talk to each other. 
Music

  • The Blues
  • we will be incorporating blues patterns/sound patterns into our math next week. 


Physical Education

  • dodging and hopping skills.


Circle of Courage:  Each child was recognized for his or her contribution to our class by demonstrating exemplary care and thought through independence, belonging, mastery, generosity.  Ask your child to share which quadrant his or her plaque was placed.  

Thanks to all of you who were able to get the consent information back.  I am still missing quite a few so if you didn't get one of forms please let me know so that I can re-send them. As soon as we have all of our consent form registered I'll be posting student work on the blog.  

Have a wonderful weekend everyone — see you Monday 73!!

Mrs. McArthur

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