It’s time again for Valley View’s annual food drive! From December 4th to 8th, students will be bringing non-perishable food to school to help address hunger on a local level. Supporting the Calgary Food Bank is the perfect way to participate in the spirit of the season. When making your donation please think about the non-perishable food in your own home. What do you usually buy and use? Those items often make the best donations. It’s helpful for donors to double check the expiry dates on items they bring in. See below for a list of non-perishable food needed:
Cereal Peanut butter Pancake mix Syrup Canned meat (ham, turkey) Canned fish Canned fruit Canned vegetables (corn, peas, carrots, mixed vegetables) Stuffing mix Cranberry sauce (whole berry) Soup (tomato, cream of mushroom, chicken noodle, chunky-style soups & stews, dry packaged soups, canned chili) Pasta sauce (tomato based) Juice Brown Beans Dry Pasta Baby Food In math we have been focusing on mental strategies and problem solving. The mental strategy we have worked on is “Thinking Addition for Subtraction.” When using this strategy students will solve subtraction equations by thinking about the inverse addition equation within the same number family. For example, to solve
18-7= students will think, “What number would I add to 7 to get a sum of 18?” Please click on the link below to see an explanation of the mental strategies we are learning and some practice problems. http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/eecd_gr3math.pdf We have also been working on math problem solving. This week’s problem was: Marcia and Gwen have been earning tokens in class for each time they turn in a homework assignment. Gwen is excited to have 34 tokens until she learns that Marcia has 3 times as many tokens as she does. How many more tokens does Gwen need to earn to catch up to Marcia? We talked about how we can solve this problem by using repeated addition to find the sum of Marcia’s tokens. We are beginning to work on noticing what the question is asking and that there may be multiple steps required to solve the problem. Students are continuing to write paragraphs and this week we have been working on developing strong sentences by adding powerful adjectives and connecting simple sentences using conjunctions like; and, but, so, because. We are really excited to be working on an Ingenuity Challenge from Beakerhead. We have decided to build a structure out of cardboard that would allow us to grow healthy food in our classroom. We have been learning about the importance of eating healthy food and have decided to use our knowledge about building strong structures to build and indoor growing environment. Students are now able to describe the properties of rocks and minerals in regards to their color, shape, hardness, luster and streak. Next week students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their learning about rocks and minerals in a project of their choice. They can create a field guide, an art piece, a video, a writing piece or a digital presentation. This week Room 12 has been continuing to test and investigate rocks and minerals. We looked closely at the shapes of the minerals through magnifying glasses and we created a visual journal page about the many vocabulary terms we can use to identify the shapes. We have also completed scratch testing on our minerals to determine the hardness of each mineral. The students compared their scratch tests to Moh’s Hardness Scale.
We have begun looking at what determines a good quality of life. This is part of our Social Studies curriculum. Our students have been thinking deeply about what are needs vs. wants, and deeper questions about if love is a want or need. In math, we have been continuing to look at mental math strategies. This past week we have focused on ordering and comparing numbers and being able to find the “in between” numbers. Below is an example of the type of work we have been working on. Holly’s class is learning about big numbers. 1. Here is part of the class number line. 650 +++++++++660 Put an X on the number line, on the place that is halfway between 650 and 660. What is the number that should be there? _______________ In Language Arts, our students have been focusing on using their senses to describe our rocks and minerals. We will be writing a rocks and minerals descriptive poem this upcoming week. Our students have also been working on researching thoughtful questions and learning how to go through the proper skills of research. Students are learning how to turn answer their questions in full sentences, and how sometimes their answer turns into more questions. This week we have been on two field studies. On Monday we visited the Jack Singer Concert Hall to see a presentation by National Geographic primatologist and explorer, Dr. Miraya Mayor. She shared with us about her conservation work around the globe.
On Thursday we had a wonderful day at the Calgary Tower. Students learned about the history of the building and the surrounding structures. Students were encouraged to look for shapes in the many buildings we were able to see from the observation deck. Students made note of the different shapes and how they were used. After, students used this information to design their our structures using different shapes. We have continued our work with mental calculations. We have been using a basic Make 10 strategy that we will later use when mentally calculating 2-digit numbers. We have also continued working with estimation and using referents to help make an informed estimate. Students have been gathering data and displaying it in easy to interpret ways while working with rocks and minerals. We have been looking at the structure paragraphs and have begun writing introductory sentences. Students learned that an introductory sentence should give a hint as to what the paragraph is about and grab the reader’s attention. Students were given models and examples of good ways to begin a paragraph and had opportunities to practice writing these. -Retakes for individual student photographs are tomorrow (November 8th)
-Parents are welcome to attend the Remembrance Day Assembly at 10:30am on Friday November 10th. -Please sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences. Please note that the start date for parent’s booking is 11:00 AM (Nov 06, 2017) , and booking ends at 11:00 AM (Nov 17, 2017) . Please follow this link to access the School Conference. PINK BOOTS AND A MACHETE
MIREYA MAYOR, PRIMATOLOGIST A former NFL cheerleader and daughter of Cuban immigrants who grew up in Miami, Mireya Mayor followed her unlikely dreams. In short order, she became a respected primatologist, audacious explorer, and Emmy Award-nominated wildlife correspondent for the National Geographic Channel. Mayor’s adventures have taken her⎯armed with little more than a backpack, notebooks, and hiking boots⎯to some of the wildest and most remote places on earth. She’s survived poisonous insect bites, been charged by gorillas and chased by elephants⎯and keeps going back for more. On a National Geographic-supported expedition in Madagascar in 2000, Mayor discovered a rare new species of mouse lemur, then believed to be the world’s smallest primate. Her discovery inspired the prime minister of Madagascar to establish a national park to help protect the new species, conserving the 10 percent that remains of the African island nation’s once vast forest. For more than a decade, Mayor has hosted wildlife shows, most recently the Nat Geo WILD series Wild Nights With Mireya Mayor. Mayor has been hailed as a “female Indiana Jones,” and an inspiration to young women interested in science and exploration. She’ll share stories, images, and film clips of her adventures, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the hardships and danger of life in the field, along with the moments of discovery that make it all worthwhile. This week we have been doing a lot of work with the pumpkins that were so graciously donated to Rooms 12 and 15.
Math: Students used the pumpkins in a variety of ways to cover multiple math outcomes. First we estimated the circumference of the pumpkins, using string as a form of measurement. Then we estimated the pumpkin seeds using “ten” as a referent. We counted the number of seeds by grouping them into round numbers that are easier to add. Our students also began examining different mental math strategies this week. This includes: doubling, doubling plus or minus 1, near doubling. Ask your children to show you their mental math strategy. Literacy: Our students completed a group “placemat” activity where they wrote or drew pictures of everything they knew about pumpkins. Students were to use their senses and describing words to explain their thinking. Through this activity, students were working on taking their shared understanding of pumpkins and created a paragraph. Art: Students were to look closely and examine the pumpkins in the classroom, they were allowed to touch the pumpkin and use magnifying glasses to get a close-up look. Students then were asked to sketch the pumpkins using a variety of pencil techniques. Students discussed the different parts of the pumpkins, and why they were important. |
Mrs. MacNeil &
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