Meaningful Sentences

Our class has been hard at work writing meaningful sentences.  Our focus over the month has been adding more detail to our sentences and using connecting words to join two ideas together.  Today, we worked around the classroom writing sentences.  Each student found one of the pictures posted, wrote some information about the photo, then wrote a sentence.  Sentences had to include a capital, punctuation and a joining word.  When the sentence was complete, they were rewarded with a sticker, erased their board and went to write another sentence.  They had some great ideas and worked hard! 

 

This man accidentally drove his car in a hole because he was on his phone.

The snowmen were taking over the world because they were grumpy.

This is a very big suitcase and it is orange.

Air, Soil and Water In-Class Fieldtrip

Yesterday, we participated in an in-class fieldtrip on Air, Soil and Water.  We covered all kinds of learning objectives in an afternoon, which is a great addition to our regular theme work. 

 

 Our objectives for this unit include:

• describing physical properties of air, water and soil
• identifying the main components of soil (eg. sand, rocks, clay)
• illustrate and label the parts of the water cycle
• define and describe the processes of evaporation, condensation and erosion
• distinguish ways in which air, water and soil interact
• explain why air, water and soil are important for living things
• describe how living things depend on air, water and/or soil

 

The kids loved their afternoon of exploration and learning activities. They were able to mix four different parts of soil together, make a mountain and show how erosion happened when they used their pipettes to make a rainstorm.  Check out the photos of kids getting cozy with some prime decomposers: worms! 

 

Math Games and Math Centres

One of our math themes since returning back to school has been learning Addition Strategies.  We would like students to recognize some of the strategies they are using while adding and use them to help with mental math and faster recall of their facts.  Strategies include: pairs that make ten, doubles, near doubles, commutation (starting with either addend in an addition question), and counting up. After learning about a strategy, we've been playing a game to reinforce the concept.  The game pictured below is called Sums of 10 and students were trying to see how many pairs they could find on their game board. 

Math centres:  Students had a chance to practice place value, number sense, word problems and geometry, all while having some fun with their partners.