Welcome to the new school year 2013-2014   Grade 3/4

Math

   Emily M wants you to know that we are working on place value and rounding in Math. Mikayla knows that the Yellow Group needs to round 2 digits to the nearest 10. Here is an example from Alexa.  65 --> 70. Matthew S knows the rule is to round up if it is 5 or above. The Blue Math group is rounding 3 and 4 digit numbers to the nearest 10's, 100's, 1 000's.

What we are working on now is trading 10 tens for a 100 or we can trade 10 ones for a ten.  When Emily H writes 346, she knows that the number can be shown by 3 hundreds, 4 tens and 6 ones. Madison can show the same number value in a different way by using 2 hundreds, 14 tens, and 6 ones. It means the same thing!

Max says that we can all be awesome at our addition facts if our parents practice with us starting with doubles (10 + 10) and doubles plus one facts ( 8 + 9).

In Language

  We have been reading an abridged version of Anne of Green Gables. Ema and Shane are enjoying the story because they find it interesting to read about what life was like on Prince Edward Island. 

We also did a shared reading of a story called Odd Velvet. We found it on the website for the Ottawa Public Library under Tumblebooks. Kaitlin says sometimes people are odd but we still should respect them and not make fun of them. Being odd can be fun and interesting says Matthew S.


 Matthew H enjoyed the shared reading of The Boy in the Drawer. He reminds us that these narratives have a problem, setting, characters, events, and a solution.

These books are all narratives. Your children can tell you the parts of a narrative: setting, characters, problem, events and solution.

Welcome to Victoria!

 Victoria is being helped by the whole class to learn English. She told us by using iTranslate that she enjoys the singing we do and that she likes working in the library. She also likes the friends she has at our school!

Bucket Filling is important!

Ms. Petrocco read our class the book Have you Filled a Bucket today? When you help someone or are kind you fill someone's bucket said Daniel. Being mean to someone by being rude or pushy will dip into someone's bucket added Caeden. Bucket filling is important because it gives you happy feelings. Fiona feels that if you fill someone else's bucket that will fill your own bucket too!

Health and Media

Students have been researching the importance of healthy sleeping habits. We used an inquiry method of learning. After reading from a great Internet site, students chose questions to research. They will be presenting what they learned to the class in the form of a poster. These experienced Grade 4's learned how to make slideshows last year and added this to their presentation. Grade 3's are anxious to have the Grade 4's help them learn this tool as well! Having trouble convincing your child to have healthy sleep habits? Remind them of what they have been teaching their classmates from http://www.sleepforkids.org

Art  

We recently made these beautiful designs using fresh leaves. Students were amazed at the impression made by a painted leaf where they could see all of the delicate veins. Autumn colours were added in between the leaves and a beautiful image was the result. Several teachers have admired their work!

We made these drawings to reflect the music we listened to. It was Vivaldi's Four Seasons Autumn. We listened for the mood of the music, the tempo, repeating patterns and instruments that were playing.

A really cool way to display words is with the program called Wordle. In this case, students made their name the focus. They added words that told what their name means, or words that are important to them. We are going to use Wordle to help us with Math vocabulary or spelling words or Science vocabulary. You can find it at http://www.wordle.net

Emily H  suggested we look at this website and her classmates LOVED it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyBmPOlPWNA

News from Grade 3 H

Science

We have been happily working on soil during the past few weeks. We checked out the difference between clay and loam and we didn't make too much of a mess!

We have looked at properties of soil so we know which kinds of soil

 are good for growing. We are now turning to looking at how we can take care of soil and why we should be careful about how we use soil. Charissa says you can stop soil from eroding by putting large rocks on the waterfront. She also says planting or keeping trees helps. Emily D explained that the roots hold the soil together so it doesn't get blown or washed away.

 



 

Accountable Talk: What is it? Why do we use it?



Our class wants to show you an activity that we do in our class to help us learn. It is called "Accountable Talk".  Wyatt G. says we can help each other think and we can share ideas when we talk with each other. Emily M wants you to know that in this picture she and Victoria and the rest of the class are talking to each other about what level we should give the writing. Victoria thought the answer should get a level 2 because the person didn't explain or support their answer and they had a lot of spelling mistakes.

 

 

 Matthew knows that when we do accountable talk, everyone gets to share their ideas and think instead of just one person. Georgia says that accountable talk helps someone who might be quiet or shy because they don't have to speak in front of the whole class but they can still share their ideas.  Carter knows that it helps us be engaged with the lesson instead of getting distracted.

 





More learning about bullying or teasing with a special focus on adoption

We saw an amazing puppet show last week. It was really fun to watch but there was a serious message. Some of the puppeteers were from our school! James felt that people do not tease as much about adoption because they are being taught about it. Carter remebered that the puppets talked about not teasing and gossiping. The puppeteers from our school were Kiera and Madeleine.

 

 

 

A Look at Guided Reading

Wyatt G wants you to know that we read books at our levels (all about space themes). Then we had a question that needed a thick answer. Antonio knows that a "thick" answer has a lot of detail to support your answer. Each group reads at their different levels.

 

Madison reminded us that Ms. Corbett and our superintendent came to our classroom while we looked at these examples of thick answers from The Three Little Pigs. You can see what level we gave each answer and why, at the bottom of each paragraph. Sorry that the red ink doesn't show up on the photo. Ms. Howie recorded our ideas in red as we used accountable talk. The question was "Which pig was the smartest pig and explain why?"

 Maya wants you to see the fireflies that we made. We hid in the supply room in the dark and surprised Ms. Corbett and Ms. Manon. Heather made her firefly by using a plastic egg with a tea light in it. She put pipe cleaners in the holes to make antennae and legs. We hope you had fun with them at home!

Ryan and Matthew sorted their words by putting some in the doubling column (digging), some in the "drop the e" column (baking) and don't change column (jumping)

 

 



Times Tables: Master Them!

 

 Ms. Howie says it is REALLY important to do our best on learning our times tables so that we have those number patterns in our heads to use for problem solving in multiplication and division, patterning, fractions, money, telling time, and other Math activities. A really great website with flash cards, worksheets, and our favourite: interactive games, is www.multiplication.com . Some of us have tried these out on our netbooks!   In multiplication Abby reminds parents that we need to practice the 2X and 5X tables.


We watched a really interesting film about autism on Tuesday. We learned that an autistic person might have trouble with words and pictures might help them. Isabella said we shouldn't judge them because they can find it hard to read social cues or have a meltdown when they become overwhelmed.