Red, Green, and Snow

It was another short week for most students as the buses were cancelled on Monday because of the snow. At least there is lots of snow on the school yard to play in since it's too cold/icy for the playground equipment to be used.

Our words and sentences this week focused on the "a" sound, but they were words with different spellings (accents, or other letters that make the "a" sound).

We reviewed the "qu" sound and spelling in "La queue" and discussed how both coq and cinq don't have a u when they come at the end of the word. We also read the poem "Monsieur, Madame et leurs voisins" where we focused on fluency more than any other reading strategy.

We began reading "Le loup qui n'aimait pas Noël" for our read aloud. This week's strategy, Pensez (P), focused on explaining why we think something about what we are reading using examples from the text. It is also about predicting what we think will happen next based on what was read so far. 

One of this week's writing prompts...

In word work, the students practised writing their words with fancy letters.

This week's number talk in math focused on breaking apart numbers in order to make 10 in order to do mental math more quickly. After looking at making 10 for a few weeks now, this was very easy for most of them.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing how we identify 2-dimensional shapes. Given shapes, the students had to count the number of sides and vertices, determine the name of the shape and what the characteristics were for that shape. "That's a pentagon because it has 5 sides and 5 vertices and all pentagons have 5 sides and 5 vertices." Our class examples were harder as I left the easier shapes for them to do individually as assessments.

Recognizing that shapes can both have the same name but look completely different because they both have the same characteristics.

A challenge I gave them... it didn't take them long to figure out these were both the same!

Working on math alone...

Some symmetry

Working on an assessment

Games with shapes

Tangram time

Using feedback to improve mathematical communication of ideas

Some challenges for fast finishers

In social studies, the grade 2s learned about Hanukkah and Christmas traditions. The grade 3s did activities on the Great Lakes. Next week, we will be learning about Christmas traditions from around the world. We will look at 9 countries, do several crafts to go with the countries, and try out a couple of foods that are traditional foods for those countries.

Next week will be a very busy week with practises and performances of the Holiday Concert. Please check Bloomz and the agendas for any additional information. I have already posted some concert outfit suggestions.

Also, with the wintery weather, it is important that the students keep an extra pair of clothes, socks, hat, mittens/gloves at school in case the ones they are wearing get wet. There were a couple of very cold days where some students did not bring snow pants to school. Our school yard is very open and can be very windy and cold. Please ensure your child comes to school prepared for playing outside in the cold and snow each day.