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Thursday, September 27, 2018

New Unit of Inquiry

It was wonderful to meet with all students and their parent(s) for last Friday's student-teacher-parent conferences.  Having the students previously set academic and social goals, and having parents and teachers discuss their goals with them, helps students become more responsible and knowledgeable about their learning paths. It is expected that the students revisit and reassess their goals in January and again late in the year. 

This week we finished up our discussions and investigations into our first unit of inquiry, Who We Are. Much of the unit was about the students learning about how they learn best, and what thinking strategies they use to solve problem. This unit of inquiry has provided a great deal of literacy opportunities, such as when writing their thoughts in their living journals, and in math, when they record their progress on their graphs for mental math. 

Living Journals are essentially a diary of their learning, and their reflections.  We use an iPad application, Book Creator to record new knowledge, and most importantly to record their new ideas, opinions and reflections.  A great deal of attention is placed on what we refer to as the Six Traits of Writing: Writing Conventions, Writing Ideas, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Organization, and Voice. 

There is a growing use of technology in our classroom.  Students use iPads on an almost daily basis.  The students have been uploading their work in math, literacy, drama and other areas to their google folders.  Shortly, the folders will be shared with parents.  Parents will be able to see their child's learning only.  I encourage parents to look in on your child's learning from time to time.  As with parents' involvement with their child's goal setting, being aware of what they are learning is very beneficial to a healthy learning partnership.

This week we began our discussions about our new unit of inquiry, How We Organize Ourselves. Essentially, this unit is a deep dive into how people organize their lives around the facility of time.  The unit begins with the study into the origins of time.  Learning about time of course involves the sun, earth and moon, and naturally students have great interest in space.  History of time devices is also a focus, as well as managing our time, understanding lapsed time, telling time, using calendars, stopwatches, and collecting data. Researching and writing about their findings will be prevalent.

It is a very exciting unit of inquiry, which allows for a great deal of independent student research and inquiry.




Sunday, September 16, 2018

IXL and Raz-Kids

Hello 3P Students and Parents;

Students are now signed up for accounts for IXL for math, and Raz-kids for reading.  User names and password information have been inserted in their reading record books, which students bring home daily.  When using raz-kids, they can access it through the website on a browser, or they can get to it by downloading the app called Learning A-to-Z.  As I have told the students, Raz-Kids can be used for their 20 minutes of daily reading.  Likewise in IXL, I encourage them to look at the sections on place value and addition/subtraction and multiplication/division as a way to build fluency in basic facts of operations.  An app for IXL is also available for tablets. This past week was also a time for school wide assessments, as the students wrote MAP tests for both reading and math.

This week in literacy, the students began working in both their spelling and reading groups. In our math olympics this week, our focus was on number operations, to assist students to improve on their basic math facts.  In our Unit of Inquiry (UOI), we have been investigating the factors which affect how we learn.  In the week ahead, we will pursue this, as well as how we contribute to others' learning.  This week the students will do their summative assessments for this UOI. 

Have a great week ahead!

Mr. Shawn and Ms. Olga

Friday, September 7, 2018

Assessments and IXL

As always with a new school year, we never hit the ground running as quickly as we like.  A big part of a teacher's responsibility is to get to know your child educationally.  To do this we assess students' abilities and knowledge in reading, spelling, writing and mathematics.  It has been a busy couple  of weeks but we are getting there!  Once all the assessments are finished, the students will be put into small working groups, so that for at least some of their learning, they will learn at the same pace and level with others.

In math we are continuing our work with place value, which is a critical for number. Understanding number is far more than knowing how to count and write numbers.  It is recognizing patterns in numbers, and understanding that our number system is based on the value of 10.  Knowing the strategies behind math, at this stage of their development is more important than knowing or memorizing answers. In our math activities, our focus is getting students to understand the strategies and many ways to think about numbers.

Today, as part of our weekly math olympics, one activity had the students working together to use base 10 number blocks to make large 5 digit numbers.  Watch the videos below to see students working to build understanding together.




To help them get a better sense of days, months and years, I have inserted a calendar in their reading record book.  They will be marking off the days.  It is important students bring  their reading record book and calendar to school daily.  

In language this week the students were learning about adding voice to stories, or adding dialogue as a literary device.  They understand that adding dialogue to text makes the reading more enjoyable and interesting for readers.  Of course with dialogue comes the proper use of speech or quotation marks.  Voice is one of the Six Traits of Writing, the writing program we use in our classroom.  Last week our focus was writing conventions; punctuation, letter size, line and word spacing, and upper/lower case.  See the story below of one of the students--Bouncey Ball Fell in the Toilet.--There is never a dull moment in grade 3!



This week in our unit of inquiry the students have been investigating the kind of learners and thinkers they are.  Most identified that they learn in a variety of ways.  This week they learned broadly about De Bono's Thinking Hats, and will do more self awareness about this next week.

I have signed up all students in IXL, an online math support program.  The students know how to use it.  Their user names and passwords are on the outside cover of their reading record book.  It is intended that IXL be used to support areas in math particularly where they struggle.  If parents have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I hope to see many of you this evening at the campout.

Please note the parent-teacher-student meetings on Friday, September 21st.  

All the best,

Mr. Shawn