Nov 22-25

This has been a week to look back and see how much we have learned in the first 50 days of the school year.  We have also begun some new and exciting investigations as well.  Here is what we have worked on this week:

We began our Math this week with an assessment.  This was an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of patterning and number concepts that we have been working on thus far.  I was so impressed at how clearly everyone was able to show their mathematical thinking.  I'm sending this home on Monday, please sign and return it for Tuesday. Thank you i advance!

Our next step in Math is to develop some new ways to work with numbers and develop a deep understanding of what they represent.  This week, students had an opportunity to begin working with Base Ten Blocks to demonstrate a new way to show numbers.  These blocks represent the ones, tens, and hundreds in a way that is visual and tactile.  We will be using Base Ten Blocks and our beaded number line to show how the numbers can be shown in a variety of ways.  This will prepare our students for number operations (addition and subtraction) which will begin after the winter break.

In writing, we continued our work on responding to a book read aloud in class.  Listening to stories is a great way to learn about how authors use words to share their ideas and paint a picture in our head.  This week, with our colder weather, I decided to share a book called "How Cold Was It?"  It had us thinking about what it feels like when we are out in the cold.  Students were encouraged to use some of the great descriptive words from the book to make their own writing more interesting.  If you want to see how your child's writing has progressed, I encourage you to listen to the story posted on the google classroom and have your child do a written response from the celebration of learning.

As part of our Science work for Seasonal Changes (grade one) and Hot and Cold (grade two) we have been graphing the temperature for the month of November in three communities in Canada.  We have used Calgary as our prairie community, Iqaluit as our arctic community, and Meteghan as our Atlantic community.  We have learned that zero is the freezing point and students have noticed that Iqaluit's temperatures have all been below zero, Meteghan's temperatures have all been above zero, and in Calgary we have gone up and down from zero several times this month.  We have gotten our information on-line, but are interested in collecting our own data, so this week we learned how to read a real thermometer.  Each student made a practice thermometer so that we could learn how to read and understand the temperatures that we see on the real thermometers.  

In gym, students have been working on their ball skills.  We have moved from the larger, softer, playground balls, to basketballs.  students have been practicing dribbling in one place while moving the ball from one hand to the other and dribbling with control while walking.There are complex tasks and the students are learning to persevere in order to develop their skills.

We are excited about our upcoming opportunity to visit Twelve Mile Coulee again with our Elder, Saa’kokoto, and our artist, Karen Taminga Paton.  If you have your volunteer clearance and are able to help us with our trip, Monday December 6th from 8:25-11:30 am please email me by Wednesday. Thank you!

Upcoming Events

Monday Nov 29 - Home Reading exchange 

Wednesday Dec 1 - Library book exchange

Thursday Dec 2 - Home Reading exchange

Monday Dec 6 - Coulee Walk

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