Happy Hallowe'en!

It was great to see all of the ghouls and goblins today at school! We got lots of learning done AND had a blast. Thank you, students, for a wonderful Hallowe'en experience!

Highlights:
- Mrs. Cose's met with their Grade 4 buddies to share their monster writing. This is coming home today and we are SUPER excited to share what we have been working on with our families. (Sayeh)
- Mrs. Seymour's class used the computers to play Hallowe'en games and practiced math and reading. (Sawyer)
- We played Hallowe'en Password (Zaeem)

Reminders:
- no school tomorrow
- please bring in flattened, thin, clean, cardboard boxes (cereal, granola bars, etc.)
- Veteran's Food Drive starts next week for Remembrance Day

Our Rm 128/129 Bee Colony: Spelling Bee, The Letter Bee, Queen Bee, Busy Bee

Be safe and have a ton of fun this weekend! We will see you on Monday :) 
* Please remember to limit unhealthy snacks that you send throughout the week. We know that treats are delicious, but moderation is important for our brains to be in full function! Thank you in advance! *

Tomorrow: Half Day Costume/Pajama Day!

Photo proofs for individual photos were sent home today. Deadline to order is November 5, 2019.

Reminder: tomorrow is a half-day (dismissal at 11:45am) and no school on Friday, Nov. 1st

Building notice! We need you to bring in some supplies please:

- flattened, clean, thin, cardboard boxes (no bigger than a cereal box) ... thin candy boxes from Hallowe'en/granola bars/etc. would be wonderful! (Amazon boxes are too thick and too big)

Recognitions:

We'd like to recognize ERIC and SOFIA for being the first students to get ready for learning after lunch today. Thank you for being great examples for the rest of the class! :) 

We had a surprise fire drill today, and Mrs. Seymour and Mrs. Cose were very proud of the demonstrations of excellent citizenship that we saw from our students, including holding the doors for the younger students, and allowing the TASC class to come into the school first. 

Highlights of what we learned today:
- we learned about ways to stay safe trick or treating (Kohde)
- in Phys. Ed we worked on how to skip and gallop (Alivia)
- we learned how to draw boats from Nova Scotia (Bennett)

Tips for Trick or Treating Safety:

• don't trick-or-treat by yourself
• don't talk to strangers
• stay outside of people's houses (don't go in)
• look both ways before you cross the street
• do one side of the street at a time
• don't eat any of your candy until your parents check it

Please note Daylight Savings Time on Sunday: change your clocks BACK one hour.

Hello, Lighthouse!

Highlights from our learning today:
- in Phys. Ed today we learned a new game where we worked on leaping and dodging (Sayeh)
- in Art, we finished the lighthouses and we read a book about lighthouses (Aaron)
- In Illustrator's Notebook we drew about what Mrs. Cose was reading (Aubrey)
- In math we started some Hallowe'en rotations to help us practice adding and subtracting numbers  (Sofia & Zaeem)



Here are our lighthouses:

We learned a new thinking routine called an OWI, where we Observe, Wonder and Infer from a photo. Here were our two classes... can you spot some similarities? 

Our first blue day of the year

Today was our first blue day! It was -20 with wind chill so we had indoor recess and lunch.

In writing, we looked at what criteria makes a writing piece good. Students received four samples of writing and in table groups they worked to rank them. Then they gave examples of what made the "4" writing good writing.

Some examples of what makes excellent writing:

- making sure that your sentences make sense (Drayden)

- tell them what it is (Jaxon) - even better is SHOWING them 

- your words are spelled correctly (Ibrahim)

- your words are not scrunched up together and it is easy to read (Anna) and neat (Chasity)

- you need punctuation (Corbin)

- you need details (Sawyer)

- different beginnings of sentences

After collecting our ideas, we compared the writing samples to the criteria bullseye to determine whether the writing was "on track/mastery" or "not quite there yet".



This morning we did some problem solving in math. Our problem was:
Stephanie has 3 shirts: red, yellow and orange. She has two pants: black and blue. How many outfit combinations could she make?

We loved seeing students highlighting the important information in the question before they began. In partners, students determined different strategies to use to solve the problem. Some of the more effective ways were:
- making a list
- drawing pictures
- using manipulatives (blocks) 

Reminders: 

- Thursday: wear costume and/or pajamas (or just come to school as yourself!)

- Thursday: early dismissal (11:45)

- no school this Friday, November 1st

Writing criteria

This week students wrote a letter to send home to family about what they see in the land in Nova Scotia. As this is the beginning of our study of the east coast, as well as the beginning of learning about descriptive writing, we expect that in a few weeks when they do their final copy and send it home that it will be improved.

This is the criteria that we are using to evaluate their writing (click on it to see it more clearly - for some reason it appears blurry at first glance): 

We have identified areas of growth for each child and will be targeting specific skills and strategies in the next few weeks. We will be meeting with the students to give them personalized feedback on their writing, and will be focussing our lessons and writing activities to support growth in each of these areas.

- descriptive writing that allows the reader to form a visual in their mind (not just patterned sentences in a list)

- correct spelling of high frequency words, or phonetic spelling when students do not know how to spell a word (e.g. waturmln is an example of how to phonetically spell "watermelon") 

- using capital letters and punctuation appropriately

We look forward to sharing this work with you soon!

Guess the Number!

Reminders:

• October's scholastic orders are due tomorrow... click here to order :) We'll be sending the November orders home at the end of next week. 
• Next Thursday (October 31) is a dress-up day and early dismissal at 11:45.
• Next Friday, November 1st there is no school for students.

Guess the Number
Here's a great game we played today to practice our more/less than numbers up to 100... choose the "easy" level until you feel you've got the hang of the game, then challenge yourself with the "medium" level! (don't worry about the hard level until you're older :))

https://www.abcya.com/games/guess_the_number

Feel free to open https://www.abcya.com/games/interactive_100_number_chart in another browser/tab to help you strategize and narrow down your options! :)

Highlights from today:

• In music we learned new songs, my group learned Twinkle Twinkle on the boomwhackers (Addison) 
• Today before we had snack we wrote the stuff we had that was healthy and unhealthy, then when we were done we ate our snacks (Zaeem)
• In math we practiced our adding in our centres (Corbin)
• We learned about why people want and need to live in the East Coast (Zoey S.) 

Highlights from today:
- In writing we made our own monsters and wrote a description about what we saw when we looked at them. (Sayeh)
- We did a guided drawing of a lighthouse. This is the first step of an Art project we are doing. (Aaron)
- In PE we played a game called Try to Catch Me and practiced skipping. (Alivia)
- In Literacy block Mrs. Seymour's class did a Boggle activity, I got 38 words! (Marek)
- At snack time we drew pictures of things in our lunch kits and sorted them into healthy and unhealthy foods. (Anna)
- In math we worked on a Zoo problem.

Reminders:
- Fun lunch tomorrow.
- Book orders due Friday
- Remember next Thursday is an early dismissal day with NO school next Friday

Aim for TWO Healthy Snacks

We handed out Scholastic orders today... please return or order online by FRIDAY. Click here to order online and follow these steps if you need help. Order from Mrs. Cose's or Mrs. Seymour's class. Thanks for your support!

Highlights from today:

• We learned new ways to start a sentence instead of "see/saw" (Jaxon) we described monsters from the story "I Need My Monster" (Braeden)
• In Phys. Ed we learned skipping and reviewed galloping (Chasity) 
• In math we learned how we can cooperate to solve problems (Avery)
• We got a secret mission about about healthy snacks (Corbin) and we learned that we need healthy snacks to have the Power to Play, Power to Think, Power to Grow, and Power to Feel Great! (Sayeh)

Healthy Snacks from Mrs. Seymour's class:

• apple
• banana
• strawberry
• grapes
• raspberry
• watermelon
• carrot
• smoothie
• sushi
• potato
• avocado
• orange
• bread
• cheese
• shrimp
• pineapple
• turkey
• cucumber
• peach
• cherry

**Remember that you need food from TWO food groups to make a Healthy POWER Snack** 

On Thursday we will be doing a visual journal page to show our OWN healthy snacks, right out of our lunchbag, containing TWO food groups. See how creative you and your parents can be with designing a yummy power snack!

Happy Birthday, Nirvik! Thank you for celebrating with us today.

Highlights from today:

• Mrs. Seymour's class uploaded pictures on IRIS of what we are proud of (Jaxon) - we'd love for you to see it -- log in to iris.cbe.ab.ca (Mrs. Cose's class did this last week)
• In literacy block we learned how to read books using strategies like Chunky Monkey and Eagle Eye and Stretchy Snake (Corbin)
• Nirvik gave us birthday gifts... thank you Nirvik! (Alivia)

We had so much fun that we didn't get any photos today, but we'll try harder tomorrow!

We were so excited to start new Literacy Stations today. We are using our senses to work on descriptive words, as well as our imaginations to be creative in our writing.

In math, we practiced addition through several math centres, including adding with dice, working with place value and working in small groups with the teachers.

In social studies, we reviewed using our senses to describe an area of land in Canada. Mrs. Seymour's class reviewed describing Canada's north, and Mrs. Cose's class reviewed describing the prairies. This week Mrs. Seymour's class will be using books to research the prairies using our five senses, and Mrs. Cose's class will be doing the same with the north.

The learning commons will be closed on Thursday/Friday this week, so if you need to exchange your book this week, please bring it back before Wednesday.

Descriptive Writing Surprises

Reminder: Fun lunch next week! Deadline to sign up is tomorrow. Head to healthyhunger.ca

We worked really hard on our descriptive writing today, then had a partner guess what we drew! Too bad the teachers didn't have their iPads out when we were sharing... there were so many laughs!


Mrs. Seymour's class finished the Zones of Regulation visual journal pages and Mrs. Cose's class got to go on IRIS to upload some of their favourite work.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Doubles & Description Writing

Today in math we did a number talk to work on our mental math with doubles facts. Some of us got to play "Salute - Doubles" to practice our doubles facts.
e.g.
1+1=2
6+6=12
3+3=6
8+8=16
2+2=4
9+9=18
7+7=14
4+4=8
5+5=10
10+10=20

We'd LOVE for these facts to become super automatic, so please practice at home! Here's a fun game you can play: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button . See if you can beat Mrs. Seymour's score. Comment below with a screenshot of your score. Remember that accuracy is better than efficiency, but when working with mental math, our goal is both! :)

In writing, we worked on descriptive words. We learned that we can describe things using our SENSES. Today we focussed on "SEE" words, involving shapes and sizes. Our teachers drew a picture and we listened to them describe the shapes and sizes to see if we could match them up. Some of us were almost perfect!


Other Highlights:
- In PE we played Scorpions which is a fun tag game using a scooter. (Aaron)
- Mrs. Seymour's class used the computers to record themselves reading a book. (Corbin)
- Mrs. McDougall shared a book with us called "Because" and in it they had a performance and a girl listened to it and it inspired her make music and she inspired someone else. (Sayeh)
- In Music we used the boomwhackers to make a song called, Mary Had a Little Lamb (Bria)
- Mrs.Cose's class talked about our feelings and shared times when we had to use strategies to get back in the green zone. I was in the blue zone. (Avery)
- Mrs. Cose's class had Ozobots Club today. We learned that the Ozobots can do all different kinds of codes like: red, green, red, green for a Tornado! (Drew)

Highlights from today:
- We had picture day! (Drew)
- When we were doing health every table got to take a picture of all the kids making faces to match their feelings. (Zaeem)
- When I feel sad I can take a big breath in and then I feel better. (Sayeh)
- In PE we played a game outside where we had pinnies and a ball and we had to take the ball away from other teams. (Aaron)
- During read aloud we illustrated the setting of Henry's house and drew all the chocolate food in the pantry. (Anna)
- We did math and in math we played a game to practice making 10. 
- We took pictures! (Aubrey)
- We finished our Visual Journal page of what we are thankful for. (Marek)
- We used cool and warm colours in Art. (Sawyer)
- We did health. (Corbin)

Reminders:
- Cose's class has Ozobots club tomorrow
- Fun lunches can be ordered through Healthy Hunger

Picture Day Tomorrow!

Please note: it is our whole-class photo tomorrow. We will also be having Phys. Ed outside, due to photos being in the gym. Please ensure that students have appropriate footwear/clothing for both.

Thank you! :) 

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! A special happy birthday to Mila and Anna:


Highlights from today:

• In Phys. Ed we learned a new game to dodge (Sayeh)
• In art we learned about warm and cool colours (Anna)
• We worked at groups to come up with description words using our senses (Chasity)
• We practiced our reading on RAZ Kids on the computers (Zaeem)
• We learned how to connect what I read to what I know (Corbin)
• Some people went to Ozobots club (Aubrey) and we learned how to give commands to a robot

I can use descriptive words to improve my writing:


Ozobots Club:


Practicing our reading on the computer:


I can make ABC patterns using colours. I can use warm and cool colours in my art: