January 10/14 Here is the link to our new Bitstrips account so you can access it at home.
http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/login/
January News
Important Dates January 17 - PD Day
Language
The book selected for our January novel study received numerous awards including the following; #1 New York Times bestseller, A School Library Journal Best of Children's Books 2012, A Publishers Weekly Best of Children's Books 2012, A Kirkus Reviews Best of Children's Books 2012 and A Booklist Best of Children's Books 2012.
Wonder is essentially ... a wonder. It's well-written, engaging, and so much fun to read that the pages almost turn themselves. More than that, Wonder touches the heart in the most life-affirming, unexpected ways, delivering in August Pullman a character whom readers will remember forever. Do yourself a favor and read this book – your life will be better for it. " - Nicholas Sparks , #1 New York Times bestselling author.
I am excited to share Wonder by R.J. Palacio with the students. We will be participating in numerous activities during the next couple of months so be sure to check in here and with your child to see what we are up to! Visit the author's website at http://rjpalacio.com/book.html to learn more about the book!
In our writing, we are continuing to work on "Word Choice" in everything so that we are getting our ideas across effectively and adding interest. Using wow words such as lumbered, stomped, wrestled, twisted and waltzing enhances the students' ideas and the reading experience for the reader.
Guided reading and fluency practise will also be part of our weekly routine.
Math We will be exploring all sorts of patterns involving numbers and geometric shapes during the month of January. We will start off by examining a series of numbers such as 2,5,3,6,4,7 and will determine the pattern is +3 , -2. Later in the month we hope to be able to solve more difficult problems.
We have started using a new math website to practice number facts. Your child has a username and password for Sumdog which is found at http://www.sumdog.com/ . This website will reinforce number facts which are an important skill to have in our daily lives using engaging games.
November News Important Dates
Nov. 11/13 - Remembrance Day Assembly
Progress Reports Home
Nov. 14 - 19 - Scholastic Book Fair
Nov. 14 - Parent Teacher Interviews
4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Nov. 25 - Massey Shadow Day
Grade 8 students
Math - We have been working on our numeracy skills with respect to place value. Comparing, ordering, reading and representing large numbers using manipulatives are some of the activities, the students have enjoyed.
In a few weeks we will begin our study of polygons and irregular polygons where we will distinguish between the various characteristics.
Language - Our novel study of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will be completed this week. The students have enjoyed reading the book, taking part in numerous comprehension exercises and viewing both movies to compare them to the book. As part of media literacy, we will decide what audience are the movies and book intended for.
Be sure to check out our vokis at the end of the October news.
Important Dates Friday, October 11 - PA Day Monday, October 14 - Thanksgiving Day
Character Counts Trait - Northwood Knight
Welcome to all of my students and families to the 2013/14 school year!
September was an extremely busy month! We were all very excited when we were able to move into our beautiful, spacious classroom after reorganization day! It has taken a few weeks but things are starting to fall into place. We are all finding that we are able to do so many fun activities with the extra space!
We celebrated International Dot Day by "making our mark" with a Dot painting. (click the link to see our art on our twitter feed) The students love to express their ideas in creative ways and having the opportunity to paint is wonderful! The book, The Dot, is the story of a little girl who is encouraged to make her mark in the world. We discussed Canadians who have made a difference in the world such as Chris Hadfield, Terry Fox and a young girl from Windsor, Sarah Lewis. What mark do you want to make?
Reading a recipe, locating and measuring all of the ingredients is a life skill that everyone needs to have. This year, I plan to have the students follow many different recipes. We started out making playdough! It turned out so well, the kindergarten teachers have asked us to make playdough for their students to use throughout the year. We will also make things such as apple crisp, tacos and muffins.
Literacy in October Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has quickly become a class favourite. Studying the wow words used to describe the fantasy world of the chocolate factory will help us develop and reach our writing goal of using more wow words in our own writing. We are using different reading comprehension strategies to help us understand the story. We will be making connections, inferencing, predicting and numerous other language activities while we enjoy this magical story.
Fluency is also important to being a proficient reader. We are working on individual leveled fluency passages to improve this skill.
Numeracy Telling time and figuring out elapsed time have kept us busy in math since the beginning of school. Some of the students are now working on problems such as, if the movie starts at 12:15 and it is 2 hours and 30 minutes long, at what time will the show be over?
We are also using measuring instruments while we are making different recipes. During the playdough activity, the students had to use a cup, a 1/2 cup and a tablespoons.
We made Vokis to consolidate our learning about the characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Each student made a voki which represented one of the characters who had just found the golden ticket.
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