There will be a boys soccer practice after school today at 2:45. Please meet Mrs. Cooke on the field with your cleats, water bottle and brain.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Where Has The Time Gone? 2017 update....
I can't believe that it is already February. January seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye and here we are into February already. As usual, your children have continued to be a busy group of learners and I will attempt to give you an update highlighting some of the BIG things we have been up to! Hopefully you have been following us on Twitter (@mrscookesclass301) and following your child's digital portfolio on Seesaw for more frequent updates and student pics. Most of your children have over 40 entries in their portfolios so head over to check out your child's portfolio of work.
I am sure you have heard that we have some new pets..a tailess whip scorpion, 2 halloween crabs and a millipede. We have also replenished our mealworm hotel with some new mealworms. Lots of life in the portable. Portables (or outdoor learning spaces as I like to refer to it) can be enriching and amazing learning environments!
In math, we moved from our 2D geometry focus on polygons into using that knowledge to better understand and investigate 3D geometry. We spent a great collaborative day with Mrs. DeRivera's class building various 3D shapes. Students used marshmallows, toothpicks, wooden skewers, straws and connectors, polydrons, paper nets among other things to build various 3D solids. From the building debrief, students came to the discovery of why we couldn't build anything beyond cubes and rectangular prisms with the straws and connectors which led to an amazing discussion where they brought in their understanding of angles and realized that our connectors have only 90 degree or right angles and therefore were limited to shapes that used only right angles. We were wishing that we had more variety in our connectors to include smaller (acute angles) and larger (obtuse) angles so that we could have built more elaborate solids. WOW! Great discovery. Students followed up that build day with a video series that each person created using Explain Everything to demonstrate their understanding of the properties of those 3D solids and also to compare different solids to each other. Pyramids and prisms were a BIG focus and we discovered that all pyramids that a certain number of triangle faces and all prisms have a certain number of rectangle faces. We even went as far as to discover how we can tell how many of each face there would be....hint....it has to do with the shape of the base! Ask your child about things like square based pyramids and hexagonal prisms....see what they can tell you.
This past month has also had us looking alot at data. We held many book club talks with our peers using amazing books that contained REAL data and REAL displays of data. These books were some favourites for the year among some of us....books about Endangered Animals, Recycling and Environmental issues.....all topics students are passionate and interested in. We developed criteria charts for what common features the various types of graphs we found all had in common. These are posted so that as we create our own displays we can ensure we have all of the same features. This led to some great investigations into ways we can display data and how we might decide which data would best be displayed in various ways. We then created many of our own bar graphs, pictographs and circle graphs. Grade three students focus was on carefully choosing a scale for a bar graph by looking at the size of the numbers that needed to be displayed as well as carefully choosing a key for a pictograph based on the numbers that needed to be represented. Grade two students were using one to one correspondence for most of their data. We developed criteria for great graphs and we created some amazing displays that were EASY TO READ and LOGICAL!
Running through our program has been a focus on multiplication strategies as well as telling time and using time data (elaspsed time). These will continue moving forward for the next while.
Our language program has been intertwined with social studies as we read, research, find main ideas and supporting details in text centred around our themes of Early Canadian Communities (aboriginal communities) in grade 3 and Features of Communities Around The World in grade 2. These may not sound interesting topics to you, however, students are loving them and look forward to delving into these topics deeper.
Our read aloud text has been The One and Only Ivan which has led to great discussions around animals in captivity. The book is told from Ivan's (a silverback gorilla) perspective and we have had fun learning to see things from various perspectives and our discussions center around what the zoo keeper's story may be about a particular situation in the story versus Ivan's perspective, versus one of the other animal characters. We decided there seems to be 3 categories of animals in captivity: animals kept in captivity for entertainment, animals kept in captivity for research and protection and animals kept in captivity for rescue and rehabilitation. Ivan, the main character from our novel, is an example of an animal in captivity for human entertainment. Hope and Winter, dolphins kept in captivity at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida is an example of an animal in captivity for rescue and rehabilitation. Go to www.seewinter.com for live webcam footage of Winter, Hope and Nicholas in Clearwater.
Students wrote amazing recounts of their trip to Crawford Lake and we have been publishing those up into student generated books. We are now looking for a way to display our student published books...we need a small bookshelf (and space to put it) so that we can continue to write, edit and publish other forms of writing. We will get to narratives, poetry, persuasive letters.....much fun to come in writing!
Busy times in grade 2/3. Stay tuned for next week's update. Promises that they will be more regular--report cards written, hopefully family virus' finished for the season, BIG commitments and milestones completed by my family and hopefully ALL students will be back from their extended vacations and we will have a full class. Back to more regular routine for us all!
I am sure you have heard that we have some new pets..a tailess whip scorpion, 2 halloween crabs and a millipede. We have also replenished our mealworm hotel with some new mealworms. Lots of life in the portable. Portables (or outdoor learning spaces as I like to refer to it) can be enriching and amazing learning environments!
In math, we moved from our 2D geometry focus on polygons into using that knowledge to better understand and investigate 3D geometry. We spent a great collaborative day with Mrs. DeRivera's class building various 3D shapes. Students used marshmallows, toothpicks, wooden skewers, straws and connectors, polydrons, paper nets among other things to build various 3D solids. From the building debrief, students came to the discovery of why we couldn't build anything beyond cubes and rectangular prisms with the straws and connectors which led to an amazing discussion where they brought in their understanding of angles and realized that our connectors have only 90 degree or right angles and therefore were limited to shapes that used only right angles. We were wishing that we had more variety in our connectors to include smaller (acute angles) and larger (obtuse) angles so that we could have built more elaborate solids. WOW! Great discovery. Students followed up that build day with a video series that each person created using Explain Everything to demonstrate their understanding of the properties of those 3D solids and also to compare different solids to each other. Pyramids and prisms were a BIG focus and we discovered that all pyramids that a certain number of triangle faces and all prisms have a certain number of rectangle faces. We even went as far as to discover how we can tell how many of each face there would be....hint....it has to do with the shape of the base! Ask your child about things like square based pyramids and hexagonal prisms....see what they can tell you.
This past month has also had us looking alot at data. We held many book club talks with our peers using amazing books that contained REAL data and REAL displays of data. These books were some favourites for the year among some of us....books about Endangered Animals, Recycling and Environmental issues.....all topics students are passionate and interested in. We developed criteria charts for what common features the various types of graphs we found all had in common. These are posted so that as we create our own displays we can ensure we have all of the same features. This led to some great investigations into ways we can display data and how we might decide which data would best be displayed in various ways. We then created many of our own bar graphs, pictographs and circle graphs. Grade three students focus was on carefully choosing a scale for a bar graph by looking at the size of the numbers that needed to be displayed as well as carefully choosing a key for a pictograph based on the numbers that needed to be represented. Grade two students were using one to one correspondence for most of their data. We developed criteria for great graphs and we created some amazing displays that were EASY TO READ and LOGICAL!
Running through our program has been a focus on multiplication strategies as well as telling time and using time data (elaspsed time). These will continue moving forward for the next while.
Our language program has been intertwined with social studies as we read, research, find main ideas and supporting details in text centred around our themes of Early Canadian Communities (aboriginal communities) in grade 3 and Features of Communities Around The World in grade 2. These may not sound interesting topics to you, however, students are loving them and look forward to delving into these topics deeper.
Our read aloud text has been The One and Only Ivan which has led to great discussions around animals in captivity. The book is told from Ivan's (a silverback gorilla) perspective and we have had fun learning to see things from various perspectives and our discussions center around what the zoo keeper's story may be about a particular situation in the story versus Ivan's perspective, versus one of the other animal characters. We decided there seems to be 3 categories of animals in captivity: animals kept in captivity for entertainment, animals kept in captivity for research and protection and animals kept in captivity for rescue and rehabilitation. Ivan, the main character from our novel, is an example of an animal in captivity for human entertainment. Hope and Winter, dolphins kept in captivity at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida is an example of an animal in captivity for rescue and rehabilitation. Go to www.seewinter.com for live webcam footage of Winter, Hope and Nicholas in Clearwater.
Students wrote amazing recounts of their trip to Crawford Lake and we have been publishing those up into student generated books. We are now looking for a way to display our student published books...we need a small bookshelf (and space to put it) so that we can continue to write, edit and publish other forms of writing. We will get to narratives, poetry, persuasive letters.....much fun to come in writing!
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Almost at the break!
School is a busy place in December. We are tying up some loose ends in science, beginning a new unit in Social Studies, rehearsing for concerts and choirs, outfitting our environment with some winter cheer and enjoying the SNOW! No wonder we will all be exhausted by Christmas Break!
Last week we enjoyed our Winter concert. As a class, we sang, performed on the recorders AND did a holiday dance! Our grade 2's were excellent student leaders as they assisted their peers in the RISE and DD classes with their parts of the performance. Grade 2 students--you are an excellent example of caring, kind, compassionate and helpful Eldorado leaders!
In math we continued to look at some 2D geometry concepts. We reviewed the ideas of congruency and parallel lines. Students used the app Explain Everything to record their understanding of congruent shapes using geoboards as math tools to make shapes that were congruent. A final assessment task of our understanding of 2D geometry concepts included a quilt block that was made up of various shapes. Students wrote paragraphs explaining the parallel lines, names and types of shapes within the block, the congruent shapes that went together to make the block etc.
We also began to use 2D shapes to solve various puzzles. We read the book Grandfather Tang's story which is a story told using tangrams and then recreated the various parts of the story using our own tangram sets. Students use a lot of spatial skills to orient the 7 pieces in various ways to make pictures or objects. It is amazing to see how easy this is for some who seem to automatically see how the shapes must fit together to mimic an object and how others really struggle to orient shapes to make a match!
In sorting our 2D shapes we had to take a step back to learn how to sort using various types of Venn Diagrams. We learned that different types of diagrams can be used to represent different types of sorting rules. It was a challenge to try to choose the appropriate Venn diagram to represent the various ways we sorted objects. We now know that the Venn is another math tool to use to help us effectively represent and communicate our sorting rules.
Our read alouds have turned to short stories...some math related such as Grandfather Tang or the Greedy Triangle and some are just for fun! We have read a number of short stories from the And Then It Happened collection of books and have focused on visualization as a comprehension strategy. Those stories lend themselves very well to visualization as there are many plays on words and double meanings of language that add humour....if we understand them! In the new year, we will delve into our next chapter book read aloud to develop comprehension over a longer storyline.
With the approaching winter holidays, many students asked if we could please put up a tree in our portable. I am glad they feel comfortable and at home and wanted to add holiday and winter cheer to our learning space! So we put up a tree--with lights, decorations and all. Students made all of the decorations using patterns on grid paper and following those grids to recreate the pictures or patterns using perler beads (melty beads) and peg boards. They look awesome and students ended up spending many nutrition breaks making more, and more and more and more! They loved the math and art connection as well as creating neat things from scratch!
We are almost approaching our final coding mission using the EV3 robots in the Innovation Studio. We have built them, programmed them to move forward, backward, turn, go through mazes and now we have built and are using 3 types of sensors--sonic sensors, light sensors and touch sensors to complete tasks. Our final mission next week will require us to work together and use ALL of our new coding and programming skills to get the job done! We can't wait. Coding has provided us with many math connections but also helped us to work on our collaboration, problem solving, reasoning and reflecting, accountability, responsibility and critical thinking skills! We learn so much from our time together in he Innovation Studio.
We will be beginning a new social studies unit. For our grade three students it will focus on Communities of the Past in Canada (around the 1780-1800's) and our grade two students will focus on traditions and celebration past and present as well as present day communities around the world. To start our unit, we needed to help make the idea of 'past' concrete. We created a historical number line to help us visualization how far in the past we will be talking about and added the dates of a large number of inventions students wanted to inquire about. Adding those inventions to our timeline will help to give us context to realize what those communities in the 'past' did not have access to (things like electricity, internet, cars, machines, ipads, refrigerators, stoves, microwaves)....Oh my....how do we think those communities met their needs? We will see....... In creating those timelines, we used our number pattern sense to create a pattern that counted backwards by 5's starting at 2017 and ending at 1780. Students quickly saw patterns and realized that we were never going to land on the year 1780. We opted to land on the nearest number we could to that year! LOL
We then had to rely heavily our concept of numbers and place value as we ordered those big numbers (like 2017. 1997, 1945,1862, 1808, 1737, etc. on the number line). What a lot of thinking and problem solving we do everyday!!!
We look forward to our trip next week to experience how some of those early Canadian communities lived and met their needs. Please DRESS YOUR CHILD WARMLY! LAYERS, LAYERD, LAYERS! The key to staying warm outdoors and enjoying winter activities is to layer your clothing. Extra socks in the backpack are ALWAYS a great idea. Following our trip, we will work hard to write recounts of our experiences. We will work on the first drafts before the winter break and do the editing and publishing of that writing upon our return in January.
Enjoy the winter blast and the excitement of the approaching holiday season....it may mean a time of rest and relaxation for you and your family, it may mean Christmas celebrations with friends and family, it may mean travel to warmer destinations.....the holiday break can mean so many things to so many people. Whatever the break means for you and your family, please enjoy the time together, be safe and return rested and ready to go again in January!
Last week we enjoyed our Winter concert. As a class, we sang, performed on the recorders AND did a holiday dance! Our grade 2's were excellent student leaders as they assisted their peers in the RISE and DD classes with their parts of the performance. Grade 2 students--you are an excellent example of caring, kind, compassionate and helpful Eldorado leaders!
In math we continued to look at some 2D geometry concepts. We reviewed the ideas of congruency and parallel lines. Students used the app Explain Everything to record their understanding of congruent shapes using geoboards as math tools to make shapes that were congruent. A final assessment task of our understanding of 2D geometry concepts included a quilt block that was made up of various shapes. Students wrote paragraphs explaining the parallel lines, names and types of shapes within the block, the congruent shapes that went together to make the block etc.
We also began to use 2D shapes to solve various puzzles. We read the book Grandfather Tang's story which is a story told using tangrams and then recreated the various parts of the story using our own tangram sets. Students use a lot of spatial skills to orient the 7 pieces in various ways to make pictures or objects. It is amazing to see how easy this is for some who seem to automatically see how the shapes must fit together to mimic an object and how others really struggle to orient shapes to make a match!
In sorting our 2D shapes we had to take a step back to learn how to sort using various types of Venn Diagrams. We learned that different types of diagrams can be used to represent different types of sorting rules. It was a challenge to try to choose the appropriate Venn diagram to represent the various ways we sorted objects. We now know that the Venn is another math tool to use to help us effectively represent and communicate our sorting rules.
With the approaching winter holidays, many students asked if we could please put up a tree in our portable. I am glad they feel comfortable and at home and wanted to add holiday and winter cheer to our learning space! So we put up a tree--with lights, decorations and all. Students made all of the decorations using patterns on grid paper and following those grids to recreate the pictures or patterns using perler beads (melty beads) and peg boards. They look awesome and students ended up spending many nutrition breaks making more, and more and more and more! They loved the math and art connection as well as creating neat things from scratch!
We are almost approaching our final coding mission using the EV3 robots in the Innovation Studio. We have built them, programmed them to move forward, backward, turn, go through mazes and now we have built and are using 3 types of sensors--sonic sensors, light sensors and touch sensors to complete tasks. Our final mission next week will require us to work together and use ALL of our new coding and programming skills to get the job done! We can't wait. Coding has provided us with many math connections but also helped us to work on our collaboration, problem solving, reasoning and reflecting, accountability, responsibility and critical thinking skills! We learn so much from our time together in he Innovation Studio.
We will be beginning a new social studies unit. For our grade three students it will focus on Communities of the Past in Canada (around the 1780-1800's) and our grade two students will focus on traditions and celebration past and present as well as present day communities around the world. To start our unit, we needed to help make the idea of 'past' concrete. We created a historical number line to help us visualization how far in the past we will be talking about and added the dates of a large number of inventions students wanted to inquire about. Adding those inventions to our timeline will help to give us context to realize what those communities in the 'past' did not have access to (things like electricity, internet, cars, machines, ipads, refrigerators, stoves, microwaves)....Oh my....how do we think those communities met their needs? We will see....... In creating those timelines, we used our number pattern sense to create a pattern that counted backwards by 5's starting at 2017 and ending at 1780. Students quickly saw patterns and realized that we were never going to land on the year 1780. We opted to land on the nearest number we could to that year! LOL
We then had to rely heavily our concept of numbers and place value as we ordered those big numbers (like 2017. 1997, 1945,1862, 1808, 1737, etc. on the number line). What a lot of thinking and problem solving we do everyday!!!
We look forward to our trip next week to experience how some of those early Canadian communities lived and met their needs. Please DRESS YOUR CHILD WARMLY! LAYERS, LAYERD, LAYERS! The key to staying warm outdoors and enjoying winter activities is to layer your clothing. Extra socks in the backpack are ALWAYS a great idea. Following our trip, we will work hard to write recounts of our experiences. We will work on the first drafts before the winter break and do the editing and publishing of that writing upon our return in January.
Enjoy the winter blast and the excitement of the approaching holiday season....it may mean a time of rest and relaxation for you and your family, it may mean Christmas celebrations with friends and family, it may mean travel to warmer destinations.....the holiday break can mean so many things to so many people. Whatever the break means for you and your family, please enjoy the time together, be safe and return rested and ready to go again in January!
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