Hello all. A super busy week...so much so, we forgot to take many pictures or videos! On Monday, we had Jeff Stockton, a professional story teller, visit our classes. The students (and teachers) were enraptured by Jeff's enthusiastic and strong story telling. Accompanied by his harp, Jeff held us all engaged as he told us an indigenous aetiological legend about the origin of the mosquito.

In math, we worked on perimeter and area as well as Mrs. Wickland's challenge of measuring the distance from our door to the exit door we use. Students had to work in teams, determine the unit they wished to use and then perform the task. We discussed the differences in measurements, which ranged from 12m to 19m. How did we lose 7m? The students then problem-solved the issue, determining that they were not accurate in their counting or measuring.

In science/social, we are studying the Beluga sturgeon, a gigantic fish found in Ukraine. Students are learning about fish life-cycles, preservation and conservation (this type of sturgeon is endangered from over-fishing for its roe).



On Wednesday, the entire school went on a trip to Belvedere Parkway school. From there we walked to Bowness Park for a short picnic. Students had a fantastic time, and the weather was amazing (pre-smoke out!). We showed our school spirit, kindness, and generosity as we spent time with the students from other schools.

On Friday, we had a professor from the University of Calgary, as well as a PhD candidate, visit our class to observe us. We hope our learning provided them with useful data towards better understanding how people learn and the best practices for providing safe and welcoming learning environments.

Hello, once again. Please note, our Volunteer Tea will be Friday, June 7 from 10:30am-12:30pm. If you plan on attending, please RSVP me before June 1. 

We had Mr. Todos, our assistant principal and resident Ukrainian :), volunteer to lead our classes in making pysanky eggs and Ukrainian bread as part of our social studies exploration of Ukraine. 

We all had a fantastic time designing, decorating, dyeing, and waxing our eggs. A special thank you to the parent volunteers who helped out all day. We could not have done it without your help. 

Each child had to complete a design chart utilizing different symbols and colours that represented something important to them and to the person to whom they were giving their egg. We used traditional Ukrainian symbols, as well as our own invented symbols. 

Once completed, students transferred their designs to their egg and then undertook the process of dyeing and waxing their eggs. 

Enjoy some of the photos below.

This took the morning. After lunch, we moved on to baking bread. We prepared dough for the next class and baked our own buns and a traditional braided loaf. 

In math, we are continuing with perimeter and area, moving into geometry next week. 

Have a great weekend. 

In math, we've moved on to perimeter, area, units and measuring. We'll be engaging in a number of activities that will involve learning about these ideas with hands-on measuring. We began today with measuring our classroom. Students worked in different teams and attempted to measure the perimeter of our classroom. After they had finished measuring, I asked the teams to compare their measurements. They were astounded at how different they were, some off by more than 1 or 2m. We talked about why that was, and the importance of measuring accurately and how to do that.

We'll redo this activity next week and use our (accurate) measurements to create a scale drawing of our classroom, including the perimeter and area in sq. m. We'll have to decide on the proper units to use and how to scale our blueprint, as well. We'll discuss converting to different units (cm, m, mm, km, etc.).

We also had a visit this week from It's a Crime Not to Read. Calgary police officers visited and read to the students. If your child has any books from ICNTR, please have them return them to school on Tuesday. 

In social, we worked on designing Pysanky eggs, a Ukrainian tradition. On Wednesday, May 22 our class will use our designs to create their own eggs. As we'll be using dyes to color our eggs, please ensure your child comes to school prepared for this activity by supplying them with clothing they do not mind staining. These dyes will NOT come out of clothing. 

In literacy, we are working developing characters, plots, and settings towards a new short story writing project. We're looking at how professionals do it. Using my experience as an author, editor, and academic, we're examining the process of creating interesting writing, editing, and publishing. 

On May 30th our school will be going on a school-wide picnic to Bowness Park (weather permitting). We'll be bussing to a nearby school and then walking to the park. We are looking for volunteers, so if you have your up-to-date police check and are on our volunteer list, we'd love to have you help out. 

Have a great long weekend. Remember, no school Friday or Monday!

Hello.

In math we've split up a bit more than usual with 3s and 4s. Our 4s are now working on decimals, which is not part of the grade 3 Program of Studies. So, our threes have been working on developing their understanding of what fractions are, and have been relating fractions with similar denominators to each other (ordering 1/5, 3/5, 4/5, 2/5, etc.) using visual and manipulative strategies, as well as developing their mental math strategies.

Our 4s have been working on decimals, relating them to fractions, understanding place value to the right of the decimal point, as well as adding and subtracting numbers with decimals.



A few of our 4s wanted to push their limits, and have also been working on converting random fractions to decimals using division, representing that decimal as a new fraction (x/10, x/100, etc.), and then reducing it back to the original fraction they started with (see below).

For those students I gave a further of challenge of trying to do it with 1/3, and then we examined why it didn't really work very well (1/3 = .333333...) which led to a discussion of base-10, base-12 and some other ideas we discussed over the year).

If your student is struggling with the concept of place value with decimals, you can try using manipulatives (shown above) to help them visualize it. Here is a link to one way of doing it: decimals with base-10 blocks If you don't have these blocks (you probably don't!) you could use other objects such as lego. 

In science we are wrapping up our Rube Goldberg machines. We've had many challenges as well as successes in creating these. We'll have a bit of review on the Simple Machines unit and then a summative assessment (unit test) before we move on to some more plants and animals. Our room is a disaster area of cardboard, paper, and other items, so we'll all be glad to get this finished and cleaned up :).

You can see above some of our towers from our tower project. Next, as we move into collecting and graphing data in math, we'll create different graphs based around our towers (height, # of elevators, # of people they hold, etc.) to continue to tie in our math with our science.

In literacy, our grade threes have been working hard on mastering basic grammatical terms and concepts. Ask them about parsing sentences. We've been working on naming all the parts of our sentences, from prepositions and prepositional phrases, to subject, verb, noun, adjective, etc. These basic skills are foundational for good wri...sorry, I mean well writing ;).

We are also working on developing characters, plots, and settings as we work on creative writing. We also did some persuasive writing, with students selecting a superpower they would like to have and then arguing why they think it's the best one to have (on-going).

In social, we are in Ukraine now with Mrs. Wilson and are exploring the country through videos, images, and books.

Hello.

In math we are wrapping up fractions. Some students, however, still find the concept of fractions very complicated, so please continue to work with your child on noticing how fractions are used in everyday life and help get them used to them.

In our weekly Mrs. Wickland challenge, students worked on the following problem.




Several of our students, who had completed their other projects and had some time during our Catch-Up period, wanted to expand the challenge. They had been interested in the mosaics we had studied during our Tunisia unit and decided to create their own mosaic, as well as calculate its value given a triangle = 1. See some of their work below.

They then went even further! They're not quite finished yet, but through discussions with them, they have a solid plan to calculate all these shapes. We'll see if they can do it accurately! The rest of our students worked on the original project, so please ask them how they solved it. 

In social studies, Mrs. Wilson had us all fly to Ukraine to begin our final country investigation. Students had their passports stamped and approved, and we landed in Kiev. We'll finish our journey here, learning about the flora, fauna, people and cultures, geography and climate of Ukraine. 

In science, students are ironing out their blueprints, and some groups have started building their machines. We'll have a busy and messy week upcoming as our machines start to take shape. Ask your students about their part in the building process, as each student must work on a specific part of the machine themselves to ensure all the group participates. Is your student working on the wheel/axle? Maybe a lever? If so, do they know what class of lever? 

Relatedly, we'll be having a science unit test soon on our Simple Machines unit. We'll create the test together to ensure we're all in agreement about what learning intentions are fair to examine and how best to show our learning. A study guide will be created collectively, and students will be given ample time to prepare. More on this as it gets closer.