January 10, 2012

 Our Classroom at a Glance

Welcome back and happy new year!  I hope everyone had restful and enjoyable holidays.

The following is an overview of what we were working on in December, as well as what we will be working on in January: 

In language arts, we have been continuing to work on character developments, our latest being a superhero character.  We are beginning to work on writing “stretchy sentences”, which means adding details to sentences to provide more explanations.  We will be adding details by thinking about describing who, what, when, where, and why answers when possible.  We are also in our second week of our first Book Club.  The students are doing an in-depth character study on a character of their choice.  They will be completing a poster to summarize their learning next week.

In math, we are working on using our math manipulatives to solve problems of subtraction with regrouping with 3-digit numbers.  We are also starting to learn more about angles and measurements of distance.  We will be starting to work on fraction concepts this month, and will hopefully begin learning more about multiplication and division as well.

In science, we have just begun a unit on materials and structures.  The students’ knowledge was put to the test on the first day when I asked them to build a freestanding tower 1 meter high with straws! 

In social studies, we are looking closely at the culture and ethnicity of the people living in Nova Scotia.  The students have been grouped into pairs to complete a short project on an ethnic group living in our province.  The project will require them to look carefully at why people move to Nova Scotia as well as the rich cultural experiences we currently enjoy.

In health last week, the students were quite interested in a lesson on our brain and the function of each part.  I have never been asked so many “brainy” questions!  We will continue the lessons with a look at how to protect our head and bodies.   This is part of a unit on personal safety, during which we will also learn about woods safety and medicine safety.

 

Thank you to everyone who donated to Feed Nova Scotia before the holidays!  All together, we donated a little over 270 items of food (the organization will let us know the mass of the food donated) as well as a large box filled with hats and mitts.  What awesome community spirit!