Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
As we prepare our wonderful students for their last day tomorrow, please be reminded that it is a full day!
As mentioned in our newsletter, we will be viewing 'Antz' in connection with our insects unit. Please feel free to send a treat with your child to enjoy.
Report cards will be send home tomorrow. If your child isn't at school for any reason, it can picked up at the office tomorrow.
Today we spend some quality time reading with our Grade 5/6 buddies outside by the trees. It was a huge day for the grade 6 students as they get ready for their big move to middle school. We all attended the Grade 6 farewell today and it was an incredible send off. Some of our students were a little sad saying goodbye.
We finished off our bar graphs today. Yesterday the students collected data from the grade 1/2's about a topic (ex- what is your favourite sport?). They provided 4 choices and then graphed out their information.
We organized our work to bring home and students got to bring art, their 'fancy' folders with special work/writing/projects, their journals etc.
I can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of this school year! I am so proud of all the work our students have done- they have worked so hard and have become true bucket fillers.
Have a great evening.
Room 4
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Dear Families,
-We participated in Mission Impossible today! It was awesome. William I
-Tomorrow is sports day! Henry
*We will be having a great time with our entire school from 10:30-12:30. Please make sure that your child brings a hat, sunscreen and lots of water.
-We went outside and we made acrostic poems about summer. Reed
-We worked in our garden this morning to help plant our 3 boxes. We planted radishes, squash, garlic and many other wonderful things. We planted seeds in celebration of National Indigenous Peoples Day.
-We worked on projects that we needed to finish such as our math monster, Mixed up Animal description and 3D Shapes drawing/diagram.
-In math, we constructed 3D Figures. We built rectangular prisms, pyramids and cubes. We used two items- toothpicks and playdough.
-In music class we learned Indigenous throat singing. Our class did a great job.
Room 4
Friday, June 22, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
We all had a fantastic Sports Day! We had a country theme and students participated in many different events, including our activity 'sack race'.
This morning we worked on building new 3D figures. The students really wanted to take them home, so please forgive me for not having the proper bags to place them in.
We read the book 'Mixed Beasts' to accompany our work creating and writing about our own mixed up animals.
Please remember that next Wednesday is our last school day. It would be great if the students could bring a re-usable bag to school to bring home items!
Thank you and have a wonderful weekend.
Room 4
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
-Today we played Mission Impossible once again in gym. William
-Khloe and Saiya stacked 69 cups and Logan helped them count for one of the stations. Khloe
-We went outside to sketch the tree that we sketched at the beginning of the year. We also read 'James and The Giant Peach' together under the tree. Reed
-In math, we participated in directed drawing to sketch 3D shapes. We sketched a cylinder, a cone, pyramid, rectangular prism and a sphere. We labeled our sketches. Ella
-We worked on a school wide activity called 'which one doesn't belong?' We had to look deeply at 4 different images/shapes and decide which one doesn't belong. We explained our choice by using words, pictures, diagrams and by using words such as vertices and sides.
-In writing, we continued to work on our descriptions of our mixed up animal. We included details such as what it eats, likes to do and where we would take it on vacation.
-We read the book 'Bartholamew and the Bug'. One of the characters in the book was a Crane Fly.
-We worked on our insect research books this morning with the ipads and some of the students are finished their work. They shared their books with other students who were also done.
-We are doing some gardening tomorrow morning so please make sure that students wear sunscreen/hats.
-We will be bringing some of our work home soon, so please make sure that students have an extra bag, like a re-usable shopping bag that they can fit journals, artwork into. If they bring them on Monday/Tuesday, that would be great!
Have a great evening.
Room 4
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Dear Families,
Today the students worked hard on their insect books. Some have finished up their books and are adding more details such as pictures and diagrams.
We worked on our math monsters.
This morning we went to music and we participated in 'mission impossible' in the gym with the grade 4/5's.
In our reading groups, we practiced readers' theater. Each group got a different script and we learned about using our expression to make the words more interesting. Some of our groups shared their reading with the class and we will continue tomorrow.
This afternoon we read with Mrs. Johnson's class for buddies.
**Please remember to bring back any library books that you have at home.
Thank you!
Room 4
Monday, June 18, 2018
Dear Families,
We can't believe that we only have 8 more school days together!
Today, Mrs. Kriekle sent home some notices for overdue library books. Please help your child locate any Haysboro library books at home and we will send them down to the library in the next few days.
-This morning we began building our math monsters. We planned out our monster and are using an organizer with check boxes to help us make sure that we include each part. Our monsters need to be made with 2 materials only- recyclable paper and masking tape! We are measuring the arms, legs, body and head, incorporating different shapes and will compare our monsters with other items. The students are so creative and have managed to create some very interesting models, using limited materials.
-We reviewed our shapes and solved a math problem for our challenge. We had to guess a shape, using 3 clues about it's attributes.
-We continued our work on the ipads (book creator) to make our non-fiction insect books. Many of us are becoming familiar with the features of the app and are feeling more confident.
-We read the book 'The mixed up Chameleon' and started to create our own mixed up animal. We are combining features of two animals which we sketched in our writing books/journals. We looked at some of Eric Carle's art work for inspiration and we will make our final product and add a written description about our animal, it's features, what it eats, likes to do etc.
-In gym, we were so surprised because the grade 5/6's set up an incredible 'Mission Impossible' activity for all of us. We worked with a partner to rotate to different stations and we are finding clues (letters) that will result in a message. We participated in obstactle courses, bean bag toss, tower building, hoop throwing, basketball, and many other interesting stations.
-We read the book 'Say Something' and discussed ways that we can help each other by saying words that help, encourage and make people feel safe.
-Emmy and Logan shared badges today and Mohanad shared a special bracelet he received as a gift on the weekend.
We are filling buckets and enjoying the wonderful weather.
Room 4
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we had music and we practiced the song 'In the hall of the mountain King'. Ella
-Today we made some family art, using shapes with different sizes. Gabriel
-This afternoon is gym we played rock, paper, scissors tag and space invasion. William S.
-We worked on our insect books on the ipads. Some of our 3/4 friends came in to help us with our work. Asyah
-In Mrs. A's class we also worked with ipads for our research. Jana
-We talked about our math project 'monster math', using measurement and shapes. Khloe/Rider
-If anyone has any extra newspaper/magazine print at home, we could really use it for our monster math. We need to use recyclable paper. Cody
-This morning Austin, Reed and Gabriela shared important items. Austin shared a book called 'weird birds' from the public library, Reed shared her poem about Donuts and Gabriela shared her special sharks tooth necklace from Hawaii. Emmy
Thank you
Room 4
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Dear Families,
My apologies for not posting yesterday! I will weave in some of the things we did yesterday into today's blog.
Our class has been working on publishing their insect non-fiction books. We learned how to use the app 'book creator' and have started to create our Table of Contents. The students spent some time exploring the features of the app. Their research is complete and they did a nice job using resources.
In math, we started our discussion about 3D shapes today (cone, cube, pyramid etc.) and the students explored the attributes of these solid shapes (faces) and made connections to items in their own lives. They also solved a word problem:
-We read the book 'friendshape.'
-Today, our students completed work on their family symbols and wrote about why they chose their symbols, what they mean and what their family means to them. We will do a museum walk tomorrow so everyone can see our family symbols.
-In gym, we have been playing kickball. The kids are really enjoying it and are beginning to understand the rules of the game better.
-We have been working on our Haiku poems and yesterday, we added art to our work. We chose symbols/shapes that connect to our words.
-Rider shared his sand dollar and barnacles from Victoria.
-Mallory shared pictures of her and her classmates from pre-school.
-Logan shared a non-fiction book about Birds from Nova Scotia.
-Tomorrow is the last day to return Haysboro library books!
Room 4
Monday, June 11, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we started our day with a class challenge! Students worked on deciphering a long vowel challenge and we shared our work.
-We reviewed syllibication and read the book "Hi, Koo!"
-We learned how to write Haiku poems and reviewed the number of syllables for each line of our poems. Together, we wrote a poem together for an example. Students then worked in their writing books on their own Haiku poems, choosing a topic connected to nature.
-We are writing our good copies on word documents and we used the computers this morning. Tomorrow we will finish our poems and add artwork.
-In math, we went on a Haysboro shape walk. We looked for 5 different shapes, recorded their attributes and had to write down the places where we saw our shapes. Students created their own tables to record their information. We will be working on 3D shapes this week.
-This afternoon we finished making our non-fiction insect book plans. Our Grade 3/4 buddies helped us with the final touches and we are ready to make our books on 'book creator' on the ipads. Some of our students began exploring the app today and started their first page.
-We finished working on our family symbols today! Many of our students included maps, as well as the family artifacts they brought in to share. We used the information from our family interviews to help create our symbols.
-Students were reminded that they should not bring in valuables to school, such as their 'favourite toys', jewellery etc. If a student is sharing, they are encouraged to keep their item in their backpack!
Have a great evening!
Friday, June 8, 2018
Dear Families,
We've had a very busy and fun couple of days!
Yesterday, we finished our 'Past to Present' mural project, which showcased our learning over this year. Each group practiced how they wanted to present their work to the class and then shared their murals. They did an excellent job making connections and explaining how different aspects of life have changed from past to present.
In math, we are working hard on shapes! Students used geoboards today to represent various shapes and talk about their attributes. Some of our groups chose to talk about Hexagons, triangles, rectangles, Octagons etc. They compared shapes by talking about the number of vertices and sides each have.
This morning, our class used their 'family history survey' to share with a small group. We talked about our traditions, and what makes our family special. Students were excited to find out new information about each other and they were very respectful listeners. Students then made a family symbol to represent their history and traditions. We brainstormed our ideas about what we can include.
We have been playing kickball in gym. Yesterday we played with Mrs. Carmichael's class and today we played grade 1's against 2's. It's been great getting outside and learning a new game.
We are working on compound words and how we can use them to decode new words while reading. Students searched for more words to record in their notebooks. Each student chose 1 word and created a visual poster of it. For example - Rain (picture of rain) + Bow (picture of bow) = rainbow.
We are reading a book about compound words and we read Pete the Cat and the Cool Caterpillar.
We worked on our insect research yesterday afternoon started our non-fiction book plan. We will begin creating our books on Monday.
Today was fun snack and we had family freezed popsicles. Thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped us.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Room 4
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Dear Families,
Today in gym we played another big game of Badminton. We had some 5/6 buddies help us during our game and we did well serving and getting points. William S
We worked on our 'I Am' poems. They had different starters for each sentence and we had to finish them with our own ideas.We shared our poems to the class. Gabriela
Today we had computers to complete our insect research this afternoon. Hamish
Today we learned about 2D shapes and everyone got a secret shape. Some of our shapes were Hexagon, Rectangle, Square and Triangle. We had to find out who had the same shape as us by asking questions about it's attributes. Once we found the other people in our group with the same shape, we took a whiteboard and wrote the attributes about our shapes and places we find out shapes. Asyah.
Today we had reading groups. Thank you to Cody's mom for coming into help us today. Emmy
We also worked on our writing 'If I were principal for a day'.
Today there were a few students who lost teeth in our class!!!! The tooth fairy will be busy tonight. Henry
We changed groups....Mohanad
We worked on our murals for past to present that show how life has changed in our community. Reed
We did a compound words challenge - Gabriela
We got our reading folders and read books and practiced our sight words. We also read from our poem books. Khloe
Thank you and have a great evening.
Room 4
Tuesday, June 5,
Good Afternoon,
Yesterday, our class started to create Butterfly Diagrams, using their soft drawing skills. They are now adding labels for Thorax, Antenna, Head and Abdomen and outlining their sketches in black sharpie.
Today, we continued to work with our Social Studies groups on our murals. We have completed our plans and everyone has something they will draw/write on the mural to show our learning over the year about how life has changed from the past to the present. We are working on the following areas- home life, work, buildings, transportation, school/education and clothing/games.
In writing, we handed in our good copies that we completed about the topic 'if you could live in the past, present or future, which would you choose? Explain why.'
In fire writing, we wrote about what we would so if we were principal for a day.
This morning we worked on a group challenge (long vowels).
We went to music class with Mrs. Maynes.
In gym, we played a game of badminton!
-We changed our own home reading this afternoon.
****We are going to the library tomorrow afternoon. All books need to be returned by June 15th.
Have a wonderful evening!
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Dear Families,
Tomorrow our students will have the opportunity to participate in an Opera Viewing Gala. Our school will watch our Opera together and enjoy some popcorn. I sent an email re: popcorn. Please let me know if you do not want your child to receive popcorn. You can send your own nut-free snack if you wish!
Today our class finished our Kandinsky art to display. Students worked on their final details to include specific colour schemes.
We completed our 'Goldilocks and the three bears' measurement activity this morning. We recorded our estimates and actual measurements with our groups. We will be starting a cumulative measurement project tomorrow to show what we've learned during our unit.
In Social Studies, we reviewed our year-long inquiry into the past. We shared memories of the experiences we have had throughout the year with our artifact exploration, Museum/Stampede school and guest speakers (Mrs. B). We are working in groups to work on one area of the past to show how it has evolved over time (ex- transportation). We worked on our design plans and will be creating a mural to show our learning.
We read 'Diary of a Fly' this afternoon and will continue our insect research tomorrow.
We also worked on our good copies in writing. We have finished editing our work and are in the process of peer-editing.
*There is still time to return BBQ forms!
Have a good evening!
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Hello,
We had reading groups this morning and read non-fiction books. We identified features of non-fiction such as captions, bold, diagrams and headings with our groups. Thank you parent volunteers for helping us out!
In math, we read the book 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' and discussed parts in the story that connected to our measurement unit such as weight (chairs), height (3 bears) and length (beds). We talked about capacity and each group got 3 cups of different sizes.(Papa bear, mama bear and baby bear). We ordered our cups from largest to smallest. We decided to use small cubes as our unit of measure and made estimates about how many would fit in each cup. We then measured each and recorded our information.
For writing, we continued to work on the topic ' if you could live in the past, present or future, which would you choose and why?' Students are using their writing checklists to self-edit and they work with a peer to edit. They are in the process of making good copies and illustrations to go with their writing.
We worked on art this afternoon. Our students learned about Wassily Kandinsky, an expressionist artist who used colour to show feelings. We created concentric circles (rings) to make Spring flowers. We used our knowledge from our colour unit to apply correct colour schemes to our circles (red + yellow =orange). Students also made two of their own circles with their own color choices. We used oil pastels and card stock, pipe cleaners and tissue. They look great so far!
We read 'James and the Giant Peach' and sketched in the afternoon.
-Students switched their own home reading and will be doing so to work on choosing 'just right' books.
-Thank you for returning your BBQ envelopes!
Room 4
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
Our class learned about how to use commas in their writing. Students discussed how commas are used when listing ideas/nouns, such as telling about more than one character trait when we are describing a character (ex- James is curious, quiet, and sad.) Students practiced by writing sentences about their favourite sports (Hamish, Cody, Vlad, Ben, Gyalten), Insects (Austin, Ella, Emmy and William), Animals (Asyah and Gabriela) and Food (Reed).
-We read a book about commas called 'eat, shoots, leaves' (thank you Reed).
Our fireside writing topic was 'If you could live in the past, present or future, which would you choose? Why?' We look forward to sharing our writing with each other tomorrow.
Students played Badminton with the nets today! Their swings and control/aim are improving. They really enjoyed using the nets.
All the grade 1/2's have been making steady progress with their insect research. They worked on adding more interesting facts and we will talk about how to plan out our books together, now that we are almost finished our research. We will be using book creator to make our non-fiction insect books so now, we need to work on our plans as we will be including a cover page, Table of Contents, page numbers, headings for each topic (ex- Physical appearance), diagrams and pictures.
We read a non-fiction book about Fireflies and discussed the meaning of similarities and differences. We will be working on Venn diagrams and comparing two different insects as part of our non-fiction work.
-We read 'James and the Giant Peach' and spent 15 minutes outdoors this afternoon, to enjoy the cooler Spring weather.
-Please note that tomorrow is the due date for BBQ forms.
-Reading Groups will be held from 9:30-10:10 tomorrow!!!! Please join us. We will be focusing on non-fiction texts.
Have a wonderful evening!
Monday. May 28, 2018
Dear Families,
In math, students worked on a school-wide challenge. They were given a problem to solve on their own, using words, pictures and numbers. Ask your child about monster math!
We continue to work on our non-fiction unit. Students in Room 4 love reading non-fiction and have been enthusiastic to learn about the features of non-fiction.
Today our focus was on diagrams and labels. We listened to a read aloud about Frogs (Reed). We learned how Diagrams are used to help us learn more about specific topics, such as Frog body parts. Students chose their own non-fiction book and searched for Diagrams. Logan found a diagram of the Roman Coliseum and Asyah found a diagram about parts of a human ear.
-We created sketches about what we learned in the Frogs book. We experimented with making our own diagrams as well as having choices to illustrate habitat and predators.
Today in Science, we had the opportunity to work with Miss. Russell's class. They worked with us to complete our insect research and we shared our facts and ideas with buddies. The students are now accessing more information from sites such as National Geographic Kids and Scikids.
-We shared our poetry with each other. We listened to writing and shared our feedback with each other. Tomorrow we will start a new type of poem in language arts.
-The BBQ forms are due on May 31st!
Have a wonderful evening
Room 4
Friday, May 25, 2018
Hello!
Our students continued their outdoor habitat exploration within the Haysboro grounds. Students visited sections they haven't seen yet, to observe insects, record their findings and sketch their surroundings. Today, some of the students found an ant hill, bee, a spider and some beetles.
-We worked on our non-fiction unit this morning. Today we read the book 'ladybugs' and discussed the purpose of labels, headings and captions. We identified these in the book and then students found a non-fiction book of their own to search for labels, headings, captions and a map.
-In math, we talked about how the size of an object doesn't determine if it's heaviest in comparison to other objects. For example, we looked at a football, beach ball, dodgeball and soccer ball. We estimated which would be heaviest. Half of our class thought the soccer would be heaviest. We learned that just because the beachball looked the largest in size, it didn't mean that it had the greatest mass. In fact, it had the least.
-Students chose 3 objects to measure and determined which unit would be best. They recorded their information on their own and compared the mass of several items.
-Students switched their own home reading today and also worked on silent reading this morning.
-Please remember to return BBQ money/info if your family is planning to attend.
Thank you all and have a wonderful weekend.
Room 4
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Dear Families!
Today a photographer came to Haysboro to take a school picture, as well as pictures of clubs.
During the morning, our students talked about bucket filling in a community circle. We each reminded each other of ways to fill buckets and take care of one another. We wrote notes and used our 'magic sticks'. Each student got another student's stick and then wrote something to fill their bucket.
We worked on personal narratives and the students wrote about a special day they had with their families. They are working to include details and have incorporated their knowledge of interesting story endings/beginnings. Vlad shared some of his writing today.
In math, we practiced measuring mass and making comparisons. We had to find out how much our eraser weighs. Students used various units that they chose to measure with. Our students found out that 1 eraser weighs as much as:
-1 plastic cube (Denisa and Gabriela)
-1 wood block and 4 diamond shapes (Vlad and Ben)
-1 4 diamond shaped wood blocks( Emmy and Ella)
-They practiced weighing and balancing scaled and making appropriate choices with what units they chose to measure and compare with.
-The students enjoyed music class with Mrs. Maynes this morning.
-We explored insect habitats outdoors and wanted to find out the different types of insects we could observe on Haysboro grounds. We searched in bushes and flowers, dirt/sand, Grass and Trees. We used our journals to record the number of insects we found in each location, sketch our insects and observe habitats.
-The students worked on their insect research projects this afternoon.
-Students will be bringing their crow costumes home tomorrow!!!!
Have a wonderful evening!
Room 4
Tuesday, May 23, 2018
Good Afternoon!
We hope everyone had a terrific long weekend. I apologize for not posting yesterday, as my computer was being re-imaged.
The students have been working hard on their insect research projects and will continue to do so for the remainder of this week. We are using non-fiction resources to gather information and using pebblego.com. Students need to use at least two resources to find information.
-We will be looking at insect habitats more closely, this week in our 'outdoor classroom'.
-We are read the book ' I saw an Ant on the Railroad Track' and journaled this afternoon to create scenes from the book or our own imaginary insect.
-This morning we participated in reading groups. Thank you so much to our wonderful volunteers who joined us today.
***If you would like to join reading groups for next week, please let me know!
-Today, the students wrote about a time they had to be brave, during fireside writing.
-In math, we finished measuring the length of Beetles and started a new lesson on measuring mass. We compared various classroom objects, made estimates about which object was lightest/heaviest and then used our scaled to measure.
-The students have been learning about Badminton in gym and we will resume our skills training tomorrow! Today, we played four corners and tag.
-The students returned their library books today!
Have a wonderful evening.
Room 4
Thursday, May 17, 2018,
Hello Families,
Just a reminder that tomorrow is a non-instructional day and Monday is a holiday! We will see you all on Tuesday.
-Today the students chose a unit to measure with (cubes, popsicle sticks, dominoes etc.) and then estimated the distance around 3 objects. They measured their items and then recorded their information on their clipboards. Some items measured were 'the Wolves desks' which was 216 snap cubes. Students looked for items to measure in our hallways, classroom and I encourage them to practice at home.
-We read the book 'Measuring Penny' so be aware that their may be some students who want to measure your pets at home this weekend!
-We worked on word work this morning and at the end of the day. We worked on our sight words and chose games to practice spelling such as scrabble junior, syllables, rhyming words and blends.
-In writing, we created lists of our favourite insects or activities we will participate in over the long weekend.
-Our students chose their insect that they will be researching for their insects project. Today, we discussed the importance of choosing 'good ' sources to find information, in connection to our non-fiction unit. The students share their ideas about how to find information in books, magazines and the internet (with adult supervision). We decided that National Geographic for Kids, World, Chickadee and our selection of non-fiction books from our Haysboro library, are good choices. We went to the site - gopebble.com to explore. This is an excellent site for kids and we found lots of information about insects.
-Students used the computers to start their research and we visited gopebble.com.
-We made flipbooks to record our information. We are looking at the following topics about our insect- diet, life cycle, appearance, fun facts, habitat and enemies/protection. We will be working on our research over the next few days!
-Today was fun lunch!!! Thank you to all the parents who helped make this another great lunch.
****Your child brought home a newsletter about the Haysboro Family Picnic. Please read this together.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Room 4
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Good Afternoon,
Today our class learned about distance, in math. We talked about the ways that knowing how to measure distance would be useful in our own lives. One example - One of our student's is going on a trip with his family to Banff. His family will need to know the distance they will be traveling so that they "know how long it will take to get there." (Ella).
-Students practiced measuring the distance around their heads, using string, tape and scissors. They ordered their measurements from greatest to least, in their groups. We will move onto measuring other items in our classroom/school on Thursday.
-This morning, parent volunteers came into to help with our reading groups. Thank you so much! The students enjoyed working with their groups to read, discuss and practice sight words. Students talked about whether their book was fiction or non-fiction and explained their reasons for their decision.
-Students completed writing their mind map about non-fiction features. They also participated in fireside writing.
-In Science, we watched a video about insects and discussed what an insect is, why insects are important and reviewed key terms such as habitat/invertebrate.
-Students will be working on a special 'insect research' project. All of the grade 1/2's met together in our room to work in pairs to look at sample reports about different insects. We talked about what we liked about the information presented. We also wrote down questions we had, topics we want to know more about (example- caterpillar diet), and we recorded our ideas. We developed the criteria we need to include for our projects (habitat, diet, appearance, life cycle etc.)
-Students chose an insect they want to study and we will begin our research tomorrow!
****Tomorrow is fun lunch (Little Caesars). Please place your online order if you would like your student to participate.
*****Friday is a non-instructional day.
Thank you,
Room 4
Tuesday. May 15, 2018
Dear Families,
We had a great day investigating insects at Fish Creek Park today. The students worked with parent volunteers and each other, to complete activities to learn more about insects in their natural habitats.
-We explored two trails- the orange trail and the blue trail. We had a map to use. (Mohanad)
-We caught a few different insects but some of them crawled away! (Rider)
-Our group took a trail and we found a bridge. We saw shells in the water and took them out to look closely at them. (Austin)
-Mrs. Symington and I saw a snake by the water. It was black and had some yellow on it. (Khloe)
-We learned that insects have 6 legs and Spiders have 8 legs, so they are not insects. They eat them! (Ella)
-I saw a rattlesnake and a yellow jacket.(William)
-Our group almost saw a Deer. We saw the legs and tail. (Saiya)
-Our students found various types of beetles, Spiders, butterflies, bees and caterpillars. We talked about Metamorphisis and Atticus saw a tadpole in the process of change.
-Andi was the educator at the education center and she used a really cool lens that magnified our insects so we could see them very closely.
-Everyone enjoyed the day and the students were amazing!!!
Thank you so much to our wonderful parent volunteers! Thank you to all of the families for packing all of the necessities.
Room 4
Monday, May 14, 2018
Dear Families,
We are excited for our trip to Fish Creek Park tomorrow. I sent a reminder email earlier today to ensure that students are prepared and bring the following items:
Today we talked about important terms such as Habitat, Invertebrate and camouflage. We explored new books about insects and watched a video about insects. We learned that insects have 6 legs, while spiders have 8. We also learned that insects have a head, thorax and abdomen.
This morning we began learning about the features of non-fiction books. We brainstormed together and created a mind map of our ideas which we recorded in our books. Some of the features we identifies are table of contents, maps, facts, diagrams, real photos, glossary and we discussed that non-fiction books talk about real people, places and events.
We continued measurement today and students had to choose one unit they felt was best to measure specific items such as a popsicle stick. They made estimated and then recorded their measurements.
We met today as a grade 1/2 group to discuss our trip tomorrow!
Have a great evening,
Room 4
Friday. May 11, 2018
Dear Families,
Thank you so much for coming to see all of our wonderful students at the Opera! I am beyond proud of all the hard work, patience and enthusiasm they all showed in preparation for this week. They are amazing!!!!!
Over the past two days, we worked on a writing activity in connection with the book 'Pete the Cat and his white shoes.' Students continued the story and shared what colours would be made by using the authour's prompt of "Pete the Cat stepped into a large pile of_______." "His white shoes turned _____." They concluded their colour unit and presented their experiments from two days ago.
We worked on catching up on our projects this morning. We are finished our fairytale booklets and Pete the Cat work.
Yesterday our students participated in a school-wide writing task. They used a picture prompt to write their own mysterious story.
We continued our practice on measurement and worked on recording our measurements.
We worked on some art this afternoon.
We are excited for our field trip next week and will be learning about Insects. I will send a reminder email over the weekend regarding things to wear/bring on the trip.
Happy Mother's Day to all the special Room 4 moms, grandmothers, step-moms, friends, aunts, and all the ladies who help take care of our students. We love you!!!!!
Room 4
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Dear Families,
The students did an amazing job in the "Mystery of the Disappearing Butterflies." For those of you who haven't seen it yet, you're all in for a treat.
Thank you for all of your support!
Today, our students were excellent at 'going with the flow' as they anxiously awaited their call to go onstage.
We worked on math this morning and practiced measuring length and height. Students chose various non-standard tools to measure with and are going to explain what they tool worked best to measure each object. They compared their measurement with a partner. Students used popsicle sticks, string, snap cubes and paperclips. They recorded their work and will continue their task tomorrow.
We read the book "How long is a Whale?" for our kickoff.
We also read the book "Peanut Butter and Cupcake". We reviewed our long and short vowel sounds and the rule "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking!". Students worked on an independent activity to sort long and short sounds and we played a game together as a group to review our sounds.
-We worked on finishing our writing tasks and rainbow fish, while awaiting our big stage debut.
-Students will need to arrive at the school at 6:30PM tomorrow evening to prepare for the 7PM Opera performance. They will meet in our classroom.
Have a lovely evening.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Dear Families,
Thank you so much for all of your support during our wonderful Opera week! The students are so excited. They did a fabulous job today at the dress rehearsal and waited very patiently for their turn.
Our schedules have changed over the past few days due to our practices, and the students have shown an impressive amount of flexibility. I'm very proud of them.
We are finishing our colour unit this week and moving onto our study of Insects.
Today we discussed how we can extract colour from natural resources to create colour and apply it to other products. We explored for colour sources outdoors. The students tested items on paper (making rubbings) and labeled their items and the colour it produced. We found the following:
-Our students read the book "I'm so embarassed!!!!" by Robert Munsch, one of our favourite class authors.
-We worked on our rainbow fish craft, based on the book we read yesterday.
-Students presented their family artifacts. Yesterday, Logan, Emmy and Gabriela shared. Today - Rider, Jana and William shared with us. We also read the book 'Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge'which is about memories and how they can connect us to feelings and our family stories.
-The students participated in Cosmic Kids Yoga 'Stella the Stick Insect'.
-Thank you for sending back the field trip forms and volunteer forms. I will be sending volunteers a detailed message about our trip in the next couple of days.
-The students have their costumes for the Opera and we've kept them safe inside the classroom. Please have your student wear black tomorrow. The afternoon performance is at 2PM.
Thank you and have a lovely evening.
Mrs. Symington
Friday, May 4, 2018,
Dear Families,
The opera is next week!!!! We are all very excited and busy practicing, finishing costumes, props and preparations. The students were able to see the run-through yesterday afternoon with the school. They also practiced staging and the practices went very well. I know our crows are going to be magical!
Please ensure that your child wears black for our Opera. They can wear their indoor shoes, but do need to wear a black top and pants/leggings. Please spread the word!
The students participated in Earth Day clean-up yesterday as "everyday is Earth Day!" I'm proud of the posters that our students made in our class. They are posted throughout the school to remind everyone the ways in which they can help protect and care for the environment, everyday!
In math, the students continued working on their measurement task, focusing on length. They compared the lengths of objects, using non-standard units (craft sticks and string) in our classroom. They also made predictions about the height of students in our class and worked on recording their results with partners.
We continued our work on Stellaluna and daily 5 activities this morning. Students searched for -ai words and will work on a_e words next week.
We met with buddies today to share reading and poetry! Our students completed beautiful Colour Poems this week which we will display. We will also work on another type of poem next week in connection to our Social Studies Unit. Thank you for helping your child access family pictures/keepsakes. Due to our Opera rehearsal schedule yesterday, we decided to begin sharing on Monday. I hope that this isn't an inconvenience but we will have lots of time to share and learn about each other's traditions, cultures and family history.
Guided Reading- Please consider volunteering for our guided reading program! We are so grateful for the time and it's so good for the students to share their reading with the support of adult volunteers. We do need approximately 4 per week. I was thinking of changing our day to Wednesday. Students are well versed in how their reading groups run and this doesn't require any teaching- just listening, positive feedback and support. If you would like to help, and have police clearance, please let me know. We will start again May 16th.
Thank you to all for returning field trip forms and family history questionnaires.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we worked with our friends in Mrs. Carmichael's class for Science. Mrs. Carmichael read the book 'A Rainbow of my own' and Mrs. Symington showed us how to conduct an experiment to make our own rainbow. We needed a tray with water, a mirror, white paper and water. We watched a video about light and talked about what worked and didn't work with our experiments. William and Khloe
-Mrs. Symington blew bubbles in the classroom!!!! (to show us more ways to make rainbows....) Austin
-We learned how to summarize a story by reading 'Stellaluna' and then we wrote lots of important things about the story in our writing books. Ella
-We worked on our Gingerbread girl books for our story endings assignment. Rider
-Today we wore hats to show support for mental health (not a requirement). Annika
-Today in math we started a new unit in measurement. We worked with partners to measure height. We used string and popsicle sticks. We talked about how to measure correctly. Gabriela
-We will be sharing our special family artifacts starting on Friday!!!!
Have a great evening.
Room 4
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Dear Families,
Thank you so much for helping your child choose an artifact to share with the class. As a reminder, this is in connection to our next Social Studies Unit and we will be discussing family traditions, how the past has helped shape us within our families and what makes us unique. Please send an artifact such as a family photo, keepsake etc. If you like, it can be a photocopy!
We will start presenting our artifacts on Thursday/Friday.
-Tomorrow, we will begin working on measurement in math. The students completed a mini-quiz on patterns yesterday.
-We are working on long vowel - ai. Our poem of the week will have students practicing this family and we have learned that "when two vowels go walking, the first vowel does the talking!"
-In science, we are exploring the adherence of paint to different surfaces. Students are experimenting with materials such as fabric, styrofoam, tissue paper, tin foil and wax paper. They made predictions and will be writing their conclusions tomorrow once we review our results.
-We have resumed reading "James and the Giant Peach" together as a class.
-We read the book 'Zen Socks' this morning, and we discussed author's message/lesson. Please ask your child what the lesson was in the story of Banzo and Jiro!
Our schedule has been changing a bit this week due to our Opera rehearsals, quick run-throughs etc. We didn't have a traditional music class today, but the students practiced entering/exiting the stage and the cues connected to this. It is an exciting time at Haysboro!
For our crow costumes, we ask that the students be dressed in black (black leggings/pants, shirts). They can wear their usual indoor shoes.
The Opera schedule for next week will be communicated by Mrs. Kohan but here is our schedule for planning purposes:
Artwork Needed!!!
Attention all Haysboro students! We are in need of artwork (drawings) for our opera programs! Any and all drawings are welcome.
Please keep the following things in mind when creating your art:
- Create your drawings on half a page (this will help the resolution when copied & printed)
- Be sure that your drawings are clear (small details will not print nicely)
- BE CREATIVE!
Please submit your artwork to Mrs. Austerman NO LATER than Friday, May 4th, 2018!
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Thank you so much.
Mrs. Symington
Friday, April 27, 2018
Hello,
We enjoyed time outdoors today as we explored nature to find colours and shades that matched with our paint chips. We talked about how scientists take time to explore, make predictions and document their work. Students worked in pairs and used clipboards, cue cards and cameras to record their findings.
We also watched a clip from Magic School Bus about colour as we will be exploring rainbows on Monday and conducting experiments.
We finished our work on our colour poems and placed our work with our collages. We will share this with our grade 3/4 friends next week. They are going to share some of their poetry with us as well.
In math, we worked on problem solving with patterns. We had to figure out how to make a pattern with 6 red beads, 6 green beads and 3 blue beads. We talked about the process of problem solving and what steps we did to solve this challenge.
Hamish shared his presentation about Animal Senses with us this week! It was so interesting to learn about animal senses such as echolocation. Thank you Hamish!
The book orders were sent home today as well as volunteer forms for our upcoming trip to Fish Creek Park. The book orders are due at the end of next week.
We hope have a wonderful weekend.
Room 4
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Dear Families,
Today we had a special guest from Food Impact teach us about making healthy choices, food marketing and the Canadian Food Guide. We got to make pitas with different fillings such as tomato, lettuce, cheese, cucumber, apple, banana and wow butter.
Each student brought home some whole wheat pitas and wow butter to share!
In math, the students worked on two problem solving challenges, using a repeating pattern and increasing pattern. We also worked on a number pattern using odd numbers. The students had to identify the type of pattern and the rule for each pattern.
We used the computers to type up our Colour Poems and finish our story ending booklets. We also participated in buddy reading and free writing this afternoon.
The students went to music this morning and are getting very excited for the Opera.
Ask your child what ROY G BIV is! Hint....we started to talk about rainbows today for our colour unit and will continue exploring rainbows in science tomorrow.
Thank you!
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Hello Room 4 Families,
The students worked really hard to complete their writing tasks today. Many are finishing up their fairytale booklets and are adding illustrations. Students who finished and edited their colour poems started to type them out today on the laptops. We will continue this work tomororw.
This morning we learned about contractions (is not - isn't) and practiced using contractions on our own. Some groups worked on describing words.
We read the book ' The Rabbit Problem' which is loosely based on Fibonacci's mathematical theory. Students looked at patterns in nature (time, seasons, animal behaviours/lifecycles) and explored new places to find patterns.
This afternoon we worked with paint to experiment with the effect of different thicknesses of paint. Students used shapes they drew and blue paint to recognize that a very thin layer, or paint that has been watered down, may be partly transparent.
In gym, we played basketball and 'stinger' tag. We will be going outside more frequently for gym so please ensure that your child brings a hat and wears sunscreen!
We are excited to participate in a food workshop where students will talk about making healthy choices, marketing and create some samples! Please let me know if you would not like your child to participate or has food allergies. There will not be any nut products.
Have a wonderful evening.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we learned more about 'opaque' which is something you can't see through, and 'transparent' which is something you can see through. Ben
-We added new items to our list for Opaque and Transparent. Austin
-We worked on our fairytale booklets and some people are finished and are adding illustrations to their work. Asyah
-We had gym outside and played triplet tag and had a few minutes of free time at the playground. Emmy
-We read about 'Duck Soup' in Mrs. Amerongen's class and talked about the ending be a speaking ending. Rider
-We read the Sandcastle contest and reviewed humorous endings. Logan
-This book was by Robert Munsch! Reed
-We finished our 'chatty chick' poem and our work on 'ch' words for our word work. William S.
-In math, we worked with partners to solve a challenge. We had to show our thinking to figure out how to include 24 orange flowers in our pattern. Ella
-We reviewed our work on 'What shape doesn't belong?' and shared our answers and work with the class. We included pictures, numbers, words and diagrams. Khloe
-We finished our colour poems and tomorrow we will be typing them up to upload on Iris, for our good copies. Reed
Love,
Room 4
Monday, April 23, 2018
Thank you to all who had the opportunity to attend our student-led conferences. This morning, the students shared their feedback and said the following:
Today we worked on our story endings and read the book ' Duck Soup' as our guide to discuss endings that use dialogue. Students practiced re-writing the ending to their own stories by using this type of ending and shared their work.
In math, we explored a math problem called 'which one doesn't fit?' Students had to observe shapes like scientists choose which didn't fit. Then, they had to explain their thinking, using diagrams, words and pictures.
In Science, we learned about 'opaque' and 'transparent' and used examples from our classroom such as saran wrap, paint and glass. Students looked for items to classify into each category and we will share our work tomorrow.
Today our students participated in their usual daily 5 activities - buddy reading, read to self and listen to reading. They shared their fairytales in their reading groups.
We went to music to practice our part in the Opera.
Please remember to fill our the family interview for our next Social Studies unit.
I will be sending out our next field trip forms tomorrow!
Have a wonderful evening.
Room 4
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Dear Families,
Today our class worked on our colour poems. We used our collages for inspiration. We completed our poem planners and then started to write with our senses.
We also worked on our story ending booklets. Next week, we will be choosing a story ending for our fairytale so we have been reviewing 3 different story types as a class.
Our class had reading groups this morning and we also practiced our sight words in our groups.
This afternoon we went to library to exchange books and we looked for books about Earth Day.
We read the book "Earth Day" and talked about more ideas about how we can help take care of the environment. Students started creating their posters and used their checklists to include all of the important ideas they came up with.
In gym, we played scooter hockey, using bean bags. Each team had four bean bags and the goal was to put them into the other team's basket first.
We read the book "city and town," as a review or our study about communities.
Please remember to book your student-led conference for tomorrow or Friday!
We will be having fun lunch tomorrow. If you can volunteer to help, Mrs. Kohan has asked that you come at approximately 11:45am.
Thank you and have a great evening.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Dear Families,
The students were busy at work today, preparing for your upcoming student-led conferences. They were practicing their centers that they will be bringing you to and are very excited to show what they've been learning.
Students worked on writing today and will continue their work on story endings.
They have started their pre-work for their colour poems and have each chosen their final colour. Today, they used their planner to help them organize some of their ideas and make connections to their colours. Then, they designed a collage of all things related to their colour. Tomorrow, they will begin using their senses to start writing.
We read the book "The day the crayons quit" and talked about each colour in detail.
In math, we are working on increasing patterns. The students will add their pattern to the art work they started yesterday.
In gym, we used the scooters and talked about how to safely use this piece of gym equipment. We practiced using them by doing a relay and then we played scooter tag.
Students participated in their daily 5- read to self, buddy reading, word work and morning message. This is a daily occurence in the classroom.
Have a wonderful evening!
Mrs. Symington
Monday, April 16, 2018
Dear Families,
We hope you're enjoying the snow today! It's hard to believe it's Spring.
Today we reviewed 'repeating patterns' today and the students began an art project to show their learning. We are using 3-5 elements in our patterns and will add increasing patterns in the next day or so.
We each have a fairytale that we are working for our 'story endings' unit. We have started to write in our booklets as we continue to learn about 3 types of story endings. We will then select the story ending we would like to use for our 'fairy tale' ending.
In science, we discussed the terms 'manufactured' and 'natural'. We then used our colour family cards to identify things that we would find in the natural world, and things that are made by people. We used a t-chart to organize our information.
We also reviewed the primary and secondary colours and we painted a palette in our journals. We used the 3 primary colours to create secondary colours such as purple and green.
This week our class is working on an 'earth day' project. We read the book 'Just a Dream', by Chris Van Alsburg which was about a boy who dreamed about what the future may look like if we don't care for the environment. We talked about everyday ways we can help take care of our world. For example, the students talked about recycling. They mentioned that we shouldn't litter and should use re-usable bags and water bottles. We also watched a National Geographic clip about plastic in the ocean.
The students will continue brainstorming their ideas and will then create a special Earth Day Poster to display for the school.
Students were allowed to bring their book boxes home today! Many of our boxes were getting really well used and I wasn't able to replace the special cat boxes so students thought that they could recycle their boxes for their own use. Some students suggested using the boxes for crafts, to store their own books/writing etc. We will use other organizers for the rest of the year.
Please ensure that you bring your forms back re: our next Social Studies Unit 'Moving Forward with the Past: My Family, My History, and My community.' We encourage families to sit together to answer the questions and can't wait to begin this unit in May. Please let me know if you need a new copy of didn't get the original.
Please sign up for our student-led conferences this Thursday and Friday. The students are excited to share their learning and knowledge with you.
Thanks everyone. Have a lovely evening.
Room 4
Friday, April 14, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
Today the students worked with Ms. Sarah and Ms. Maynes on their Opera performance. They are becoming very convincing crows!
In math, we continued to work on increasing patterns. We followed a pattern rule that had us grow our pattern by more than 1 or less than 8. We worked on examples as a group and each student created their own in their math notebooks. Many challenged themselves to grow their pattern by 3, 4, 5 and so on.
In Language Arts, we read 'Alexander and the Horrible, no good, very bad day.' We came up with a new story ending that included 'feelings' today. The students wanted to change the day to become a 'great day'.
We explored colours today by viewing images and making connections to feelings and things we find in nature. The students will be choosing a colour they feel interested in and next week we will work on creating our colour poems. Please brainstorm some ideas about colours with your child. For example, Red is a beautiful rose, fire, cardinals, shade in the sunset etc.
Students have been working on Science terms such as shade and tint. We will look for manufactured and natural colours next week. We hope the weather cooperates!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone.
Room 4
Thursday, April 13, 2018
Dear Families,
The students were very busy this afternoon creating colour! They were each given a colour shade palette to work on to reproduce the colours. They used their knowledge of primary and secondary colours, shading and tinting to come up with a match. They labelled their work with the appropriate terms and experimented with more colours.
In math, we worked on creating increasing patterns, using numbers and cubes. The students identified how a pattern increased and then tried their own. They were able to grow their patterns by increasing their elements by 1 or 2.
In writing, we rewrote the ending to another story. We brainstormed our ideas with a partner and then came up with original ideas and wrote them out in our books. We made sure to remember that our ending needed to answer questions for the reader and connect to the rest of the story.
Students worked on their Opera in Music today. It is coming along really nicely and some of our students enjoy being part of costume club as well.
We read a funny story ending in 'Andrew's loose tooth'. Students will be working to identify endings that include humour, emotion and dialogue.
I sent home a newsletter today! Please read this over with your child and answer the questions together. This will provide your child with special infomation about your family, traditions and roots, for our next unit in Social Studies.
Fingers crossed for some warmer weather sooner! Have a lovely evening.
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Dear Parents,
Today the students worked on rewriting the end of a story. They worked on 'The Three Little Pigs' together and came up with some very creative new ways to the end the story. They will continue their work this week and create their own booklet/story ending.
In math, students learned about increasing patterns using the number '3'. They showed how patterns grow and practiced by making their own growing pattern. We will continue our work on patterns tomorrow and throughout next week before moving onto our next unit in measurement.
We went to the library this afternoon to exchange our books and browse new books.
We practiced our sight words with our reading groups and worked on pronouns and rewriting sentences to include the proper pronoun.
We read the book ' Rainbow Fish' and read with buddies today.
Please note that Haysboro students are invited to wear sports Jerseys or yellow/gold and Green in support of Humboldt. We have not discussed the tragedy that occurred in class and the students have not brought this up in our classroom.
Student led conferences will be held next Thursday and Friday. Sign-up should be active this weekend and a message will be sent by Mrs. Kohan with this information. We hope to see you all next week!
Have a great evening.
Room 4
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Dear Parents,
The students have been practicing very hard for their part in the Opera. I had the chance to see them demonstrate their actions showing 'catastrophe', 'cacaphony', and 'calamity', at the end of Music class today. We are all very excited and proud of the all the work they are putting into this.
In math, we worked on predicting elements of a repeating pattern. Students identify 'what is missing?' in patterns and are able to predict what comes next. We are seeing patterns everywhere! Today, we read the book, 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?' and the students came to realize that patterns are also found in text and they could predict what text would come next. Tomorrow we will begin describing and Extending Increasing Patterns.
For word work, we continue to read and correct the morning message each day and we have been learning about pronouns.
Our students were invitied to Mrs. Brierton's class this morning to see their 'amusement park' that they built. Each student created a ride/game etc.
In gym, we worked on our basketball skills and played a game of rock, paper, scissors tag.
In writing, we are now working on 'story endings'. Students have completed their work on story beginnings so we started this today. We read 'Chester' to inspire us how to make changes to a story and will begin using fairy tales tomorrow. As a group, we will change the ending to a story and then each student will create their own booklet and use a fairytale and rewrite the ending of the story.
We also worked on fireside writing and the topic was 'if I could be anyone in the world, I would be ..... or my favourite character is.....
In science we continued our work on determining whether or not a shade is 'lighter than or darker than' other shades, within the same family. We used paint chips together and then each student got their own colour (with 4 shades). We went on a scavenger hunt around our school to find items that match with the shades we were given.
Have a great evening!
Mrs. Symington
Monday, April 9, 2018
Dear Families,
-In gym we played arrow attack and Pac Man tag. Mohanad
-Today we read a book called 'The Lorax' by Dr. Seuss. We talked about the environment and what life would be like if all the trees were cut down. In the Lorax, the Oncelers wanted to cut down all the trees because they were greedy. It made a very negative impact on the community and environment. The air became smoggy and polluted. All the trees were gone and then they left to find a new place to cut down trees. Emmy and Vlad.
-We worked on 'lighter and darker than colours' in Science and added sentences to explain if our predictions came true. Does white make a colour lighter or darker? Does black make a colour lighter or darker when we mix it? Khloe
-In fireside writing we wrote about the topic 'If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Why? Who with?What would you do? Asyah and Reed
-We read the book "Arthur writes a story' before we began our own writing. Asyah
-In math we worked on patterns and made predictions about what would come next. We worked on a movement pattern together and then identified pattern cores and rules on our own. Gabriela
Love,
Mrs. Symington
Friday, April 6, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
The students worked with Ms. Sarah from the Opera this morning to practice their part. They were very convincing crows!
We continued our work on patterns today. The students focused on extending patterns and had to use 4 or 5 elements to create their pattern. They used attributes (ask your child what an attribute is) such as colour, shape, movemen and size. We identified the core in each pattern and worked with new patterns to extend their patterns as well.
In Science, the students identified primary and secondary colours and discussed how to make a colour lighter or darker. They predicted that you would need to use white to make a colour lighter and black to make a colour darker. They then used paint to experiment with colour.
In gym, we practiced our basketball skills. The students worked on dribbling and shooting in the net. They had so much fun!
We worked on our 'sh' words this week and will review these on Monday before moving onto 'ch'. We will also be working on reading comprehensiom, focusing on 'text-to-world' and thinking about the world around us, specifically the environment.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Dear Families,
April is Poetry Month!
Today the students completed their Spring Acrostic poems, along with their Spring Maps. They look great. We will continue to explore Poetry as a class and encourage families to share their favourite poems together.
We began a new Patterns unit in Math. Our students have discussed what patterns are, attributes (size, colour, shape, sounds, movements) and have identified patterns. Today, students created their own pattern core for a partner to complete. We will continue to work on repeating and extending patterns.
We also began a new unit in colour. Today we discussed the colour wheel and identified primary and secondary colours. We read "I don't draw, I colour!" and students made personal connections to colours. (example- "Black shows strength and reaching a goal because in Karate the black belt is the highest you can go.")
The students have been working hard in their roles as Crows for the Opera. Ms. Sarah from the Opera will be coming in again tomorrow to practice with our students.
The students went to the library today to choose new books. If your child forgot to bring in their book, they can return it tomorrow!
We are working on 'sh' words for our word work as well as pronouns.
I hope you have a wonderful evening and thank you for the responses to volunteer for our field trip on May 15th.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Dear Families,
We hope you had a wonderful Spring break with family and friends! It is so nice to see all of the students back and they were all very excited to see each other today.
Today four students shared about their vacations. Reed shared about her trip to Mexico and created a poster of pictures of all of her special memories. Emmy and Logan brought sea shells they found on the beach in San Diego and Saiya brought in a special gift her grandmother gave her. Ben/Logan
-We went to music and practiced our crow song for the Opera with Ms. Sarah. We also played a game called Bee Bee, Bumblebee. William S.
-Today in gym we played four corners and Dodgeball. Austen won Four Corners. Asyah
-This morning we worked on our Spring Maps and will begin our poems tomorrow. Jana
-Today we started our new math unit on patterns. We talked about what a pattern is and described characteristics of a patterns. Then we looked at some patterns and extended patterns as a group. Mohanad
-This morning we read a funny book called No! It was about a dog called No and all the adventures he got into that helped him earn his name. Reed
-We painted Pablo Picasso's portrait for the beginning of our colour unit. William and Emmy
Announcements:
Have a wonderful evening!
Room 4
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Dear Families,
Today the students created beautiful Spring Trees. Although the signs of Spring aren't seen quite yet, we decided to bring Spring into our classroom.
-We also created Spring Circle Maps. The students put their topic (Spring) into the middle of their poster and then wrote about all of the images, feelings and activities they connected to the Season. They looked great!
-We read the book, 'Awesome is Everywhere!' and discussed how we can use our imaginations and feelings to create awesome experiences for ourselves and others. The students shared ways that they made 'staycations' exciting such as building magical forts, pretend house boats etc. -We continued reviewing our subtraction strategies during Math centers (doubles, building on doubles, compensation and making ten).
-Students went to music and had a wonderful time with Mrs. Maynes.
-We began a short vowel scavenger hunt and will continue when we return to school.
-Students cleaned our their book boxes and helped tidy our classroom for Spring Break.
-Please remember that tomorrow is a PD Day and we will return back to school after the Spring Break.
I hope you all have a safe and joy filled time with your families and friends.
Love,
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
-Today we had gym. In gym we played four corners and basketball. In basketball we tried to get our basketball in the nets. Hamish
-We started an art project. We used our handprints and will decorate with blossoms. Mrs. Symington helped us by painting our hands to put on the paper. We will finish our work tomorrow. The paint has to dry. Logan
-This afternoon we went to the library to choose new books before the break. We read with our friends. Asyah
-This morning in language arts, we read a book called "The Recess Queen." The recess queen was very mean and the new student named Katie Sue wasn't afraid of her. She asked her to play jump rope even though Mean Jean was so mean, and then they became friends. We answered questions and talked about character traits (inside and outside). We did some writing about the book. Emmy and Ella
-We read with buddies today and some of our friends took the time to finish their good copies of their story. Mohanad
-We worked on math centers to review all of our subtraction strategies. When Mrs. Symington shook the rain stick, we had to move to the next center. We worked on doubles, building on doubles, compensation and making ten. Reed
-Today we had costume club with Mrs. Symington and we worked on the flower heads and the crows. Mallory
-We read the story, "and then it's Spring." Khloe.
We are very excited about Spring and all the beauty it brings. Please remember that Friday is a non-instructional day.
Room 4
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
-Today we started changing our classroom around to make more space for our centers. Logan
-We went to music this morning and we played xylphones. We played a game where we would sing a song and then pass an umbrella and a stick. If you got the umbrella when the song stopped, you would have to go in the middle and play the xylpohone. Ella and Reed
-Today in gym we played rainbow tag for our warm-up game and we are starting to learn about Basketball. We practiced dribbling and passing to our partners. Mohanad
-Today the grade one's played the math game 'Making ten' and the Grade two's worked on a challenge called 'find the numbers'. Khloe and Gabriela
-We worked on fireside writing and got to choose our topic. If we needed an idea, we picked the topic 'School is......'. Asyah
-This morning we went to Mrs. Johnson's class to share our Senses Poems. We uploaded them to Iris. We got to work with a 3/4 partner and then our buddy shared their 'Ouch' stories with us. We also read a story called 'The Busy Beaver'. Gabriel and Hamish
Have a wonderful 1st day of Spring!
Room 4
Monday, March 19, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we worked on subtraction. We completed questions using our strategies and used 120's charts to help.
-Today in gym we played zombie tag and Mystery Museum. Reed
-We practiced reading our Owl Moon Senses Poem aloud. We did 'speed sharing' and read to different partners in our class. Tomorrow we will be sharing our work with Mrs. Johnson's class. Gabriela
-This morning we noticed that our leprechaun traps had been touched. There was a trail of shamrocks and some funny things happened. Shoes were mixed up, ties were taken out and there was a fake tree on one table group! Khloe
-We worked on our good copies for our 'speaking stories' this morning. Asyah
-We played 'read my mind' and Reed and Cody chose words and gave clues. The words are from our class word wall. Logan
-Friday is a PD Day (non-instructional day).
-We did the blog! Logan
Have a wonderful evening.
Room 4
Friday, March 16, 2018
Dear Families,
The students did an amazing job with their dance performance today! We are so proud of all of the kids and we had so much fun this week with our instructor Ty.
-Today we completed our Senses centers with our groups.
-We read 'How to catch a Leprechaun' with our friends in Room 3 and then discussed ways we could build our own traps. The students used various classroom materials to build with partners. They had so much fun!
-The students did 'reading to self' for 11 minutes. This is a new achievement.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Room 4
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we went to the library to pick out new books. Logan
-In gym, we practiced our dance with Tye because tomorrow we will be presenting our dance to the school. Asyah
-We worked on Senses centers with groups this afternoon. We are wrapping up our unit and working on being scientists (observe, explore, document, research and create). Jana
-In Mrs. A's class we made Leprechaun traps and wrote about them. Rider
-Parents please feel free to come attend our dance performance tomorrow after recess. Cody
-We participated in trivia today after lunch, about senses. Khloe
-In math, we worked with a partner to use the strategy of using 10 as a 'friendly' number.
-We went to music and played music games. Mohanad
-We had a sub in music today. Reed
-This morning, we worked with partners in Mrs. Carmichael's class to share our stories. We worked on peer editing to help us with our writing. We had an editor and a writer. Gabriela
-We can wear green tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day. Henry
Have a good evening!
Room 4
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Dear Families,
Day # 3 of our Sound Creations Program was awesome! Today, the students put together some of their own choreography, with four dance moves and shared with the class. They also practiced their hip hop and African dance routines. Our instructor Tye has been getting our class to breathe deeply and take risks!
-Today in math, the students worked on compensation. This strategy for subtraction involved using the 'friendly' number 10 to help solve equations. We used our hundreds chart on the smartboard to solve subtraction problems together. The students have learned to relate addition and subtraction, use the counting back strategy and building on doubles.
*Math games are fun! Students enjoy using their number sense and problem solving skills through play. If you have dominoes, dice, snakes and ladders, blocks etc. you can use these materials to play math games. Some of our favourites are tower power, race to 100, dominoe addition/subtraction and using dice with partners to add subtract, order numbers from greatest to least, talk about odd and even numbers. I can put together some more details and send these home before the break.
-We played a new word game called 'Read my Mind' today. This game encourages students to use our word wall more frequently. Students are given 5 clues about a certain word in the room and then try to guess which word it is by clue #5.
-The students are working hard on completing their 'speaking stories'. They began to edit with their peers today and looked for punctuation, word choice and structure. They will share their stories with their friends in Room 3 tomorrow and will finish their good copies.
-The students achieved a new goal today. Throughout the year, they have been working on building their reading stamina. Today, they reached 10 minutes of straight, uninterrupted read to self time. This means our students are picking better fit books and are becoming more excited to read on their own. They are encouraged to read a wide variety of materials.
-The library was closed today so we will go tomorrow!
Have a wonderful evening.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Dear Families,
Today we went to gym and Tye taught us a robot hip hop dance and African dance. Cody
-We went to music and we played the xylophone with Mrs. Maynes . Ella
We also played doggie doggie where's your bone? on the xylophones. Reed
-We finished our Science placemats to show what we know and have learned about Senses and our World. We will begin our new science unit about colour in the next week. Henry
-We worked with the computers and practiced our math on math playground. We also used abcya. Khloe
-We worked on writing our stories, focusing on 'speaking beginnings'. Emmy
-We played a game with short vowels. We read each card out, said which short vowel sound we hear and then sorted them, as a class. Asyah
-We practiced Cosmic Kids yoga today. William S.
Have a good evening.
Room 4
Monday, March 12, 2018
Dear Families,
We hope you enjoyed the warmer weather today! The students had fun in the sun and we hope we don't have any more 'blue' days this season. Fingers crossed!
Last Friday was Mrs. McMann's last day as she is now on maternity leave. The students made her cards and we are sad to see her leave us, but very excited to meet the new baby when they are ready to visit us later in the year. Mrs. Amerongen has joined our team! All of the students know Mrs. Amerongen as she has been in with us a number of times in the past few months.
-Today in math we represented the equation 20-9=11 with numbers, words and pictures, as our warm up challenge. Emmy
-We also completed an activity called 'turn it around' where we had to write the matching subtraction equation for each doubles addition equation. Reed
-Today we had gym and started a fun dance program (Sound Creations). We have a dance teacher named Tye and he taught us some hip hop dance. Reed
-We continued writing our stories (speaking/dialogue style). William I.
-After we finished our story plan, we began to write out our ideas. Asyah
-We finished our Senses Unit and we worked on a task with a group of 4 to show what we know, called the placemat activity. Logan
-Today we did read to self and buddy reading this afternoon. Rider
-We read the story 'Magic School Bus- The Haunted Museum, a Sound Story'. Mohanad
-The February challenge winners were 'The February Hearts' and they went to the library this afternoon for their reward time.
-We reviewed Proper Nouns and adjectives.
Thank you Room 4 Families.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
This morning, the students worked on their new story beginnings, using dialogue. We have learned how to use quotation marks when a character is speaking in a story.
We worked on planning an exciting story together. We created a character, setting, problem and solution on our smartboard and then students used their own planners to help them plan out their own stories.
We will continue this work next week.
We also reviewed how to represent doubles in subtraction. The students volunteered to show how they would represent equations. For example, we can use pictures to show an equation such as 21-10= 11
-Rider used planets, Emmy showed the equation by using flowers, Reed used tally marks and Gabriela showed us with oranges.
-We will being our next unit on patterns next week and will continue to work on number sense and operations throughout the year as a consistent part of our program.
-Today in gym, students played floor hockey.
-Students who did not get to return their library books on Wednesday will have the chance to do so on Monday.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Room 4
Dear Families,
I apologize for my delay in updating our blog. We were experiencing some technical difficulties yesterday.
-Today the students went to the Library to exchange books.
-We completed our OWL Moon Senses poems yesterday and the students did a fabulous job. Their work on senses and adjectives has helped them include more details in their writing.
-We worked on using our senses to be safe. We also did a mini-quiz today and will finish our unit this week.
-In math, the students completed a review of 'relating addition and subtraction' and they continue to work on strategies in subtraction. They will do some further work on using doubles. We also worked on math centers to help us review all of our strategies to date.
-We continue to work on story beginnings with a focus this week on 'speaking' starters. The students have been giving voices to their characters and are adding punctuation (quotation marks) to indicate when a character is speaking.
-The students have moved into different groups for the month of March and have selected bew group names. Please ask your child what their new group name is.
-Thank you again to all the amazing parent volunteers who helped last week on our field trip! The students each brought home the seeds they planted.
-Please note that tomorrow is fun snack!
Have a wonderful evening.
Room 4
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Dear Families,
Yeeehawww!!!! We had a fun day at the Grain Academy and Museum. The students got to learn about the settlement of Alberta, grain production, explore the grain elevator and investigate many new artefacts.
-Thank you for sending your children with healthy, nutritious snacks. Please remember water bottles! We found that there weren't many water fountains in our immediate area today.
-Thank you to all the volunteers that joined us today - we appreciate it!
-The students worked with their grade 5/6 buddies yesterday to create messages of kindness to celebrate Pink Shirt Day. We will be hanging up our fabric pieces this Friday. The students did a beautiful job and i'm very proud of our students because 'bucket filling' is part of their language and everyday mindset in Room 4.
Have a wonderful evening.
Mrs. Symington
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we worked snowman math. We worked on fact families. (Ella)
-We read "Sir Arthur to the Rescue" today. It was about kindness friendship. (Logan)
-We went to Music this morning and played the drums. We practiced for the Opera. (William S.)
-We finished our Owl creations this afternoon in art. (Henry, Rider)
-In gym, we played fortress and ghost tage. (Khloe)
-We read the book, 'The Kindness Quilt' and worked with our Grade 5/6 buddies to create our messages of Kindness. (Mohanad)
-We changed our classroom jobs and tomorrow we will add our group points. (Emmy, Reed)
Please make sure your child brings a packed lunch, warm clothing and a water bottle for our trip tomorrow! We will be leaving after the bell at approximately 8:55 sharp.
Room 4
Monday, February 26, 2018
Announcement - Reading Groups are cancelled for tomorrow! My apologies to our volunteers who signed up. We will resume our groups next week. Thank you.
Dear Families,
Today the students had a wonderful time snowshoeing! We enjoyed the warmer temperatures and sunshine. Our buddies helped us put our equipment on and we snowshoed with the grade 3/4 students.
-We worked on a math review this morning, in addition, to show what we know and me need to work on a little more. We used our strategies on counting on, using a number line/chart, doubles and place value.
-The students were very busy creating torn paper owls this afternoon in art. This project was inspired by our recent work on the book 'Owl Moon.'
-We worked on adjectives today. Small groups came up with adjectives to describe smell, taste etc. The students used adjectives to describe nouns and shared their ideas.
-In preparation we read another short story by Laura Ingalls Wilder called 'going to town.' The students made connections to Stampede and thought that some of the games/foods/ contests/sights described in the story, would be found at the Calgary Stampede in the past.
-We will be going on our field trip on Wednesday and Thursday. We will leave at a approximately 8:50am each morning with Mrs. Carmichael's class. Please ensure your child wears warm clothing as we will spend time outdoors at the Stampede grounds. Please make sure your child brings a packed lunch with extra snacks!
Thank you!
Friday, February 23, 2018
Hello,
I'm sorry for the late blog post. We had some technical difficulties earlier today.
-Today the students were so excited to attend the Opera reveal assembly! Our grade 1/2's performed a song in their roles as crows. We were so impressed by their singing and enthusiasm. Mrs. Maynes mentioned how proud she was of our class.
-This morning we started our day with our morning message and talked about team work in connection with the olympics. Yesterday, we had the chance to participate in a skype discussion with Olympic athletes who talked about goal setting. They talked about how it takes a 'team' to achieve success.
-Students wrote 'bucket filling' cards with inspiring messages to each other. Each student got a stick with another student's name on it. We have been working on filling buckets all year. Please use ask your child how they can help 'fill buckets' at home.
-We read "The family book' by Todd Parr. We have worked on a theme of team work and family this week.
-We continued our work with our text, 'Owl Moon'. We discussed more about using our senses in reading and writing. Students immersed themselves in the story by sharing what they saw, heard, tasted, felt and smelled in the book. For example:
"I smelled pine trees"
"I heard the train whistling"
"I felt the cold snow"
"I tasted bitter sap"
"I saw an Owl with large wings"
-We went snowshoeing before recess. It took us some time to put the snowshoes but we had some grade 3/4 helpers. The students got the feel of the snowshoes and it was a beautiful, sunny day! Next week, we will join our Grade 6 buddies for some more snowshoeing.
-Please help your child remember to bring their home reading folders to school each day!
-We are excited for our trip to the Grain Academy and Museum next week, on Wednesday and Thursday. I will send out an email to families on Monday/Tuesday to re-confirm details! This is a similar experience to Museum School but we will be spending some time outdoors in the afternoon for an art walk to explore the murals and sites around the stampede grounds. Appropriate clothing is necessary!
-Thanks to all the volunteers who will be coming with us next week. I will send you all an email on Monday as well.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs. Symington
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Dear Families,
We will be snowshoeing in our schoolyard tomorrow morning. Please pack an extra snack for your child and make sure they wear warm clothing.
-Today we played floor hockey for our mini-olympics.
-We worked on OWL Moon and wrote about a special memory with family, using sensory words.
-We went to music and we have the Opera introduction tomorrow at our assembly!
-We explored new artifacts from the Calgary Stampede, in preparation for our trip next week. We looked at spurs, grains, and other tools that ranchers used.
Room 4
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we watched a Historica Video about the Calgary Stampede. (Khloe, Logan)
-In math, we made fact family houses. (Gabriela) First, we practiced fact families on our white boards. (Reed)
-In gym we played Mystery Museum and we participated in the Luge for our mini olympics. (Gyalten)
-We read the book 'Owl Moon' and we thought about senses. Each group had a different sense and we had to imagine that we were in the book and used describing words, touch, hear, smell, taste and see. (Asyah)
-We did a Penguin sentence search around our classroom. We had to write them down and place the proper ending mark ( ! ? .) (Reed and Gabriela)
-Today we wrote the blog!!!!!! (Emmy, Mohanad).
Room 4
Tuesday, February 19, 2018
Dear Families,
We hope you had a wonderful Family Day Weekend!
Today we enjoyed reading groups with our friends and parent volunteers. Thank you!
We worked on fact families (relating addition to subtraction) in math.
We completed our Science posters about the sense of touch, and used new texture words.
We had music and the morning!
We read another short story about life on the prairies called "going to town," by Laura Ingalls Wilder and discussed the difference about living in rural communities vs. larger towns and cities.
We worked on our fireside writing.
In gym, we competed in the Bobsled!
-Please ensure that your child's field trip form to the Grain Academy and Museum is handed in asap.
Thank you,
Room 4
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Dear Families,
Happy Valentine's Day!
-The students enjoyed sharing cards and notes with each other this afternoon.
-We completed our word bubbles and Picasso inspired Valentine's Artwork.
-In math, we worked on fact families and discussed how addition and subtraction are related.
-We worked on the word family -ig this morning and completed fireside writing.
-This afternoon a Primatologist came in to speak with our grade 1/2's about Animal Senses. It was so interesting!!! Ask your child about what they learned.
-We had a fire alarm this afternoon, which was unplanned. The students did a wonderful job getting to their safe location and kept positive in the cold. I am very proud of them.
Please remember that there is no school on Thursday, February 15th, Friday, February 16th and Family Day on February19.
-I hope you all have a great Family Day weekend and enjoy some fresh snow. Take Care.
Room 4
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Dear Families,
We had a very busy day today!
-We had reading groups this morning and students worked on word work.
-We also worked on fireside writing.
-We participated in our own 'Biathlon' in gym today and watched some clips from inspiring Olympians. We will continue to hold our own 'mini-olympics' tomorrow as well.
-We worked on a special project this afternoon (top secret) in connection with a special holiday tomorrow. We had some help from our 5/6 buddies and worked on the computers to complete our activity.
-We also worked on part 2 of our top secret project (details will be revealed tomorrow) in Art.
-Tomorrow we have library so please bring books back!
-My apologies for not having the home reading prepared this afternoon. Our creativity got a hold of us and we were working hard on our 'top secret' project.
-Please return field trip forms asap. Thank you!!!!
Room 4
Monday, February 12, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we worked on subtraction and completed an individual challenge in our workbooks.
-We continued to learn about story beginnings. Today, we focused on creating beginnings that included 'word descriptions' and 'speaking'. We brainstormed descriptive words with our groups and then came up with three beginnings.
-We read the book 'nouns' and then completed an activity called 'what noun am I?" We have to use 3 describing words for our noun and have others guess what it is.
-In gym, we played Mystery Museum and Rock, Paper, Scissor Tag. In 2 weeks our school will be getting snowshoes so we will be able to participate in this outdoor activity for gym.
-We read the book 'My Five Senses' and started to create a poster about the sense of touch. We chose six or more objects to describe. We pasted them onto our poster and labelled it.
-We worked on our Daily 5 reading.
Announcements"
-Students went home with a field trip form for the Grain Academy and Museum on Feb. 28th and March 1st. Please send these back by Wednesday, if possible.
-Students will not have school on Thursday and Friday due to Teacher's Convention.
-Swimming certificates went home today!
-I posted information about handing out Valentine's last week. If you plan on giving cards, please leave the name blank. We have 27 students. I will be providing special bags for students to put cards in and we will do an art activity and enjoy the day together.
Thank you,
Room 4
Friday, February 9, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we had kernels for fun snack!
-We read another short story by Laura Ingalls Wilder called 'Sugar Snow'. We wrote about our favourite part of the story and talked about life in the past.
-We also continued to work on our one room school house kit. We began an activity called 'My Community: Then and Now'. Each group will present information about a topic such as transportation, leisure, school, people etc.
-We played math games (addition and subtraction) with partners today.
-We did buddy reading.
-We have a new student named Denisa. She moved here from Romania.
Announcements:
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the snow!
Room 4
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
We hope everyone had a safe day today.
-Today we worked on subtraction, using number charts to help us solve problems. We also played subtraction dominoes when were finished our independent work.
-We reviewed verbs and nouns in our morning message.
-We read a short story by Laura Ingalls Wilder called 'Winter in the Big Woods.' We discussed pioneer life and made connections to the artifacts we have been studying over the past week and a half.
-Students wrote a response to the story, discussing how life would be like in the past (food, family jobs, transportation, resources, games etc.)
-We had computer time in the afternoon and visited abcya.com and mathplayground.
-We watched a 'Wild Kratts' episode about Snowy Owls during our indoor recess.
-We had buddy reading and fireside writing.
Announcements:
Room 4
Wednesday, February 7th, 2018
Dear Families,
We had a great day today. We enjoyed outdoor recess and having the playground to ourselves.
-We went to the Library to change our books. (William I)
-We learned about how life would be like without our sense of hearing and sight. (Rider)
-We watched a video about Helen Keller. Ask me about her! (Reed)
-We did buddy reading (Mohanad adn Jana
-We did fireside writing (Saiya)
-We played scattergories this morning. (Logan)
-We learned the counting back strategy for subtraction in math (Gabriela)
-We did the blog!!!! Logan
Announcements:
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Dear Families,
We had a fun day today and were able to get outside in the afternoon, when the weather warmed up a little bit.
It was quiet at Haysboro as all of our grade 3, 4 and 5 students were skiing! We were fortunate to have two guest students join us for the day. They enjoyed reading with our students and helping out.
-Today we had reading groups. Thank you to our volunteers for coming in to help us!
-We went to Music this morning and learned a new song for the Opera. Ask your child to sing it to you!
-In Social Studies, we continued our study of the '1 room school house.' Today our students worked in groups to act out the story of their artifact. They did such a great job! They showed us transportation in the past, tools students used to learn and how life was like at school in the past.
-We used the computers today and practiced our math skills by using abc.ya and mathletics. Every student has his/her own login.
Please see the note below re: Valentine's Day from our Grade level team.
Dear Parents,
As Valentines is fast approaching, we will offer students the opportunity to bring and exchange valentines on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. To ensure all students experience a feeling of belonging and to encourage the concept of caring, I would ask that if students bring valentines, they include one for each of the 26 students in our class. Students can leave the to: section blank and instead of writing out names write a kind note on their valentine.
While we will not be having a “party” that afternoon, students may bring a nutritional individual snack and drink to enjoy as they open valentines. We will enjoy the day and make everyone feel special.
Thank you!
Room 4
Monday, February 5, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today we went to gym and played space invasion and unicorn tag. Mohanad
-We worked on subtraction challenge problems with a partner. William I
-We read a book called “ Don’t squeal unless it’s a big deal.” Ella
-We sketched artifacts from the past – Example -inkwell, old pail , slate (Logan)
-Our challenge winners got their reward today(karate kids)….Emmy
-Today we played around the world in math. Asyah
-We had zen time in the morning and afternoon (breathing exercises). Reed
-We worked on verbs this morning and creating sentences with nouns and verbs. William S
Announcements:
Message from the Principal:
Thank you to all of you who braved the roads today to make sure your children made it to school today! We so appreciate your care and attention to parking on the street for drop off and pick up. With all of the snow this weekend our parking lot is extra treacherous.
Please note that the Haysboro School Parking Lot is off limits for drop off and pick up! This year we have had several incidents where we have had; people stuck in our parking lot requiring assistance to get out, staff vehicles which have sustained damage from being hit or "bumped" into by cars unable to turn around easily, staff who have had dangerous encounters by parents pulling into the parking lot in a hurry, and most dangerously, we have had students walking through the parking lot which has potential for injury.
Our parking lot is full with staff members from Haysboro School and Area Office, with many staff members who need to come and go from their spots at a variety of times during the day. There is NO parking, Drop off or Pick up of students allowed in the parking lot at any time, this includes our Maple Roots Before and After School Program. For everyone's safety please use designated street parking only.
Parents accessing street parking please note the two cross-walk areas, and bus zone in front of the school which are often times difficult to see. These are also NO parking, Drop off or Pick up zones and do come with a hefty City of Calgary fine. There are also large fines for a U-Turn in a School Zone and for U-Turns in cross walks. We have had multiple incidents this year where our student safety-patrollers have experienced speeders, drivers ignoring them and traffic laws making it unsafe for them to be our supporting our other students to cross the road. Safety is always a priority for all of us at Haysboro School and I have been working with our School Council as well as City of Calgary Officials to find traffic calming measures to keep our students safe.
Please choose safety over convenience.
Thank you all for your continued support,
Tracy Kohan, Principal
403-777-8530
Thank you,
Room 4
Friday, February 2, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today our students worked with artifacts from the Glenbow Museum. They studied the one room school house. They will continue to explore next week.
-This morning the students worked on subtraction problems and created word stories for their partners.
-We complete our word prompt stories today! Students will share their work on Monday.
-We have 3 volunteers signed up for reading groups on Tuesday from 9:30 to 10:10. We would appreciate 1-2 more volunteers, if possible.
-Thank you to the positive response for our field trip later this month (volunteers). I will confirm the volunteers next week.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs. Symington and Room 4
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Dear Room 4 Families,
We had Mrs. Brannagan join our class this afternoon to discuss the history of Haysboro and key events/people that helped shape our community. The kids asked alot of great questions and learned alot about the community. Thank you so much!
We worked on subtraction today and students solved a word problem challenge.
Students are working on their good copies of their picture prompt story and will share their writing with their peers.
We practiced the word family -it today with our poem 'The Big Hit'.
We joined Mrs. Carmichael's class for gym today.
The students enjoyed their time in music this morning.
Karate Kids were our montly group challenge winners for January! Congratulations!
Announcements
-We will be attending Stampede School on Wednesday, Feb 28th and March 1st. We will be going to the Grain Academy to learn about pioneer life, farming and students will work on hands on activities together. Please let Mrs. Symington if you would like to volunteer for one of the days. We will need 5 volunteers per day.
Room 4
Tuesday, January 30, 2018,
Dear Room 4 Families,
-Today we played a game of fortress dodgeball and ran 4 laps around the gym. (William)
-In Social Studies we explored the past and looked at pictures about school in Alberta. We used our kit from the Glenbow Museum and turned Room 4 into a museum. (Asyah and William)
-We went to music today and we had a different teacher. We read a story called 'music is for everyone' and we drummed. (Ella and Atticus).
-The other grade 1/2 class came over to our museum to explore photos from the past. (Emmy)
-Today we participated in Cosmic Kids Yoga which was about Alice in Wonderland. (Reed)
-We worked on our story starters. (Logan)
-We did buddy reading today during daily 5. (Jana)
Have a great evening.
Love,
Room 4
Monday, January 29, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today the dental hygienists came to our school. (Vlad)
-In math, we practiced using place value/addition (Reed)
-We learned about another school in Alberta through our letter exchange. We learned about the Bruderheimer Meteorite storm and watched a video about it. (Rider)
-We played dodgeball in gym. (Asyah)
-We worked on Social Studies and talked about Haysboro School. (Khloe)
-We sketched interesting parts of our school. (Gabriel)
-We continue to work on our story starters this morning. Some of the students started writing their stories. (Gabriela)
Announcements:
-A huge thank you to all of our wonderful parent volunteers who helped us with swimming last week. The students had a great experience.
-I would like to begin reading groups again next week. This will be held from 9:30 to 10:15 on Tuesdays. Please let me know if you're comfortable and interested in leading a group. We need 4 volunteers each date. The dates will be as follows for February:
Thank you!
Room 4
Wednesday, January 24, 2018,
Dear Room 4 Families,
-Today we did Cosmic Kids yoga in the afternoon. (Emmy)
-We practiced place value and front-end addition. (Jana) It was fun to practice (Asyah)
-We talked about our goals and began to write them down. (Logan)
-Our class went swimming (Jana)
-We looked at a picture and wrote story starters about it. (Reed)
Have a good evening. We will see you at parent conferences.
Room 4
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Dear Families,
The students have been enjoying their 'swim to survive' lessons so far this week. A huge thank you for preparing your children and ensuring they have everything they need each day. Our class has been very quick getting dressed and i've been seeing a lot of smiles (and very tired kids by the end of the day).
-Today we worked on front-end addition, using our knowledge of ones and tens place value. We will continue to work on our strategies this week.
-We went to music class and worked on drumming!
-Students are learning about 'story beginnings'( powerful introductions) and have practiced identifying various styles such as 'word/pictures', 'speaking', 'questions' and interesting facts. They have begun to write their own beginning sentences with a partner today, focusing on 'speaking' style.
-We have new sight words to practice and will be doing so weekly. Students will highlight their words, and will place them in their home reading folder to practice at home as well as at school.
-I hope that you have found the home reading log to be helpful! I appreciate the comments and feedback as well. Please remind your child to bring their home reading each morning as I call each group to meet me to switch books. If your child needs a new folder, we can provide one.
-We will continue to work on a Senses experiment tomorrow afternoon.
-I sent home a 'dental screening' form today. Each child received one this afternoon so please check backpacks!
Thank you all and have a wonderful evening.
Mrs. Symington
Friday, January 19, 2018
Dear Families,
Today we continued to work on our story retell of the novel, 'Night on the Titanic' that we read together in class. We discussed the setting, characters, problem and solution. We shared some of our writing from yesterday and then put together a paragraph as a class.
In math, we continued to review our addition strategies, focusing on using our number chart, today. We going to work on front-end addition next week as well as move on to subtraction. The students have been working hard to use their math strategies to solve problems.
We are beginning an artist study! Today we participated in an exercise called 'looking at art'. We looked deeply at a painting on our smartboard for 30 seconds and came up with 10 words to describe the painting (feelings, objects, shapes, colours etc.). We then observed for 30 more seconds and added to our descriptions. The students came up with very insightful descriptions such as "the emotions in the picture go against each other."
The artist we are studying is Pablo Picasso. I didn't name the painting we observed and asked students to search for the painting online with a parent/guardian. Those that have the option to do so will tell us on Monday what painting we studied today.
We will continue to learn about maps and focus on our local community in Haysboro/Calgary in Social Studies. We welcome any local experts who can speak to the past/present of the community and would love any pictures, maps, brochures or artifacts of the neighbourhood to show it's character, landmarks and history. I know many of our families have lived in this community for generations.
We will start mathletics next week! All students will have a password and will also be able to access this program at home if parents would like them to do so. I can provide passwords at conferences next week.
We are all excited about our swimming program next week. Thanks for getting the forms back so quickly. We are so fortunate to have a number of volunteers in our class (go room 4!!!!). Volunteers- if for any reason you are unable to attend next week, please know that we do have coverage and understand that work/life situations arise. Thanks to all.
We will continue our reading groups once again after our swimming week. We will need 4 volunteers per week to help guide our reading small groups once again. I will set this up in our online volunteer system next week.
Please see the reminders below re: What to Bring for Swimming
Supplies needed:
· Swim suit (please wear under your clothes)
· Towel
· Plastic bag for wet suit
· Underwear
· Clothes that are easy to put on and take off
· No tights please because they are too difficult to get dressed quickly
· Dress for the weather- please remember the weather can be unpredictable and we will be outside getting on and off the bus. Make sure your child has a warm hat or toque to protect damp hair from the cold.
Thank you,
Mrs. Symington
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Dear Families,
The students enjoyed the warmer weather today!
-Today we worked on Daily 5. We practiced our the poem "My new Pet" and worked on our -et family words.
-We worked on a reader response to "Night on the Titanic" and included setting, characters, problem and solution.
-In Social Studies we investigated three maps (Canada, Alberta and Calgary). We talked about symbols and located our neighbourhood on a map. We also illustrated our new title pages.
-In math, we reviewed our addition strategies in preparation of moving forward with subtraction. We reviewed the counting on strategy, using number lines, dominoes and number charts. We are also practicing our doubles and making ten.
-In gym, the students played Kings/Queens dodgeball.
Thank you for sending your swim forms back. If you have not done so yet, please send them tomorrow. We are going swimming next week from Monday-Thursday.
Have a great evening.
Room 4
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Dear Families,
Today we had scientists in school come in today to explore senses and learn about senses. (Rider)
We did centers and one center was about taste. We got to have drinks and a jellybean. We also tried sight and used special glasses we got to bring home. (Henry)
-It was amazing! (all)
-We went to the library to change our books today/ (Logan)
-We had gym and we did rock, paper scissors tag,warm-up/breathing and museum tag. (Ella)
-We worked on numbers and practiced the ‘counting on’ strategy for addition. (Austin).
-We worked on our Daily 5. (William S)
-We read 'how to catch a star'. (Reed)
-Please make sure your child brings his/her swimming permission forms tomorrow!
-I will be sending home Dental consent forms for dental screenings to be held on January 29th.
Have a great evening!
Room 4
Monday, January 15th, 2018
Dear Families,
-Today Mrs. D came in for 45 minutes to read a book called 'Coyote Sings to the Moon.' (William S)
-Today we worked on the computers in Math. We will start Mathletics next week! (Ben)
-Today we went to gym and did circuits around the gym. (Asyah)
-We read 'Wemberly Worried' and talked about the feeling of 'worry' and wrote in our journals about some of the things we may worry about and how we can help ourselves and others. (Logan)
-We read to self and with our buddies. (Emmy)
-We talked about our new unit 'Senses' and discussed each sense. We worked with groups to give examples of how each is used. (Atticus)
-We finally we went outside for recess!!!! Yay!!! (Austin)
Please look out for swimming permission forms tomorrow.
-Scientists in school will be with us on Wednesday! Thank you parent volunteers.
Room 4
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Dear Families,
Today was a 'blue day' so our students had indoor recess and lunch today. It was a cold day! Fingers crossed for outdoor recess tomorrow so they can enjoy the snow.
-Today we reviewed boats and buoyancy and completed a quic. (Reed)
-We played games for word work (beginning, middle and end sounds) Gabriela
-We went to an assembly and Mrs. Kohan told us about a mystery she needs help solving. (Emmy)
-We wrote about a mystery picture (Mysteries of Harris Burdick) to help solve the mystery. (Ella)
-We went did buddy reading, and read to self. (Gyalten and Mohanad).
-We had indoor recess and played games. (Henry) because we needed to stay indoors (Asyah).
-Thanks to all who are able to volunteer for swimming and for our Scientists in School program(January 17th- morning).
-If you would like to volunteer, please let me know!
Room 4
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Dear Families,
Welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely winter break. It was so nice to see all the students together again and we had a great day.
Here is today's blog:
-We have a new student who joined our class. Her name is Asyah. (Rider)
-Today we went to music and we played drums. (Mohanad)
-We did calendar and we're excited about the new year. (Jana)
-We created a memory window about our winter holiday. (Gabriela)
-We went to the library. (Austen)
-We worked on addition in math and worked on a problem-solving challenge. (Emmy)
-We read books this morning with buddies. (William)
-Hamish put a slideshow together for us about his trip to England. It was amazing! (Logan)
-Today we put all of our books in our book boxes (science, math and writing). (Reed)
Announcements:
Have a wonderful evening!
Room 4
Friday, December 22, 2017
Dear Room 4 Families,
I was so proud of all of our students last night for their performance at the Winter Concert last night. I was standing offstage so I watched them sing with such excitement and joy. It was fantastic! Thank you to all who were able to make it out last night. It was so nice to see you.
We had a great week, finishing up our Boats and Buoyancy activity and will review in the New Year before we begin our new unit. The students also had a chance to work with their Grade 5/6 buddies and we will work on a goal setting project in January when we return.
We will continue with reading groups in January and I will set this up via volunteer spot once again. Please let me know if you are interested in coming in to volunteer . The students work in small groups to practice their reading skills together and we typically have 5 groups. We do this on Monday mornings from 9:30-10:00.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and Happy New Year. It is a pleasure to teach your children and I look forward to seeing everyone in January. We have many exciting activities coming up in the New Year, such as swimming and Scientists in school. I will be sending more information about swimming when we return. We will need volunteers!
Thank you and Happy Holidays!
Mrs. Symington
Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Dear Families,
Our students worked hard on boat building today! Our classroom looked like a true shipyard, with all kinds of materials, testing and designing being done.
-Students began testing their boats and will do their final run tomorrow!
-We watched a clip about the BlueNose (Canada 150-History) for some inspiration and to discuss the purpose of boats and how people also design for speed.
-Students practiced their addition facts today. Groups solved a problem together and showed how they came up with their answers by using words, pictures, tallies and words.
-Partners solved addition questions together for practice.
-We went caroling in the gym this morning.
-The students went to the library today to choose new books. We also cleaned out our book boxes and chose new ones from our class library.
-Tomorrow is a regular, full day for students.
-Students are to arrive at school for 5:45 for the Winter concert tomorrow evening.
-Report cards go home tomorrow!!! Please check your child's backpack
-Have a lovely evening and enjoy the snow!
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Dear Families,
We hope you're enjoying the snowy weather! It definitely fits in with our Winter/Snow theme this week.
-The students worked on their Winter art today and we will be displaying them for our Winter Concert on Thursday evening.
-Students are to arrive at 5:45PM to prepare for the concert, which will begin at 6:00 PM. Our 1/2's will be wearing their PJ's and will bring a stuffie!
-We worked with our 5/6 buddies this afternoon and presented our Museum School Stories. Our buddies really enjoyed asking questions and learning about our time at Museum School.
-We completed our 'snowy day' writing activity.
-We went to music class this morning.
-We did caroling with the entire school this morning and they grade 3/4 team coordinated it.
-Logan, Jana and Gabi shared special items today with us. Logan shared her book about the 'birds of Nova Scotia', Gabi shared her book 'snow' and Jana shared a special rock she found.
-We are still collecting swimming forms. Please return them by Thursday!
Special Dates:
Monday, December 18, 2017
Dear Room 4 Families,
We are all excited about our Winter Concert on Thursday evening. The concert will be from 6-7PM. We ask that the students arrive earlier to get ready (5:45) and they will be meeting in our room. We hope to see you all there.
-This morning we did caroling in the gym with the entire school!
-We read the book 'first snow' and talked about the describing words used in the book. We also used the illustrations for some inspiration for our Winter Art Project today.
-We had reading groups this morning. Thank you Mrs. H for coming in to help us!
-The students will be showing their Museum School dioramas to their grade 5/6 buddies tomorrow. They practiced what they want to share and present.
-We worked on our reader's responses, by creating a good copy of our writing for "The Snowy Day".
***Tomorrow we will work on building our boats for Boat Olympics on Wednesday!!!! We have materials to build with, however, please feel free to send any extra recyclables such as plastic pieces (milk jugs etc.), bubble wrap, cork etc. The students will have lots of options to choose from. They will build their boats to carry a load, produce speed and of course, float. Mrs. Symington will record our olympics on the ipads.
-Please donate any food items for the Mayor's Food Drive by Thursday. We really appreciate your help.
-Report card will be going home on Thursday, so please expect these in your child's backpack!
Have a wonderful evening!
Room 4
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Dear Families,
-Today we had a guest teacher! (Vlad and Logan)
-We worked on our math stories to make doubles. (Cody and Emmy)
-Today we wrote our scripts for our Museum School Dioramas. (Gabi)
-Today we had music. (Gyalten)
-We worked on fireside writing today in language arts. (Ella)
-Thursday at lunch is garden club. We will be learning about evergreens and doing holiday crafts and games. Any interested parents (with valid police clearance) are invited to join our session and help with crafting. We would love to have you!
Thank you,
Room 4
Monday, November 11, 2017
Dear Families,
-Today we worked on adding doubles! We created a math sentence, using doubles and shared our answers with each other.
-We finished our boat designs today and will start to make our new boats tomorrow, using materials we practiced with at TELUS Spark.
-We worked on 'fact finding' this morning in Language Arts. We took notes/illustrations about important facts about winter/animals and recorded it in our journals.
-Today we did buddy reading and changed our books in our class library.
-On Friday, all of our students (and teachers) are encouraged to wear a fun winter/holiday sweater to school. We can't wait to see everyone!
-Tomorrow is the last day of our book fair!
-Our winter concert is next Thursday, December 21st. It will be from 6-7. We are so excited!
Room 4
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Dear Families,
Today we went to the Telus Spark.
-We got to see how much water we have in our bodies. (Mohanad)
-William and some of our other students drank out of a toilet!!!! (don't worry, it was very clean and part of the exploration of Telus Spark).
-We also went on the nail bed. (Henry)
-We made boats and tested them. (Gabi)
-We made cargo boats, sailboats, Catamaran, barges and tugboats. (Cody)
-We tested a sneeze machine (ahhhh choo) (Gyalten)
-We also went to the playground and it had rock climbing, a jungle gym and a high slide. (William S)
-We learned math through dancing - shapes, addition and patterns, (Reed)
-We made videos about how high you can jump. (Henry)
-Our students had an amazing day exploring their curiosities and trying new experiments.
-Thank you to our lovely parent volunteers for coming with us on our trip! (everyone)
-We have a PD day on Friday!
Room
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Dear Families,
We are excited about our trip to Telus Spark tomorrow! Please ensure your child brings a packed lunch.
-Today we wrote about our Museum Stories/Dioramas. We will work with our grade 5/6 buddies next week to capture our stories via technology, once we've written and completed our work.
-We went to music today and we've been hearing a lot of singing and caroling around school these days!
-This morning we had writer's workshop and continue to work on our writing skills.
-The book fair in on all week. Please check the newsletters for times/dates that we sent home with the students.
-Please donate items for our food drive! The grade 5/6 students have encouraged us to bring in canned veggies, baby food, diapers and non-perishables.
-We have a PD day on Friday!
Thank you,
Room 4
Dear Room 4 Families,
Thank you for signing field trip forms for our upcoming field trip to the Telus Spark on Wednesday! If you haven't done so yet, please send it in tomorrow.
If you have scholastic book order forms, please have them in by tomorrow. I have to send it in tomorrow so orders come back before the holidays!
Our Haysboro Book Fair is on right now! It will be set up all week, if you have the opportunity to pop in. Students brought home a newsletter about the Book Fair today and had the chance to visit today to browse.
-Today we worked on adding and subtracting numbers. Grade 1's worked together on subtraction while Grade 2's continued with missing addends. Our class had a group challenge and had to figure our a word problem with their groups.
-We reviewed the terms buoyancy, floating and sinking today. Today students started to design their own boat and are drawing diagrams. They are explaining why they think their boat will float. We will build and start to test tomorrow!
-Thank you to our parent volunteers who came to lead reading groups today. The students and I loved having you join us and truly appreciate your help. Thank you!
-In gym, we played 'catch the funky chicken' (catch the flag).
-Students worked on fireside writing, independent reading and journaling as well.
-Our school is collecting donations for charity. We are looking for canned goods (veggies), baby food, diapers etc. They have asked us to avoid glass items!
-Students are developing their 'home reading' routine. The expectation is that they bring their folders in each morning and place it in their green bin. The books are changed right away in the morning during silent reading/morning work. At times, students may forget to turn their folders in or wait until the bell rings at the end of the day. We continue to work with them on this.
Thank you all and have a wonderful day!
Room 4
Friday, December 1, 2017
Dear Families,
Today the students were very excited about our assembly this morning. Today, Mr. Aaron introduced the Opera that our students at Haysboro helped to write. All of the teachers read the script aloud, choral style. It was so much fun! Mrs. Symington played the part of a butterfly and pumpkin.
-We went outside for gym today, to enjoy the beautiful weather. The students played tag games.
-We worked on our Museum Stories dioramas this morning and they are really coming together. The students have been working hard to create their stories, all on their own.
-Students worked on math centers and independent reading as well.
-On Monday, we will have some parent volunteers help us with reading groups.
-Please sign and return your field trip form for Monday.
-The scholastic 'holiday' catalogue was sent home today. We just received the catalogues. I apologize for the tight timeline but please make that if you want to purchase books, that you return your order forms/payment on Monday. I will be submitting our order on Tuesday so that we can get any deliveries before the holidays. Thank you!
Room 4
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Happy last day of November! Our students reminded me today that there will be 25 days until Christmas, as of tomorrow.
-Today the students worked on their Museum Story dioramas. I'm pleased with their efforts and creativity, especially in their use of different materials to display their work. We will finish them tomorrow and then work on writing/using technology next week to complete our projects.
-Grade 2's worked on solving problems with 'missing addends' today and our Grade 1's practiced rainbow combinations (adding) and making combinations using the number 10.
-This morning we had writer's workshop to help students further develop their writing skills and practice.
-We are reading 'night on the Titanic' and the students are really enjoying our new unit on Boats and Buoyancy.
-We sent home permission forms for our trip to the Telus Spark. Please return these asap. I will send forms to our parent volunteers tomorrow.
-We will have an assembly tomorrow at 10:30 about the Opera!
Thank you,
Room 4
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Hello Room 4 Families,
-Today we did an experiment with boats. Our groups designed a boat made from tinfoil and tested it to see how many blocks/beads it would take to sink. (Henry)
-Students made predictions about how much weight it would take for their boats to sink. We will continue to work on our designs to test buoyancy and use different materials.
-The students are excited about our field trip on December 6th. Thank you for the positive response for parent volunteers.
Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Brannagan, Mrs. Gardiner, Mrs. Herdman, Mrs. Oakes and Mrs. Iffla will be joining us for our trip!
-We worked on our Museum Stories today and have been busy making our memories in a box (dioramas). Vlad
-Some of our memories will showcas artifacts from the warriors gallery, ranching, minerals, Tipis and Teachings and Lawren Harris Gallery.
-We worked on our addition sentences and practiced making trains with our partners to work on sums. (each partner used snap cubes to represent addends and recorded their sentences). Logan
-We went to grandparent reading this morning. (Emmy)
-Students went to the library this afternoon this afternoon to exchange books. Thank you for returning library books!
Room 4
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Dear Families,
My apologies for the late post. This afternoon the students were working really hard on their Museum School Story Dioramas. They were working away until the dismissal bell rang. It's so nice to watch how excited the students are about this project.
Some students asked if they could work on their dioramas at home, to include special materials etc. This is fine but not mandatory at all. The students will have lots of time to work on their dioramas this week in class. We have provided materials such as clay, coloured paper, tissue paper, popsicle sticks, tinfoil, styrofoam etc.
Students have chosen a memory/artifact that they were most interested in sharing.
-Today in math, students played math dominoes (addition) and addition war. Tomorrow we will work on adding doubles and creating our own math stories.
-Students went to music today and will visit the library tomorrow!
-We participated in Cosmic Kids Yoga this afternoon.
-Today we launched our Grade 1/2 Writer's Workshop. Students had the opportunity to work with some of their friends in Mrs. Carmichael's class as we split our students into groups to work on writing skills. We will participate in Writer's Workshop twice a week, in addition to our daily literacy program.
-We will continue with our next experiment in science over the next two days. Students will work on mini-boats and test their buoyancy.
-As our home reading program continues, we will guide students to choose their own 'good fit' reader each morning.
Thank you!
Room 4
Monday, November 27, 2017
Dear Families,
We hope you had a wonderful weekend!
-Today we played a game of floor hockey in gym class. (William I.)
-In math, we created number sentences and worked on making all the combinations to make the number 14. (Henry H.)
-We did fireside writing and shared our mystery stories with a partner. (Mohanad A.)
-We read with our buddies and changed our books this morning. (Gabi)
-We reviewed our -an words and completed an activity. (Ben)
-We planned our dioramas this afternoon. (Annika)
-We started reading the book, ' One night on the Titanic.'
-We will work on our dioramas this week. The students met with Mrs. Symington to share their artifact/memory to create their Museum School Story. Students made a sketch and brainstormed the materials they will need. Students may bring in 'special' materials from home if they wish. Please talk to your child about their diorama. Everyone is excited to make their Museum School Story.
-Students will be exchanging books the library on Wednesday!
Thank you,
Room 4
Friday, November 24, 2017,
Dear Families,
Happy birthday to Gabriel on Sunday!
-Today we used a picture prompt to create a story. We brainstormed what we see, think and wonder and then students used their own ideas to write their story, using the details in the picture.
We hope you have a lovely weekend!
Room 4
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Dear Families,
Thank you for bringing in more boxes for our Museum Stories Dioramas.
-The students started to plan their dioramas and choose the artifact/memory they want to re-create. Once they have made their plan, we will organize the materials we need for our dioramas. Please ask your child what they chose.
-In science, we conducted an experiment, inspired by the Titanic (a topic our students are very interested in). We used a block of ice to observe it's position in the water. Students noticed that the upper part was only showing on the surface a little, while the portion underneath the water was much larger. Students also observed that the ice was melting quickly due to the water's temperature.
-We talked about Icebergs and looked at a map of the Atlantic Ocean/Canada to find where the Titanic sank.
Have a great evening.
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Dear Families,
Here is today's blog:
-William shared his book about the Titanic and we had a conversation about how and why the Titanic sunk. (William I)
- We learned more about the Titanic, iceburgs and the Atlantic Ocean (Rider).
-We reviewed our science experiment that we did yesterday and we talked about if our predictions were correct and why. (Gabi)
-We did fire writing today and chose a topic we like to write about. (Ella)
-We went to gym and played space invasion. (Mohanad)
-Three people shared their fire writing today to the class. (Logan)
-We did a math game with addition and learned about number sentences.(Vlad) – Dice addition. We rolled tow dice and made our math question.
-Mrs. Symington brought in things we made at museum school (Henry) Our bulletin board shows our learning and has helped with ideas for our dioramas.
-Cody and vlad shared artifacts that have meaning to them.
-We did independent and buddy reading.
-We will go to the library tomorrow.
-Thank you for the shoe boxes!
Room 4
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Good Evening Families,
-Today the students went to music class.
-We read a story called 'everywhere wonder' and talked about story writing and descriptions.
-The students practiced sentence building in groups and on their own.
-Yesterday, students brainstormed topics they like reading about and writing about. We have been 'fireside writing'. The students did a nice job using their time to write on their own.
-We started addition this week and will work on number sentences and strategies for addition.
-We conducted our first experiment of our new unit on boats and buoyancy. We used six objects to make predictions about whether or not we think they would float or sink, and then tested them.
-Today we used the computers and got our new passwords. Students worked on number and math activities on www.abcya.com
-We are still looking for more boxes for our dioramas!
-We will be going on a field trip to the Telus Spark on December 6th (all day). We need a total of four volunteers to help us. Please let me know if you can join us!
-Please see us on twitter at @SDsymington
-We asked the students to remember to dress appropriately for the weather. It's been getting for cold! We will be having our snack indoors before we go out for recess.
-Please let me know if you would like to volunteer to help us with reading groups. We will start next week and each volunteer will have a group to read with and work on tasks. I will put this up on our volunteer site in the future. If you can help this Monday from 9:30 to 10:15, that would be great! We will run reading groups on Mondays.
Thanks everyone!
Mrs. Symington and Room 4
Monday, November 20, 2017
-Today we played floor hocky. We used a goalie and practiced shooting on the net. (Rider)
-We started to talk about what we know about Boats, sinking and floating. We are starting our new science unit. (Emmy)
-Today we had fireside writing. We talked about topics we are interested and practiced writing on our own. (Reed)
-Logan and Emmy shared about their trip to Hawaii. We saw a submarine picture and a necklace made of nuts. (Austin)
-We did word work this morning. (William)
-We are starting our Museum School project. We are going to make dioramas of one of our memories/an artificact that was special to us and tell stories about Museum School. We will also add writing to our diorama. (Vlad)
-Please bring a spare shoe box if you have one at home!
-Today we continued our narrative stories today. We used a graphic organizer to write about our setting, character, problem and solution. (Gabi)
-We used our 100's charts to solve problems. We are working on addition.
Have a great evening!
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Dear Families,
The students were very busy this afternoon so we apologize that we were unable to work on our blog together.
Today, the students worked on their word families poem and took part in daily 5 reading activities (reading to self, buddy reading, writing). We continue to work on story elements and the students' have been working on 'solution'.
-We reviewed odd and even numbers and practiced counting to 100. They especially enjoy the songs we use for counting forward and backwards by 10.
-Today was 'think outside the box' Thursday. Students took a shape and created their own story and image from it. They used their imaginations to build on an existing image and shared their work with their groups.
-In gym, we continue to work on our Floor Hockey unit. The students have been very enthusiastic about playing and learning new skills and working with a team.
-Today, we concluded our Science unit 'liquids'. We reviewed what we've learned over the past couple of days and the students had a quiz today.
-Next week, we will begin our science unit 'buoyancy and boats'.
-We will be going on a field trip to the Telus Spark on December 6th. This will be in connection to our unit. We will need 5 volunteers! More details to follow soon.
-Fun lunch was a huge success! Thanks to all the coordinators and parents who helped. The students enjoy it so much.
-I will be sending some questionnaires to all the volunteers who attended Museum School. Marnie and Amanda would appreciate our help completing them. I will send paper copies and envelopes home on Monday.
-Our home reading program has launched for grade 1 and 2 students. Students are still becoming familiar with the new routine of bringing their folders home and handing them in each morning to Mrs. McMann and myself.
We will be adding more texts and variety as we move along in the process. Thanks for your support and help by reading at home with your child and making sure they bring their folders to school.
-Please donate shoeboxes (or similar types of boxes) if you have any to spare.
-Thanks for helping Haysboro with Jacket Racket!
-Please follow us on twitter
@SDSymington
-I post pictures of our learning!
-There will be some more volunteer opportunities coming soon! We will need some help with reading groups. This is an initiative that I will post via our volunteer site within the next week.
Thank you very much families.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Dear Families,
-Our school collected 62 items for jacket racket! Thank you to all who donated.
-Today we had gym and played floor hockey, without a goalie. Hamish
-We finished our tipis and created special symbols. Gabi
-We did buddy reading today and switched our books. We also went to library to change our books. William
-We sang the alphabet sounds song, counting to 100 and played around the world. Ella
-We read 'which one doesn't belong?' and did an activity with paper and our own picture. We had to choose which one belonged and write why. Reed
-We had a question of the day - Where is your favourite place to read at home? Henry
-Tomorrow is fun lunch!!!! Cody
Thanks everyone!
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Dear Families,
Thank you to those who have brought in shoeboxes already! We will continue to collect them until next week.
-Today we finished our raincoat diagrams and reports. There were lots that were very heavy duty. Vlad
-We started to play floor hockey in gym today. Ben
-Today we went to music and did freeze dance and a surfing theme. William I
-We talked about saving water and shared our ideas with the class. Rider
-We learned about the Water Cycle. William S.
-We counted forwards and backwards by 10's.
Please note that Jacket Racket is still collecting coats. The due date is tomorrow. Thank you for all who have made donations so far.
*Grade 1 and 2's now have home reading folders. I have also put in a 'poetry' pack for some practice. Students can work on 1 poem each week and practice for fluency and meaning. Have fun!
Room 4
Monday, November 13, 2017
Dear Families,
Today Drew, Gideon, Miles and Carson came in and gave a presentation about Jacket Racket (Reed).
-We can donate mitts, coats, touques and snowpants that are in really good condition. (Gabi)
-Jacket Racket is collecting donations until Wednesday. (Ben)
-We did circuits in gym today. We did hoops, scoops, laps and bean bag toss. (William I)
-We talked about liquids and read a book about Water and how to take care of it. (Rider)
-We learned about even Steven and Odd Todd (odd and even numbers) in math. (Ella)
-We worked on our story solution today. (Austin)
-Today we practiced our -at word family.(Ben)
*Parents please help make sure that Grade 2 home reading comes in each morning. We will begin grade 1 home reading shortly.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Dear Families,
Today we worked on a Peace Activity with our friends in Mrs. Carmichael's class.
-We read the book "What does Peace feel like?"
-We created art on canvases with our ideas about Peace. We described how peace smells like, feels like, tastes like and images we think of.
-We have been practicing the poem 'Poppy, Poppy'. Please ask me to share this with you.
-This is Day #2 of home reading for Grade 2 students. Mrs. McMann has been assisting students with book selections. Mrs. Carmichael and I will be adding more selections and various types of texts next week.
-We worked on skip counting and adding numbers.
-We worked on story setting and used the book 'The paperbag Princess' to discuss how characters can change.
-Please come to our Remembrance Day Celebration on Friday at 10:30am. If you know any vets, please ask them to join as well. Students can wear their uniforms (beavers, cubs, guides etc.). If you have something from your family you would like to share, please send it in. I will be sharing my Grandfather's discharge certificate with the students.
I hope you have a wonderful evening.
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Hello Room 4 Families,
-Today we worked on reciting our Poem for Remembrance Day, 'Poppy, Poppy.'
-We worked on our hundreds charts and the students completed a quiz on number sense a few days ago, that we took up together.
-We are still working on our Raincoat experiment in Science and students created a diagram. They will design their version of the perfect raincoat.
-Today home reading was sent home with the Grade 2 Students and we will begin with our Grade 1 students next week.
-One suggestion made was to be 'environmentally friendly'. If you have a spare plastic bag at home please feel free to send it in with your child so they can put their red duotang in it.
-If possible, please attend our Remembrance Day assembly this Friday at 10:30 am.
-Photo retakes were to be sent out today. If you didn't receive them, you will tomorrow!
Thank you,
Room 4
Monday, November 6, 2017
Dear Families,
Museum School was such an incredible experience for all of us. It was a bit of an adjustment to get back into our classroom routines today. We all missed exploring the galleries! We will continue our work throughout this year and will complete some of the work we started at Museum School with Sheldon and Amy, that we didn't get to finish last week, this week.
-Today we did a science experiment about raincoats. We had to test six different materials and decide which one would be the best to make a raincoat with. Hamish L
-We learned a new poem called 'Poppy, Poppy'. Emmy H.
-We practiced comparing numbers in math today. We talked about new terms such as 'greater than, more, less than.' Ella M.
-We worked on the letter N and created words and sentences. Gabi
-We played pacman tag and worked on circuit exercises. Mohanad.
Announcements:
Have a great evening!
Friday, October 27th, 2017
Good Afternoon Families,
We had a spooktacular day, celebrating Halloween in Room 4. It was fun to see all the students in their costumes.
-This morning we did a math review of our number sense unit. We then worked on some Halloween adding math.
-The students worked on literacy centers with Halloween words, writing, math and a word search.
-We designed pumpkins. There were lots of great ideas to add to our sketches such as favourite words, symbols, Halloween pictures (ghosts), unicorns and ninja symbols.
-Students worked with their groups to choose designs and paint their pumpkins!
-We had a special visitor come in today - Katherine Symington! She wanted to meet the students and see all of their fun costumes. The students were very kind to her during her brief visit.
-William I. shared interesting information about his family trip to Scotland! He talked about the William Wallace Monument and the castles he saw. He showed us pictures, answered questions and described the places he went.
-We practiced our 'rallying' skills in Gym today as the volleyball nets were up. The skills among our students have improved significantly from the first time we tried using the volleyball nets. Students are more precise with their aim, working with partners and 'moving' with the ball.
***Next week is Museum School. We will depart Haysboro at 9:00am sharp. I have sent a message via email as well with some more details.
-Students need to bring their lunch, comfortable clothing and indoor shoes (we will leave indoor shoes at Glenbow for the week). We ask that students refrain from bringing valuables, toys/extras.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Symington
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Good Afternoon Families,
We were so busy with our 5/6 buddies this afternoon that we didn't have enough time to talk about our blog!
We spent time with our buddies to read and talk about Museum School Expectations. The 5/6's gave advice and tips on how it was like for them when they were offsite (at Camp Kiwanis). Since the program starts on Monday, it is important to review the museum safety and behaviour rules with our students. This is going to be an incredible experience for all, so we want to ensure that we all know how to make this the best experience ever!
Today in Math, we compared numbers. Yesterday, we spoke about 'greater than' and 'less than', and today we we practiced with our groups. Grade one's are working on comparing numbers 1-20 and Grade 2's are working on numbers 1-100.
Students have learned about character, setting and are now working on their plots. We talked about 'problem' and students have begun creating their plots.
We had music class this morning!
We worked on our homes for social studies. Students discussed different types of homes in their community and started working on sketching their own home. We talked about details such as 'who do you live with?', ' how many years have you lived in your home?' and what they like best about their homes.
Important Dates/Information:
Thank you,
Room 4
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Good Afternoon Families,
Today was busy and fun.
-We went to our buddies classroom and we saw the projects about Kamp Kiwanis. (William)
-We had an expert come from the Glenbow Museum. We looked at artifacts, wore gloves and my group got an olden days hair curler. (Logan)
-We learned about what to do at the Museum and what we may do when we visit. (Reed)
-We showed our pictures of Glen bow Museum (what we hope to do, and how we think it looks like. (Ella)
-We have 2 more days of our group challenge to get points. (Jana)
-We are going to the Glenbow Museum in 6 days. We used our number line to find out. (Mohanad)
-We did science this afternoon. We sorted solids, liquids and gases. We looked at pictures/words and placed them into the right column. (Gabi)
-We had recess. (Rider)
-We did some math practice. (Emmy)
-This morning did silent reading and changed books in our book boxes. (Henry)
Parents:
Thank you,
Room 4
Monday, October 23, 2017
Dear Families,
We had a super busy day today! We are looking forward to all the fun activities ahead and of course, for Museum School in 6 days. Please note that important information/permission forms went home today. I will remind the students to bring in their forms from their backpacks! Please send me a message if you have any questions.
Our Blog:
Parents- Tomorrow our Museum School coordinator will be visiting to share information and guide us through artifact investigation. She will be here from 9:30am-11:00am. Volunteers who will be joining us on the trip are encouraged to attend, if possible. We also have some student teachers here at Haysboro that will be coming in to visit.
-On Wednesday, our students will help prep harvest vegetables. Chef Caitlin has designed menus for all grades!
-On Thursday we have Photo retakes!
-The students will work with buddies on Thursday afternoon to complete a pumpkin investigation.
-We will celebrate Halloween on Friday! Students can come dressed in their costumes.
Room 4 is busy!!!!!!! It is going to be an incredible 2 weeks and we appreciate all of your support.
Room 4
Friday, October 20, 2017
Here is our class blog:
-Thanks again to Room 4 families for your excitement about Museum School. We have been doing a lot of pre-work in our class during our social studies periods. Each week we have 'Museum Mondays' in addition to other work (journaling, looking at objects, discussing what a Museum is/Glenbow etc.)
-Museum School Volunteers - if you are available on Tuesday morning at 9:30am to approximately 11:00 am (we just confirmed timing), please join us in our classroom for some more artifact discovery. Amanda from Glenbow will be visiting to work with students and prep for our trip.
-We've had some more parents sign up for volunteering during the week of October 30-November 3rd. Thank you! If you still want to join, please do!
-Please stay tuned for our home reading program. We will begin with Grade 2 students are are currently coordinating info/materials to start to send home!
-As we will be at Glenbow Museum on Halloween Day, our class will celebrate the holiday with Halloween themed activities on Friday, October 27th. The students can dress up in their costumes!!!! It will be Fabooooolous.
Thank you!
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Dear Families,
Thank you for attending our Open Minds (Museum School) Information Session last evening. I will post the volunteer schedule via school messenger (email) this evening. We still need some more volunteers, so please let me know if you can come. We do require that all volunteers have up to date police clearance.
Happy Diwali! Today our students learned about Diwali. Please ask them about it.
Here is our class blog:
Please see us on twitter at @SDSymington for pictures and updates.
Have a lovely evening.
Room 4
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Hi Room 4 Families,
Today was a great day!
-We had some extra outside time today to sketch in our journals (Garden) and use the playground. (Logan)
-We had music and we learned a new song about Halloween. (Ben)
-We went gym today and played a new game called Space Invasion (Rider).
-In math we used our 100 chart and counted by 2's, 10's and 5's. (William)
Lots of volunteers got use the smartboard to show each number that we skip counted. (Vlad)
-At the beginning of the day we read from our book bins, changed our books and we practiced the letter F. (Henry)
-We worked on our characters and wrote about their feelings and actions. (Gabi)
-Our teacher read Miss Nelson is Missing (Emmy). We talked about how the main character is Miss. Nelson(William).
*We are excited about Museum School (Logan).
*Please remember that tomorrow night we are having an information session about Museum School at 6:30PM. We hope to see you all.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Hello Room 4 Families,
Here is our class blog for Friday 13th:
-It’s bucket filling Friday (Logan)
*Room 4 are working on being the best bucket fillers they can be! Please ask students about the book and ways they can help be bucket fillers in their home lives too.
-We went to gym and played volleyball (William)
-We used counting on with numbers (moving forward from 20, 30 and 40) and worked on our centers (Emmy)
-We had fun playing math games (Ben)
-In writing, we created characters (Cody)- Cody made a karate panda.
-We practiced calendar and sang the days of the week song(Ella)
-We have received letters from all over Alberta for our letter exchange. We continue to read about new communities.
-This week we will be celebrating the holiday of Diwali (theme) on Thursday, October 19th. We will make connections in Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Art.
-Please sign up for fun lunch. You can find details on the Haysboro school website!
-Thank you for your responses about Museum School from October 30-Nov. 3rd. Please attend our Info Session at 6:30 on Wednesday, October 18th.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Dear Families,
Today the students were so busy, that we ran out of time to blog together. My apologies!
Here are some highlights from our day:
Thank you!
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Hi Families,
I hope you had the chance to read our message about Museum School! Thank you to all of those who have responded already and we look forward to sending you more information soon. This is going to be an incredible program.
Here is today's blog:
-We made characters today based on the book we read called Chester's Way (Henry)
-We read the book 'Chester's Way' today. (Reed)
-We read 'I am a story' and talked about our trip to Museum School. (Logan)
-Mr. Aaron came in to talk about the Opera. We talked about the story we are writing and gave ideas about 'problems' the flowers in the garden may encounter.
-We practiced journaling in our sketch books today. (Gabi)
-Grade 1’s read a poem called 'Orange' and practiced while Grade 2's did some buddy reading. (Ella)
-We used scoops and paddles today to volley with a partner. (William I)
-We worked on estimating today in math. We worked with a partner to make estimates with our manupulatives and then count. (Gabriel)
-It’s snowing (Logan)
-We sang the numbers song – 1 – 100 (mohaned)
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Hi Families,
We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and long weekend.
-We had music today and we sang a new song (Ben)
-We did a science experiment to se what material can hold the most water. The sponge held the most water. (William S)
-We saw a picture of Mrs. Symington’s Ancient Egypt picture of Cleopatra and talked about what we see, wonder and think. (Vlad)
-We did language arts and talked about letter of the day, and characters in stories(Reed).
-We worked on calendar, math and how many to get to 7? (Ella)
Parents- thank you again for all of your help with Stone Soup last week. The kids enjoyed this experience and even the taste of the soup!
-Please note that October 19th is another 'fun lunch' day.These special days are fundraisers for the Parent Association. If you would like to join/sign up, please go to www.healthyhunger.ca to place an order.
-Photo money was due today!
-Please look out for a message about Museum School via messenger in the next day.
Thank you!
Thursday, October 5, 2017,
Hello! I apologize for the late post.
The students and I didn't have the chance to write the blog together today because they were so busy harvesting in the garden and making art, right up to the bell!
The students met their grade 5/6 buddies from Mrs. Pratt's class today. They joined us later in the afternoon. Mrs. Pratt took 1 group of buddies to our community garden to harvest what we could after the frost. Several of our Haysboro team have been working hard to salvage veggies after the early frost. I stayed with our other group of buddies to work on some beautiful Fall art. Both groups had the chance to participate in both activities and we will continue to work on our art tomorrow.
In math, we continued to work on making numbers to 20 and use the strategy of counting on, using 10 frames.
We had music class and and played space invasion in gym today.
We worked on our class letter to send to 25 other schools for our Alberta letter exchange. We will be sending our letters tomorrow.
We worked on journaling and our guiding questions, "What do I see?", "What do I wonder?"
Thank you to all for your help in preparing for our Stone Soup activity tomorrow. We look forward to having a fun morning together.
Have a good evening!
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Hello Families!
Today we wrote about our Jello experiment and made three diagrams. (Vlad)
In math, the grade one students practiced making numbers to ten, using addition. (Emmy)
We read another version of Stone Soup this morning. (Logan)
We did a writing activity about Stone Soup and listed all of the ingredients from the book. (Mohaned)
We went to the library to change books. (Ella)
In gym, we did circuits using scoops, hoops and bean bags. (William S.)
Parents- please send in picture money by October 10 if you would like to order pictures.
Thank you for the response to our Stone Soup activity on Friday. We appreciate all of your offers of help. The following list indicates the ingredients that students are bringing. We used a 'first come, first served' process. Thank you to all!
We will be using some veggies from our garden and will work with Grade 5/6 buddies tomorrow!
Stone Soup Ingredients
Austin Carrots (4)
Saiya Can of Corn
Henry Carrots (4)
William Chicken Broth (1)
Hamish Celery
Annika Chicken Broth (1)
Emmy/Logan Onion (1)
Atticus Can of corn (1 can)
Khloe Diced Tomatoes (1 can)
Austin Carrots (4)
Saiya Can of Corn (1)
Ella Spoons
Cody Pasta/Macaroni
Reed Cutting Boards/Utensils
Mrs. Symington cups, spices, crock pot
Thank you very much!
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Dear Families,
We are sorry for the late blog post today!
Today we had a practice lockdown drill at our school. Mrs. Roz and I talked to the students before the practice about procedures and answered important questions about what the purpose of the drill was. We discussed that it was different from a fire drill in that it was used in the event of other emergencies to keep our community safe. The students did a great job and showed a lot of stamina throughout the procedure. Office Don came in to speak to us after the practice and told the students that they all did a wonderful job.
Our class is participating in a letter exchange with 25 other schools throughout Alberta. We were assigned the letter X, which was our letter of the day. Our class will decorate 'X' signs and will be mailing one copy to each participating school, along with a class letter that shares information about our class community as well as the larger community of Haysboro. We will write this letter together tomorrow and have started to work on our signs. In turn, we will receive letters from various communities and will learn interesting facts for our discussion and learning about communities.
During math, we did a graphing activity, ' Room 4 Birthdays. We gathered information and each student made a graph showing the number of students with birthdays in each month. We practiced putting the 12 months in order and used our number sense to find out the months with the least and greatest number of birthdays in room 4.
The students had music this morning and will continue to work on the Opera with Mr. Aaron tomorrow.
We continue our work on Stone Soup tomorrow and will be comparing two different versions of the book/story (message, setting, characters). We have had a great response to our request for contributions and volunteers for Friday. Thank you! I will send a message tomorrow to confirm the list of items/ingredients. Due to a large response, all the items have been covered for our activity by families. Thanks for your responses and please know that there will be lots of future volunteer opportunities.
Thank you!
Monday, October 2, 2017
Dear Room 4 Families,
We were all surprised with our snowy weather today! We hope you all keep warm and enjoy this beautiful snowfall. We had a lot of weather discussion today during our calendar time (William S.)
-We played a new game in math today. We used dominoes to estimate and compare numbers. The partner with the larger number won! (Ella)
-This morning we read a book called 'Stone Soup' and talked about giving. (Khloe)
-Mr. Aaron came in to visit us and talk about the Opera. We worked on storyboards. We had to come up with ideas to help. (Logan)
-The Jack Rabbits won the group challenge for the month of September. Today we changed groups to work with new friends. (Reed)
-We played a new type of line tag and rainbow bridge in gym. (Ben)
-Today we brainstormed about what a community is. We started to talk about types of communities. We shared more information about ourselves in our new groups.
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*I will hand out the picture proofs tomorrow! The order deadline is October 10, 2017.
*Please see email for a special message about our Stone Soup Community building activity.
Thank you all! Have a lovely evening.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Dear Families,
Today is our last school day in September! As we continue to talk about Fall and learn from our presentations, the students are getting excited for all the fun coming up next month.
Here are some highlights from our day:
We hope you have a beautiful weekend.
Room 4
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Dear Families,
We had a very busy day today!
This morning we presented our Fall Season posters with our groups. We included pictures and words about Fall. (Reed)
We learned about liquids, solids and gases. (William S.)
We tried a jello experiment in Science where we saw liquid and steam. We think that when the jello is in the fridge, it will turn into a solid. (Vlad)
We worked with numbers in math and started a new game (counting on and fill in the missing numbers). Ella
We danced for our body break to the trolls movie song. William I.
We practiced letter sounds with a song and worked on writing the letter Q. We made new words with the letter Q and wrote sentences. (Mohanad)
We played Pacman tag in gym today. (Emmy)
Our groups are getting lots of points. Ask me about it!
__________________________________________________________________
Please remember that tomorrow is an early pickup day! Students will be dismissed at 1:00. For students that usually go home for lunch, feel free to pack an extra snack as we usually have our snack break at 12:00.
Thank you!
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Hello Families,
Today in math we wrote a quiz about counting with Ten Frames. Emmy
We talked about Fall and got into groups and made posters. We drew pictures and wrote words about everything we know about Fall. We used books to help us with our ideas. Gabi
We went outside to sketch a really beautiful tree. We will be sketching the same tree each season. William S.
We played a word game, using beginning sounds. Saiya
We had outside gym today! Vlad
We sang a fun song about our letter sounds. Ask me to sing it! Mohanned
We went to the library today to switch our books.
We are still accepting forms for the casino fundraiser!!!!
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Dear Families,
Our class had a very busy day today. Mrs. Symington is writing our blog today because we ran out of time this afternoon!
It was for very good reason though. Mr. Aaron came in from the Calgary Opera to start working with our class, to help creat our Haysboro Opera. We talked about what a setting is and we brainstormed some ideas about gardens. We used our imaginations to picture a garden (our setting) and think of a name for it. It didn't have to be like gardens we know. We could invent new plants, animals and add lots of interesting details. We made pictures of our gardens for Mr. Aaron to use as inspiration as he writes our Libretto. Please ask me what a Libretto is and what I named my garden.
We did math outdoors today on the compound. We used a giant ten frame, made of sidewalk chalk to show how we can make numbers to ten. We used our class to fill our ten frame and write equations. Some of our ideas included:
We shared our strategies about how we made numbers to 10! Some students counted the empty ten frame squares, some used skip counting, and others used estimation.
Thank you so much to our parent volunteers today who helped us explore artifacts. We could not have done this fun activity without you. Students were placed into small groups with a parent leader who guided students with questions during their investigation of First Nations artifacts, from Fort Calgary. Each group shared ideas about what they see, think and wonder. Students chose an artifact they wanted to learn more about and sketch. We will continue our work tomorrow now that our 'initial' investigation is complete. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Students also participate in Music class today as well as reading and story time. We are reading a book about Fall and talked about the new season we just begun.
Announcements
-Please help students remember their library books for tomorrow!
Have a wonderful evening!
Mrs. Symington
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Hello!
Mrs. Brierton was with our class this afternoon so I apologize in the delay of publishing our blog. I wanted to keep you updates since we'eve had so many fantastic events happening at Haysboro, with more to come.
Picture day was a success and it was lovely to see the students dressed up and excited to have their pictures taken. I'm sure it will be a fantastic class picture!
We worked on more letter writing/sounds today and created words from our 'letter of the day' which was D. For some, this is review but a great opportunity to build new vocabulary. We also worked on our hot air balloon activity which the students will share with one another tomorrow. Students practiced read to self and returned/found new books at the library. Library will always be on Wednesday afternoon from 1:05-1:35PM. Please help remind your students to bring their books back on Wednesday so we can return them.
We continued with our exploration of liquids. Students worked on new experiments, testing different types of liquids (honey, oil and water) and compared the three. They described the volume, flow, textures and smells of each. They made predictions about which liquids would move faster and why. We used our visual journals to record information.
We read the book "Making the Moose out of Life."
Upcoming Events/Information
Parent-led conferences will begin tomorrow and I have most families booked in for a meeting, thank you! If you need assistance please call our office or contact me at sdmcguiresymington@cbe.ab.ca
We are on twitter so please follow us @SDSymington
Please check your email in the next day or so as I will be sending some information about an inquiry activity we need some help with next week.
Thank you so much and we will see you Thursday/Friday.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Hello Families,
We hope you enjoyed the beautiful day today. It was perfect for our Terry Fox Run.
All the grade 1/2's were challenged to run 5 laps, and everyone did an amazing job! Our entire school showed their effort and enthusiasm.
We watched a video clip about Terry Fox and his marathon of hope before our run. Students shared their ideas about what a hero is and talked about Terry's character and contributions. Here are some ideas:
-He was a legend. (Mallory)
-We saw a statue of Terry Fox as we were driving across Canada (Logan).
-Terry Fox is a role model. (Reed)
-He raised money for cancer. (Jana)
-He helped alot of people.
Our class went to Music this morning (every Tuesday and Thursday from 11:15 to 12).
Today we thought of four things we want to share about ourselves. Some ideas include our favourite colour, favourite animal, a goal we have, our favourite outdoor activity, sports we like, books we have read. We used our journals to organize our ideas and then started our good copies. We also practiced printing and read with a partner.
We started to learn about how we use ten frames to show numbers and count.
We went outdoors for some free gym/play time this afternoon since we missed our gym period this morning.
We worked with our groups on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) bins and had to build certain structures from various materials. One of our groups made a maze.
Announcements
-Tomorrow is picture day! We will be called by the 5/6 volunteers when it is our turn to get our picture taken.
-Thank you for sending back newsletters.
-Most of our families have booked time for conferences on Thursday and Friday. Please contact Mrs. Symington if you encounter any issues or need some help at sdmcguiresymington@cbe.ab.ca
- Please follow us on twitter @SDSymington
Thank you!
Hello Room 4 Families!
Welcome to our third week in Grade 1/2.
We had a very busy day today.
This morning we continued to work on our illustrations for the 'book with no pictures'. We learned to add detail, retell the story and use clues in the story to help us.
We created a number line and every student made their own part. We each got a number and showed it by using words, pictures and our number. We will finish this tomorrow and will move to working with ten frames.
Today was museum Monday. Our class had the opportunity to explore an object (artifact) from the Siksika and Tsuu T'ina First Nations. We learned how to look at objects and handle them carefully with our white gloves. We talked about what we see, what we think and what we wonder. Here were a few ideas:
We will continue to our explore the past and have brought the Museum to room 4. We are using authentic artifacts on loan from Fort Calgary. Parents- please stay tuned for some possible volunteer opportunities!!!!
We also did two experiments with liquids today. We looked at surface tension and learned that water "changes shapes to match the container."
"Water moves and we saw bubbles when we poured it."
Have a wonderful evening!
Friday, September 15, 2017
Good Afternoon,
Thank you again to all of our Room 4 families for their patience while waiting for access to our class blog.
Today I sent home picture package forms with the students.
Our students are starting to get used to our Friday schedule. If your child usually goes home for lunch, please feel free to pack an extra snack/drink as we always have our nutrition break/lunch at approximately 12:00 on Fridays.
Today we practiced our reading stamina as part of our Daily 5 Literacy Program. We were so proud, as we made it to 90 seconds of reading to self, without any talking. Now that students are choosing 'just right' books and exploring more topics they are interested in, they are enjoying their time reading independently as well as with others.
Students switched their books in their book boxes.
We enjoyed our nature museum today in class. Students moved into different groups to share with new friends. We talked about our treasures and shared the following information:
-Where I found my object.
-What my object is.
-Described the colour, how it feels/texture, smell.
-Why I think it is interesting.
We spent time learning about sketching in our visual journals. Students chose natural treasures to sketch. We practiced using details, writing words to identify sketches and even making sketches to scale.
We practiced our colour poem (red) and used our writing journals to print letters.
We played three tag games in gym today and ran three laps in preparation for the Terry Fox run.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Next week we will continue to explore liquids in Science and learn about solid objects. We will have Museum Monday and begin looking at artifacts.
You can reach me at sdmcguiresymington@cbe.ab.ca
Thank you,
Room 4
Good Afternoon Room 4 Families,
We have resolved the glitch that prevented some of our families from logging into our class blog. Thank you for your patience!
Each day the class and I write our blog together. Students share their ideas and I will add notes/important information as well.
Today Mrs. Symington had a meeting so we had a substitute teacher in the morning.
We read the book 'The Book without Pictures' and made illustrations of two pictures from the book, on our own. Our discussion and the words in the book helped us to create our illustrations.
We talked about the number of the day (5), calendar and worked in our new math workbooks.
It is 'think outside of the box' Thursday so we created our own designs from shapes. We take the shape and think about what we can turn it into. We used a crescent shape today.
We had music this morning and attended a very special Opera Assembly! Members of the Calgary Opera came to visit Haysboro.
Ms. Lauren sang and Mr. Mel played the piano. We met the Director, Ms. Sarah and Ms. Olga. This year we will be writing and participating in an Opera!
After our assembly, Mrs. Symington took us outside for gym. We also got into small groups and went on a nature treasure hunt. We looked for three interesting treasures to sketch and share. We didn't sketch outside because it started to get a little too cool so we brought our treasures inside and will sketch them tomorrow.
Some of the items we chose were:
We will share during our nature museum tomorrow and will also explore liquids (water) tomorrow.
Room 4
Teacher's Notes.....
-My email address is sdmcguiresymington@cbe.ab.ca
-Picture Day is on Wednesday, September 20th.
-Thank you parents for returning forms!
-We sent home a newsletter today re: Casino Fundraiser.
Thank you!
Hello!
Today we talked about different types of liquids and we recorded words and drawings in our science books.
We went to gym and grade 6 volunteers taught us how to play spy. It was so much fun.
We identified numbers and played some new math games, using dice. We worked with new partners and challenged each other.
We went to the library today and took out books. We learned about 'good fit books'. We read our new library books.
Today we had an indoor recess.
Please see the newsletter!
Room 4
Good Afternoon Families,
We had a great day today!
Today we went to our first day of Music class. We played a game in music and it was fun. We will be going to Music class on Tuesday and Thursday at 11:15 to 12:00.
We played space tag in gym today and ran 3 laps. We also played rainbow tag. We talked about cooperation and fair play.
We made a really cool science experiment today using liquids. We used oil, food colouring and water. We found out that when we mix water and oil, they don't mix. We observed and recorded our information in our science journals and reviewed all the liquids we know from our lesson yesterday.
We practiced calendar and working with numbers in math.
This afternoon we took a museum walk to display and share our rocks for our rock garden. We have been talking about Museums and what types of things we see and do when we go visit.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Room 4
Hello Room 4 Families,
We have completed our first week together!
Today we started our day with our morning meeting to review our schedule, calendar, discuss our class promises and share. We then joined Mrs. Carmichael's class to complete a grade level task of creating our own rock garden. We read the book ' Only one you' and discussed the importance of appreciating our differences and unique characteristics. Then, each class member selected a rock/stone and sketched their design before painting their own rock with colours and a symbol of their choice.
We also talked about three ways to read a book! We used the book 'How do Dinosaurs go to school?' and talked about using picture clues, retelling and using words we know to help us understand what the story is about.
We went outside for gym today and played rock/paper/scissors tag, freeze tag and rainbow tag.
Our group animals have been chosen and our five table groups are the Cheetahs, Coyotes, Jack Rabbits, Cats and Penguins. We will change our table groups/names throughout the year!
We will be starting Music next week. Our class will go to Music on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:15am to 12:00. We will also visit our school library on Wednesday afternoons.
Please return the form sent home regarding our class blog!
Thank you and have a wonderful weekend.
Good Afternoon Parents,
Today was a very hot day! We tried to cool down with some Cosmic Kids Yoga Practice and the students seemed to enjoy this quite a lot.
We started our Thursday 'think outside of the box' theme, and students created objects/structures from one shape by using their imaginations. We completed this task before our morning meeting and shared some of our creative ideas together.
We created a 'What is our Hope?' poster and read a book called "This school year will be the best!'
We attended our first assembly as a class and the students were amazing!!!! They made good choices and listened very carefully.
We practiced word work today and calendar.
We also completed our portraits and did our steam centers for the first time.
In gym we practiced circuits with scoops and hoops and it took a little time to coordinate (as is usual for a first try) but the students got the hang of rotations and there was a lot of effort.
Tomorrow we will be doing an art project as a grade level.
Have a good evening.
Mrs. Symington
Dear Parents,
We had a terrific Day 2 today in Room 4.
Today we read the book 'Chrysanthemum' and talked about being kind inside and outside of our classroom. For our math activity, we created name graphs by counting the letters in our names.
Three students have 8 letters in their name!
We explored our class library and selected books to add to our brand new book boxes. Each student has their own, to remain inside our class.
We participated in a Stem challenge called Tower Power and students created their own structures to show each other, using math manuipulatives such as blocks and pattern blocks.
The students completed their daily calendar activity and had fun playing three tag games in gym.
I hope you have a wonderful evening.
Mrs. Symington and class
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Dear Parents,
It is wonderful to be back to school today! I'm sure all of our wonderful students are a little tired after their first day back of learning and seeing new and old friends.
Today we had alot of fun getting to know each other. We played 'getting to know you' games outside in the field with our entire grade level. We also spent time touring our school and completing a scavenger hunt. All of the kids did an amazing job!
We read 'The Kissing Hand' and talked about our feelings on the first day. I hope you love the craft your child made for you. They worked hard and were quite pleased.
We talked about our classroom and went through some class expectations, with the help of the book 'No, David No!'.
The students began self portraits today and we will be taking part in a fun 'time capsule' project this week.
I look forward to another day of learning and play with your children. We're off to a great start and it was very special to meet each and every one of your children today.
Kindest Regards,
Mrs. Symington