Thank You
It was so great meeting everyone last Thursday evening. The children were so excited to show families where they sit, what they're learning, and our space. For those who were not able to make it, a package was sent home on Friday with your child.Reminder
Tomorrow is our library day. Please have your child bring in their library books so they may exchange their books for new ones.
Social Studies
In Social Studies, we have begun a discussion about what Canada was like during the late 1700s. Some of the questions children asked were:
- Who lived in Canada during the late 1700s?
- Who were the first peoples of Canada?
- How did people survive?
- What did people do for entertainment if there were no iPads and electronics?
- How did they get around?
In the coming weeks, a number of families will be coming into our classroom community to share with the class how their families came to settle in Canada, why they came, and some of the hardships and challenges they faced.
This week, Mrs. Kolivaris and Nanny Sian came to share their rich and fascinating journey which spanned across two world wars, travels between two continents, tickets aboard the Titanic, love, perseverance, and hope. The children were completely captivated.
In our writing workshop, we have been learning about different strategies for generating ideas to write about. Students have been making heart maps, generating lists, and recording questions and wonderings in their Writer's Notebook. Later this week, we will begin our first writing unit of the year: crafting true stories in our personal narrative unit.
This week, Mrs. Kolivaris and Nanny Sian came to share their rich and fascinating journey which spanned across two world wars, travels between two continents, tickets aboard the Titanic, love, perseverance, and hope. The children were completely captivated.
Science
In science students are learning about structures, the 3 common types (i.e., solid, frame/skeletal, and shell), materials that are used for a particular purpose or purposes. Children studied a bird's nest that was brought in by a student and examined the materials that were used. They made inferences on what type of bird made the nest and questioned why grass, weeds, and dandelion seeds were used instead of twigs. This prompted further inquiries and an interest into other type of structures that are natural and manmade. This week we will be going on a walk in the community to investigate and examine some structures, what materials are used, and what makes them so strong and stable.
Literacy
Building children's love of reading is already under way. Students have been busy building their stamina and recording the books they've read into their reading logs. Last week they studied their reading logs by looking for patterns in their reading habits (e.g., only reading at school, length of time spent on reading, genres, days and times where they were most successful, etc.). From there, students set new goals for themselves in reading.
This week we will start our first novel study of the year: Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. Through our mentor text, the foundational skills of envisionment and prediction will allow readers to walk in the shoes of a character and anticipate and co-construct the story line.
In our writing workshop, we have been learning about different strategies for generating ideas to write about. Students have been making heart maps, generating lists, and recording questions and wonderings in their Writer's Notebook. Later this week, we will begin our first writing unit of the year: crafting true stories in our personal narrative unit.
Math
In math students will continue to work and strengthen their understanding of number sense and numeration. We have been working on recognizing the place value patterns in the number system, grouping, skip counting, the importance of being able to compose and decompose numbers using the 5 and 10 structure, multiple ways of adding and subtracting, comparing the efficacy of strategies, and looking at number relationships. Students have also been introduced to the open number line which is a tool used to model our strategies. As quoted in the article Number Sense on the Number Line (Woods, Geller, & Basaraba, 2017):
A particularly powerful tool that supports students' understanding of numerous mathematics concepts is the number line (Gersten et al., 2009). A number line is a visual representation that illustrates the order and magnitude of numbers. The number line is both correlational and casually related to arithmetic learning (Booth & Siegler, 2008) and can be used to teach a variety of concepts.
Some of the mathematical concepts children will gain through the use of an open number line that supports conceptual understanding are: ordinal relationships, patterns in location of numbers, distance and quantity from zero, cardinality, each equal-size interval on the number line represents a specific unit, counting units of length (Van de Walle, Karp, & Bay-Williams, 2012), developing mental representations to make comparisons, understanding place value, and modeling mathematical operations (Diezmann & Lowrie, 2006).
