Monday - Thursday, April 12-15, 2021

My apologies. Something is going on with this blog site but I dont' know what it is and am unable to fix it. I will keep checking it but at this time, it is pointless for me to add posts that are all jumbled and difficult to read.

Friday, April 9, 2021

Something strange is happening here. Sorry. Will try to sort it. Happy Friday. We changed up our day last minute, giving the students in attendance their final opportunity to work on their Landforms book using Book Creator. We will begin presentations next week. Students also started their next (short) assignment: Design a theme island and include each of the landforms that you have learned. Example: Bird Island might include Flamingo Mountain, Vulture Volcano, and Birdbath Bay. I hope that they will have fun with this open-style assignment. I decided to introduce the kids to Helen Keller so we watched the 1962 movie: The Miracle Worker with Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft. I am including a link to a brief video about Helen here: Many thanks for the spaghetti lunch that was served today! We truly are spoiled here at Wagalus! Enjoy your weekend. I hear that the sun is coming next week so here's hoping:)

Thursday, April 8, 2021

 Gilakas'la!  Here's a look at our busy day:

First, a reminder about the hot lunch tomorrow: Spaghetti!  If your child does not like spaghetti, please pack their own lunch.  

istockphoto-636746848-612x612.jpg

We added notes about Verbs to our Language Arts Interactive Notebooks this morning.  It looks a bit confusing but the main thing for the kids to know that there are different types of verbs, and that verbs tell us when something happens; we mainly focus on action verbs.  

Remember you can click on these pictures to enlarge them.

We watched a very good video about verbs:https://youtu.be/DH5HzbObnOI

Then I read a beautiful story to the kids, emphasizing the verbs in it. 

During Math, we revisited the Perimeter and Area task cards for more practice.  Students are working to remember which is which, as well as what to do when asked to find the sum or difference (important vocabulary from earlier in the year).  

I read some more from REFUGEE; the kids are really enjoying it. 

The afternoon was spent working on the Book Creator Landforms assignment that is due tomorrow!  Students were given a checklist to use.  

Tuesday and Wednesday, April 6 & 7, 2021

 Hello, all.  I am combining yesterday and today mainly because I forgot to do the blog yesterday.  So here goes:

I started reading REFUGEE by Alan Gratz.  Not only is this an amazing story, but it will lead us into our studies about immigration.   I am adding this first so that the picture shows up in the box. 
*I read while the kids are still eating; this gives the slower eaters more time to relax. 

In Language Arts, students did a practice MAZE  on Tuesday and then "the real McCoy" today.  They are really getting good at these 3-minute timed reading fluency activities where, within sentences, they have to choose the correct word (from a list of three) to correctly use in the sentence.  I hope that makes sense to you. 

We also read and worked through another spelling booklet: "Amazing H" about adding h to certain consonants to change their sound.  

Yesterday, the kids wrote about what they had done over the weekend.  I wanted to see how their writing has developed completely unassisted.  

Today, students had a chance to do some of their Readwell or Reading Mastery program.  

Prior to that, we added some notes about Possessive Nouns to their Interactive Notebooks.  The photos will give you an idea of what that is all about.  

During Math this week, students did drills for the 6X facts.  Everyone improved today's score from yesterday's!!  Next, we continued working on calculating the perimeter and area of rectangles.  Today, the students worked on some "task cards" scattered about the room.  The picture below is an example of the first four cards. 

We are finishing up our Landforms books using Book Creator this week.  Students are using First Voices to add Kwakwala words to name most of the landforms.  We hope to present these books next week to parents et al via Zoom.  We will give notice!

Today, the kids had Kwakwal culture class with Isaiah in the afternoon.  I'm not sure what they did but they had fun!

Enjoy your evening.  Stay warm:)

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

 Greetings!  First off: a reminder that a hot lunch will be served on Thursday: chicken noodle soup & bun! 

We started our day checking out a short video about the Mars Rover being sent to and landing on Mars. This video is truly amazing! https://youtu.be/XRCIzZHpFtY

Next, we continued reading about and discussed Famous Failures: Oprah Winfrey, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and Albert Einstein.  

Later on I showed a short 4 minute video about 15 Famous Failures Before Success. 

https://youtu.be/hNihl8oGA7A

Related to this, students worked in pairs to distinguish between Fixed versus Growth Mindset statements. Tomorrow we will look to see what they came up with and, as a review, put them onto a larger poster for the classroom. 

After recess, students continued their 4X drills, noting an improvement from yesterday's results.

Then we marked /reviewed the Polygons worksheets from yesterday before watching another MathAntics video about classifying Quadrilaterals.  We did some pages together while we sorted them out.  Some challenges came up when we named some Triangles and had to find missing angles.  The key is to remember that the inside angles of triangles always add up to 180 degrees. Grade 3s are not expected to know this but those who like to challenge themselves appreciate it:)

After lunch, we followed step by step instructions about how to draw a bunny head.  We did this with pencil, then went outside for some fresh air on the play ground.  Upon our return, we experimented with chalk pastels.  We were supposed to do bunnies but they turned out looking like dogs and other animals - mine included:)  

Some people gave up altogether (So much for growth mindset!) while others created more than one.  

We learned a lot about working with chalk pastels and blending with our fingers.  

Here's what we came up with:

Monday, March 29, 2021

 Welcome back after Spring Break! We had a good turn out today and it was sure wonderful seeing everyone.  

We started off talking about the gigantic ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal and held up traffic for almost a week!  It was freed this morning after much effort and expense.  We learned a bit about the history of the Suez Canal, looked up its geographical location, and discussed several related issues.  Just the shear size of the ship Ever Live was amazing to see. 

Later, after lunch, we also looked at the Panama Canal: its history, location, how it was constructed, and how the locks work.  There are several videos about both these canals and the event described above for you to check out.

We started reading about Famous Failures, starting with Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs. 

We discussed their characteristics and mindset as we begin to get into Fixed versus Growth Mindset tomorrow. 

In Math, after a 4X drill, we watched the MathAntics video about Polygons. Students worked quickly through a short package, then we began putting some notes into our Kim Sutton "Polygons" booklet.  Today we named triangles based on the lengths of their sides. 

Lastly, academically anyway, students worked on their Landforms books on Book Creator. 

All in all, it was a very pleasant and fulfilling day.  It flew by and the kids learned a lot of new things:)

Thursday, March 11, 2021

 We had a rather productive day, despite the craziness and Spring Break being only one day away!

*Purdy's orders are in!  Some students took them home, others will need to be picked up.  You can call the office if unsure.  

We started our day watching an amazing video about people in China who live up in the mountains.  Check this out:

Next, we marked the possessive nouns worksheet that we did yesterday, followed by a second short review quiz about nouns.   That left a few minutes for students to work on their Landforms book in Book Creator.  

After recess break, students did their second X3 drill and recorded their results on their bar graph.  Then we marked / reviewed the perimeters package they worked on yesterday, not only reviewing what perimeter is, but developing strategies to make addition easier.   Students are also encouraged to write down partial sums and not to keep everything in their head; this is how mistakes are often made.  Students are also reminded to include the ever-important unit of measure in their answer!

After lunch, Pat's class presented their research projects about grease trails and the eulachon.  My class played Kahoot! after the presentations to see how well they listened to the presentations.  I think they enjoy the competition more than anything:)  

This took us to PE where we went outside to enjoy the fresh air.

Upon our return, students learned about warm and cool colours. 
They began landscape pictures using warm or cool colours (either one or the other for the sky, and the opposite for the land).  I also introduced them to Ted Harrison's art work and whose style we are using to create our art pieces.  The following are works in progress. 

REMINDERS: WEAR GREEN TOMORROW FOR ST. PATRICK'S DAY, and TACO LUNCH PROVIDED for those who said they wanted some.  :)

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

 The week is going quickly!

In Language Arts, we marked / reviewed our nouns worksheet cloze activity from yesterday.  Next, the students were introduced to possessive noun phrases.  We did some together, then they worked independently to finish the rest of the examples.  

Then, they had some time to work on their Landforms and Book Creator! 

After recess and P.E., it was math time. We did a X3 drill, graphed the results, and continued working on the perimeter package from yesterday.   We had time to play Rounding on Kahoot! again; I added more questions and lengthened the delay time to 30 seconds, giving kids more time to think about their answers. 

This afternoon turned out to be lovely so Isaiah took them to the beach for Culture class. 

Sorry - no photos today.  

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Today was a very exciting day for the kids!  I introduced them to Kahoot!  It's a game that they play in the iPads, answering either True or False questions or multiple choice.  They practiced first with Telling Time, then a Rounding quiz.  I based these games on some of the material we have covered this term.  

Earlier, however, we did some more work with nouns.  They wrote a very short 'review quiz' independently, and then we identified nouns as either abstract or concrete nouns.  We added notes to our Language Arts Interactive Notebook and watch this great video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swuLI2e5KuY

In Math, we watched a Math Antics video about Perimeter and started working on some practice sheets. Here's the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAY1bsazcgM

Students were also introduced to Book Creator today, a fabulous APP where they make their own books.  In this case, they are to create a book about the landforms we are learning.  They are to type on each page a definition of a landform and then find an image on the web to use for an example.  We hope that the kids will be able to share these with family and friends during a Zoom meeting later, once they are finished.  In the meantime, this is a fun and educational activity that they are enjoying. 

That's it!