Farewell, November!

The month of November has whizzed by!  It was great to see all of you at our portfolio walks.  I’m so proud of our kids and all that they have accomplished so far in Grade 3.  A lot of learning has gone on, and we are so settled into our routines that we can maximize our time and focus our attention on our learning activities, which is great.

As you can see from the portfolios, we have wrapped up our animal life cycles unit in science, and we have moved onto a study of hearing and sound.  The kids have been investigating some “driving questions” and learning how to find information that answers their questions.  It’s wonderful to see them develop their critical thinking skills and learn some ways to record and organize information along the way.  

Right now in social studies, we are integrating some current events with the curricular outcomes of learning about service organizations, humanitarian aid efforts, and cultures around the world.  We have decided to support the Red Cross with their assistance in the Philippines following the typhoon earlier this month.  Our class is organizing a school-wide fundraiser that will help to make Christmas a little brighter for our friends in the Philippines.  We will share more information about this fundraiser next week, but right now your children are busy planning, researching, and creating informative posters and PowerPoint slides.  

Please check out the Upcoming Events tab for some information on what’s up in the month ahead.

 

Tech Time in Social Studies

We used an app on the iPads called “Show Me”. Students took photos of the maps they made and then drew paths on them while they dictated their directions to the treasure. So much fun!

Math Stations

One of our new routines this year is our daily math stations.  In addition to some whole group lessons, students are paired up with a partner for several weeks and each day they do an activity from one of our math tubs.  Each tub focuses on one specific skill (for example, addition, patterning, or measurement) and contains up to three games for students to choose from based on their interest or ability.  One or two sets of partners meet with me during each round for some small-group instruction or assessments.  This group is great with the stations routine, and we are able to work on one activity for up to twenty minutes!  

Here is a look at our math stations and why we do them every day.  🙂

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Back to School!

We had a lovely first day together.  The students settled in quickly and had a lot of fun getting to know each other.  They especially love the looooong recesses on the first day, so be sure to ask about that!  

Here is a photo of us drinking our “Jitter Juice” to chase away those “first day” butterflies.  🙂

Farewell, My Friends!

June has passed us by! I hope you are enjoying the first week of summer holidays and managing to keep cool in this heatwave. 🙂

I would like to send out a big thank you to all of you parents for your support in our Grade 3 year together. I absolutely loved working with your children and I always find it a privilege to learn as much from them as they ever could from me. I wish each and every one of them the best of what this world has to offer!

To you and your family, have a safe and happy summer holiday. ❤

A final slideshow:

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Fun in the Sun

We had a blast playing games out in the sunshine today!!

Here’s our slideshow:

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Ellis Bird Farm

What a great afternoon we had out at Ellis Bird Farm! The weather was perfect for us the entire time we were there. A huge THANK YOU goes out to all of the parents who joined us. We really enjoyed having you spend the afternoon with us!

Here is a photo album of our day:

A digital scrapbook by Smilebox

June 10

We are into the final few weeks of Grade 3! I am thrilled to be back with the class full time as of today, but we will miss Mrs. Rogers. She did a fantastic job while she was here and we are very grateful to have had her here with us. 🙂

This week we will write our last two PATs. We will do our reading test on Tuesday and then we are onto math on Thursday. A good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast will be all we need to prepare for these exams because we are READY!

We have a few field trips and swim dates in June, so please be sure to check out the “Upcoming Dates” tab above. You can also look at some of the new Wallwisher (now called Padlet) digital walls that we have built in the last couple of weeks. We did some walls featuring the environments of the four countries we’ve been learning about in social studies, and coming up soon we will create walls that tell about the five animal kingdoms with Mrs. McQuesten in science.

Model Magic Flowers

Here are our floral sculptures inspired by the artwork of Georgia O’Keeffe!

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Our Jan Brett Clay Models

As we finished up our Jan Brett literature theme, the kids were asked to pick a favourite story and show the main idea via a clay representation.  Here’s a look at the fun we had making our models, which are on display in our hallway.   Stop by and check them out when you get a chance.

Jan Brett Clay Models_1213.