DreamBox

Great News. Our DreamBox math accounts are ready to go! DreamBox is an online math program that children can access at home. A letter with password information was in your child`s agenda today. You can sign in and start using DreamBox for math right away. It will be a great tool to use over the Christmas break to play some fun math games and review some key math concepts. Students may also add DreamBox to their nightly homework if they wish.We had the chance to practice logging into their DreamBox accounts during our Snow Day today. 

You can find our class login page here: 

https://play.dreambox.com/login/bau5/38564

Click on our class, find your child`s name and put in their password. Happy playing (and learning)!!

What Child is This?

This Friday our PSN and JSN classes are putting on their annual Christmas Nativity Play. Our class will be singing a song in the play. Just like last year, we will be singing What Child is This? Below are the song lyrics. Please have students practice singing this song for the play on Friday:

 What Child is This?

What child is this, who, laid to rest,

On Mary's lap is sleeping?

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:

Haste, haste to bring Him love,

The Babe, the son of Mary.

Here is a YouTube link to the song by Veggie Tales. We've been using this version on the song to practice!

Party Planners

The party planning committee has been working hard over the past few weeks to plan a Christmas party for our class!

It started with a persuasive letter to convince me to have the party. During our Literacy Centers time, a committee was formed. The girls worked together to plan the party. They came up with a list, they created invitations and decided what we could do at our party!

We said thank you to Mme. Paradis for letting us have a PJ Day!

The girls made sure to invite everyone in our class and handed out their invitations today. They worked so hard the past few weeks! Thank you girls for organizing this party for us. The class will really love it!

Last year some students tried to persuade our principal to have a Pyjama Day. They received great news today when they learned that we are allowed to wear PJ's to our party this Friday!

Some students used apps like Pic Collage and Tellagami to thank Mme. Paradis for letting us wear PJ's!

Friday will be a great day. Our party will be in the afternoon. Students can wear their PJ's to school. Students are also invited to bring snacks to our party. We can't wait. Thanks again to the girls who worked hard to plan this party for us! 

New Literacy Centers

This week we worked on 3 of our Literacy Centers. We are now working on Read to Self, Working on Writing and Working with Words. Our Literacy Centers time gives us an opportunity to practice the our literacy skills. We also use our centers to investigate our wonders and our great ideas. Students are very comfortable with these centers.

Some of our students are using their Literacy Centers time to plan a class party. They are making lists, creating a guest list, writing invitations and conferencing about what we will do at our party. The party committee is also blogging about our upcoming party. Please refer to our class Blogs for more information. Feel free to leave them a comment too!


kidblog.org/MrsCiampa/


Students are adding their own ideas to what we can do at our centers. We are playing word games featuring Christmas and Word Wall Words. We are writing our own stories on our Blogs. We are reading on our Raz Kids accounts. We added reading our writing on the AudioBoom iPad app. We are also making our own stories about Tallulah! We are learning so much already. Students will continue to work in  their Literacy Centers weekly to practice writing and vocabulary skills. Ask your child what they learned at their centers this week!

listen to ‘Wn's why tallulah should tell santa to put me on the NICE list.’ on audioBoom

December Newsletter

Follow the link to view our December Newsletter! 

https://drive.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/file/d/0B_re1hqN_E-AX1ZGY2k1enVXUlE/view?usp=sharing

Data Collection

Our current Math focus is on Data Management. Over the past few weeks, students have been working towards analyzing and collecting data information. We recalled how to collect and organize data on a tally chart. Students recalled what tally charts must have and created a criteria list to refer to when organizing their data. 

Next, students learned what bar graphs must have. We created a must have list, and refer to it when creating our own bar graphs. Students learned new vocabulary such as AXIS. Students noticed that a bar graph is shaped in an L. The vertical part is the Y AXIS and the horizontal part is the X AXIS. We learned about the difference between labels and subtitles. We use graph paper and a ruler to create our graphs.

This week students came up with their own survey questions and created a tally chart. We went into Mme. Erskine's grade 4/5 class to ask our survey questions. We are currently working to analyze our data using math vocabulary. We are also working to transfer our tally data into a bar graph. Ask your child about what bar graphs and tally charts must have! 

Below is our Data Collection Criteria thus far. We will continue to work on bar graphs this week. Next week we will focus on Pictographs!

Adventures with Tallulah

This week a tiny elf appeared in our classroom. Students learned that she was sent from the North Pole. Her name is Tallulah and she reports to Santa at night time. 

Tallulah has made us laugh a lot this week. In the morning the students are eager to find out where she is hiding next. We used many adjectives to describe her this week. Students wrote a descriptive paragraph about her. During our literacy centers some students have started to write adventure books about her too. 

We can't wait to see what silly things Tallulah might do next. Stay tuned to more adventure updates with our mini elf Tallulah. Ask your child all about her. What kind of adjectives describe what she looks like?

Advent Liturgy Video

Today the students lead our Advent Liturgy in our school's gym. A HUGE thank you to all parents who were able to join us. The students were so excited that you could make it. 

Below is our Kindness Video that we worked on this week. We used the iPad app iMovie to create it. We hope this video will inspire the students at our school to show kindness at school and at home! 

Enjoy!

 

Literacy Centers

This week we started working on some Literacy Centers. Students recalled all of the awesome work we got to do at our centers last year. So far we have recalled what we could do at the Read to Self center and the Work on Writing center. We created I Can lists so we remember all of the wonderful things we can do while at our center. Students created the lists together. We practiced this week at these 2 centers. Ask your child about the awesome things we are doing at the centers so far. Students have already begun writing their own books, writing letters, posting on our KidBlogs http://kidblog.org/MrsCiampa/ and so much more! We even have some party planners who are writing letters to persuade me to have a Christmas Party!!

Ottawa 67's Hockey Field Trip Reminder

Dear Parents,

Just a reminder that tomorrow students will be travelling to the Canadian Tire Center to see the Ottawa 67's play hockey. Our students will be going with the grades 4, 5 and 6's to this event. In order to prepare for this event students are encouraged to:

• Be on Time! We will be taking attendance promptly at 9:10 and leaving with the school bus right after that.
• Bring a Healthy Lunch! Students are not permitted to buy their lunch or snacks while at the event.
• Bring a bottle of Water!
• Dress Warmly. The inside of the Canadian Tire Center is cold, so students are encouraged to dress warmly.
• No Backpacks. Backpacks are not permitted inside the CTC. Students will be travelling with their lunch boxes only.
• Again, please do not send your child to school with money to spend for snacks or a lunch.
• Students will be back in time for dismissal at the end of the day!

Students are very excited and looking forward to the event!!

Student Blogging

Our Blog Posting Criteria created by students!

Our students have begun blogging over the past few weeks. Students came up with a Blogging criteria where we determined what we could blog about. Students brainstormed ideas for our KidBlog posting criteria. This list will help our class to determine what we can blog about. Currently, students have blogged a few times while at school. We are learning how to navigate on our KidBlog accounts on iPads and Chromebooks. Some students are already experts and are helping friends to post on their blogs for the first time.

Students are also learning how to write meaningful comments. We are using comments to give descriptive feedback and to promote conversations. Students will continue to work on how that looks over the next few weeks.

Students are also using their Blogs to demonstrate their digital citizenship. We are careful about how we post. Students are beginning to edit their work before posting and are ensuring that what they post is kind and safe. We will continue to work on how that looks like. Students are eager to add their own avatar's to their Blogs too.

Students are encouraged to blog from home if they would like. They can view our Blog Post Criteria to determine what they might post. Students are also encouraged to read over our Blogging Etiquette guidelines. An etiquette contract will be sent home soon. In the next few weeks, student login information will also be sent home. Many students have already memorized their login password. Follow the link to view our blog page! http://kidblog.org/MrsCiampa/ 

Patterning Review

Over the past few weeks we have been working on patterning in math. Students are exploring repeating, growing and shrinking patterns.

Students are encouraged to review and practice what we've learned about patterning this weekend. I have attached our success criteria. We reviewed what we know and what we remember about the various types of patterns. 

Next week we will continue to review and finish the week with a patterning quiz. Students are encouraged to practice making patterns with both numbers and objects. Reviewing math vocabulary such as pattern core, changing attributes and pattern rules will be beneficial. 

Global Read Aloud Learning

The 7 Peter Reynolds stories that we read during the project.

The Peter Reynold's author study has come to an end and our class reflected today on what we learned throughout the project! We chatted in small groups and participated in mini talking circles to share what we learned and what our favourite parts were. Students reflected on the 7 Peter Reynold's books we read over the past few weeks. We used the stories to inspire our writing and our creative ideas in many ways. We got to share and tweet with many different classes and we participated in Google Hangouts with some classes too.

The students really enjoyed getting to read differing perspectives. We shared a lot of our learning online using many different apps and on Twitter. The study allowed us to demonstrate our digital citizenship as we modelled what safe and kind online practices looked like. We benefitted from our class tech experts who were great leaders and showed us how to post and share our ideas on apps like AudioBoom, 30 Hands, Padlet Twitter and more!

One highlight from the study was when Peter Reynolds replied to one of our tweets! We had been sharing with him what we were learning and one day tweeted him our Part 2 ideas to his story North Star. We were surprised to see that he replied to our message with a Huge Twitter Secret.

Don't tell anyone, @MrsCiampaClass but I have written the first draft of the sequel to THE NORTH STAR #GRA14 http://t.co/S50P7gNq6R
— Peter H. Reynolds (@peterhreynolds) October 14, 2014

Twitter is amazing for connecting us with the author of this study. The students were so pleased that he could read our tweets and they wondered if any of their North Star part 2 ideas inspired the real part 2 of the book. We hope to read his Part 2 story soon so that we could find out!!

Participating in this Global project has demonstrated the power of online collaboration and the connections you can make from shared learning opportunities. We regularly chatted with many other classrooms (Mrs. King's Grade 3, Mrs. Caluori's Grade 3 and Mrs. Mason's Grade 1/2) and learned from one another. We reflected on safe and kind digital practices during Digital Citizenship week and students made connections with our Global Read Aloud experiences.

We hope that you have enjoyed this journey just as much as we have!

Below, students posted some of their learning from the project using the 30 Hands iPad app. Have a listen to what we learned and what we loved about participating in the author study. A huge thank you to the organizers of the Global Read Aloud Project as well as to Peter Reynold's himself for inspiring us through his wonderful stories. Through this project, my students have grown to understand what it means to show grit, be creative and use your imagination. We hope that our learning below inspires you too!

Digital Citizenship

This past week was Digital Citizenship Week. Students learned about their digital footprint and how to be kind citizens online.

In our class, students are very comfortable with digital citizenship as we use many online tools on a daily basis. We already have a digital presence and students related their classroom experience to many of the videos and lessons we viewed this week.

As the week went on, students learned about the smart choices they should make while participating in online learning. We talked about the importance of keeping some personal information private and how we can show kindness in our online interactions. 

Students wrote paragraphs on how they can be good citizens. We also chatted and tweeted how we are safe and kind online. We decided to make posters to encourage others to make safe online choices and the importance of showing kindness in our interactions. We chatted about what kind of digital tools we use in our classroom as well as tools that students use at home. We hope that our posters inspire students in our school to make a positive digital footprint and to share their thinking and learning like we do!

After creating our posters, some students blogged about digital citizenship and what they learned about online safety this week.  We posted on our KidBlogs. Please follow the link to read about our learning from this week.  Our Student Blogs: KidBlog

Parents, for more information on how you can keep your child safe online, please visit Common Sense Media's website. Common Sense Media

HH:Today we learned to be a good citizens like helping other people who are hurt and who are crying

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 12, 2014

HH:we learned how to go online safety like never saying bad things

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 12, 2014

R.C .. good citizen is to help other people when someone needs support.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 12, 2014

ES says: We've been learning to be careful online and if you see a pop-up, don't open it!

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2014

RC. BE KIND ON THE INTERNET

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 14, 2014

ES says: I am a good citizen when I don't give my information to bad games

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 14, 2014

GRA Week 6: So Few of Me

This week was the 6th and final week of the Global Read Aloud Project. Students wrapped up the project by reading one more book from Peter H. Reynold's collection. So Few of Me is about a boy who wonders if there were more of him...that maybe he could get more work done. Suddenly there are 2, 3,4, and 10 Leo's doing house work and other chores.

 As we read the story the students wondered who all of the boys were in the story. We had a very interesting discussion filled with many possibilities. Students came up with many potential guesses about who all of the extra Leo's might be. We clearly added many words to our personal dictionaries this week. Students had a long discussion about their guesses. Some guesses featured words that some of us had never heard before. We wondered, could the extra Leo's be his doppelganger...his twin....his clone...an illusion...a hologram...a dream?

We were really happy to learn about some of these new words. The Global Read Aloud has taught us so much and now we have added new words to our vocabulary!

If you would like us know what these words mean, ask your child to explain them. You can also send us a tweet on our class Twitter account @MrsCiampaClass and one of our experts can help explain it for you!

HH:I learned the word Doppleganger,illuoisn,hologram,Clone. we raed the book So fear of me #GRA14

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 11, 2014

What does Peace Mean?

We used this video called Peace for Kids to help us come up with describing words for peace. We created a Wordle to share our ideas. Have a look at our adjectives for peace.

If you would like to see how schools in our school board are sharing their learning for Remembrance Day, please follow along with this hashtag:
#werememberocsb

GRA Week 5: Going Places

This week's read aloud for the Peter H. Reynolds Author Study was the book Going Places. We read the book as part of Week 5 of the project.

Going Places Talking Circle

This week students interacted with the story in many fun ways. After reading the story, students had many personal connections to share. As we chatted, we wondered what the author's message was. We decided to hold a Talking Circle to discuss what Peter Reynolds wanted us to learn or what he wanted to teach us through his book Going Places. Luckily, I was able to capture some of our student's thinking by recording part of our Talking Circle on the AudioBoom app. Have a listen to what some student's believe the author's message was!

listen to ‘going places talking circle’ on audioBoom

Peer-to-Peer Feedback

Students wrote about what they believed Peter Reynolds wanted us to learn from the story. They also added some text-to-text and text-to-self connections as well. We continue to be inspired by the messages in his stories. He continues to inspire us to use our imagination, be creative and show grit even when we feel that something is too challenging or too difficult. Going Places also taught us about the importance of working together, cooperation and to think outside of the box!

Students shared their ideas and had the opportunity to read with partners. This allowed them to share their thinking and receive peer-to-peer feedback. Peer feedback is one of our goals this year. We will be using oral and written peer feedback to help improve our writing and expand our ideas!

Students received Twitter messages from classes who are also participating in the Global Read Aloud.

e.s i learn i don.t have to make stuff the same as the others. #GRA14

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 6, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass we think @peterhreynolds message in "Going Places" was that you can, team up, be creative and do things differently. #gra14
— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 5, 2014

.@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds TO says: the video is shows grit because thy wrct together and didnt give up . #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds HH says: I like the video it was nice THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsMasonOCSB @peterhreynolds wn:I agree with your class because it looks the same as the book going places
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 7, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass We compared the book with this @peterhreynolds video http://t.co/KgOyhZpMA6 - check it out. #GRA14 #GRApeter
— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 5, 2014

One other way that student's interacted with the book this week was through a shared-Padlet with a Grade Three class we have collaborated with before. Students used the AudioBoom app to record themselves reading their connections to the story Going Places. Last year, many students became experts since they used the AudioBoom app all year long. This week, our Tech Experts helped friends who are not familiar with the app. They demonstrated their expertise and helped a friend to record, take a picture and save the AudioBoom recording. We have a number of Tech Experts in our room so we are fortunate that students can leverage their expertise to assist others to become experts on this app too. After recording their AudioBoom, we added our readings to a shared-Padlet with Mrs. King's Grade Three Class. Students in both of our classes shared their connections, predictions and thinking on various iPad apps. Mrs. King's class used Pic Collage and Tellagami on the Padlet. On Friday, we took time to read and listen to the thinking posted on the Padlet. This shared-Padlet allowed our classes to collaborate in a truly interactive way. There are so many great ways to use Padlet. Collaborating with another class provides students with so much rich dialogue and a variety of opinions about what Going Places can mean to different people. 

Created with Padlet

I am very thankful that my students have had the opportunity to participate in this amazing Global Project this far. We only have one more week to go. This project has truly inspired my students and I am happy to see how much they've grown in their learning already!

Skip Counting Problem Solving

In Math, we continue to work on recognizing patterns in numbers. We are learning how to skip count in multiple ways and from multiple starting points. Students are practising how to skip count forwards and backwards by 2's, 5's, 10's, 25's and by 100's!

We read this book by Margaret McNamara that focused on counting a large number of pumpkin seeds. We are learning that when we need to count large number of items, we must use skip counting strategies to group the objects. This will help us to organize and solve problems in a quicker way. When we counted the pumpkin seeds, many groups of students skip counted the seeds by 1's.

This week we looked at other ways to sort and skip count. Students worked in small groups to solve math problems. Students used manipulatives and what they've learned about skip counting strategies to help them solve the problems. Students are learning to read the problems carefully to see which skip counting strategy to use when solving the problems. All students recalled that when we solve problems we can use pictures, numbers or words. Excellent cooperation and problems solving was observed.

At home, students are encouraged to continue skip counting items by 2's, 5's, 10's, 25's and even 100's. You can use coins, pasta pieces, rice grains, beans, toothpicks or any other items you can find at home.

GRA Week 5 - Shared Padlet

Together with Mrs. King's Grade 3 class, we posted what we thought the Author's Message was from the story Going Places. We read our predictions and our connections on iPad apps such as AudioBoom and Tellagami. We also used Pic Collage to post our thinking on Padlet. This was a shared learning opportunity between our two classes. Students had the chance to read and view the thinking of students in our class and in Mrs. King's class. Click below to listen and read about our ideas!

Created with Padlet

GRA Week 4: Ish & Sky Colour Connections

This week, we completed Week 4 of the Global Read Aloud Project. Hard to believe we are past the 4 week mark already. Students are very engaged in the project and look forward to seeing what new Peter Reynolds story we will read next. This week as we began reading Sky Color (spelled coloUr with a "U" in Canada), students quickly made many text-to-text connections with other books we previously read during this project. Primarily, their text-to-text connections came from the story ISH.

After reading Sky Color, students made many connections to our on-going discussion on showing grit. In the story, they said that Marisol showed grit by not giving up on creating a sky - even when she did not have any blue. We decided to see what skies can look like without using the colour blue. Have a look at our fun sky colour creations!



In Language, our current focus is writing descriptive paragraphs using adjectives. To prepare students with their ideas for writing, we had our first Talking Circle of the year. Our Talk Circle focus was on Explaining our text-to-text connections and agreeing or disagreeing with the ideas shared.

The Talk Circle helped us to listen to the connections of our peers. We explained our ideas and shared our similar or different viewpoints. Ish and Sky Color have many similarities and the Talk Circle helped us to come up with ideas for our paragraph writing. A lot of rich dialogue was shared - excellent job friends!

Students used the Talking Circle to help them write about the text-to-text connections between Sky Color and Ish. They all believed that the stories are similar. We worked hard on our paragraphs. Students are using a paragraph checklist to keep them on track. The checklist helps them to edit their work to see if they have all of the criteria. The paragraph writing format has inspired many students to write detailed sentences. Adding adjectives helps us to be more descriptive.

Some students had the opportunity to share their work with friends. After writing, we read our paragraphs on the iPad app 30 Hands. Students are learning to use this app to create slideshow presentations featuring photos and audio clips of their work. We hope you enjoy our Sky Color and Ish paragraph reading. We are wondering if anyone has similar text-to-text connections like we found? We are also wondering if anyone has different text connections than what we wrote about? Please share with us on our Twitter page!

Halloween Adjectives

For homework this weekend, students can complete their Halloween nouns and adjectives activity. Once they are finished, students can post more Halloween adjectives and nouns to our Padlet! We have so many great adjectives already. Feel free to add more describing words.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Created with Padlet

Pumpkin Investigations!

Adjectives to describe the inside and outside of a pumpkin

In Science, we continue to explore, wonder and learn all about pumpkins. This week students got the opportunity to really explore all about pumpkins when we did a pumpkin investigation. Students worked in groups to describe their pumpkin both inside and out. We used adjectives to come up with how we could describe the pumpkins. We also made predictions about the features of our pumpkin including how many lines it had and how many seeds.

Students had the chance to consolidate their learning from our pumpkin investigation and post their new learning on our KWL Chart for pumpkins. We know a lot more about pumpkins now. Investigating the pumpkins and reading stories has really helped our learning in science! 

Our current KWL Chart for pumpkins in science!

Using what we learned from Math, students had to come up with their own counting strategies to determine how many seeds they had inside of their pumpkins. We are consolidating our findings and learning more about how to skip count large numbers. So far we know that we can count by 1's, 2's, 5's 10's and even 25's. We will be practicing this skill for the next while.

Understanding how to find patterns in numbers helps us to see numbers in a variety of ways. We can use our strategies to help us count and sort big object (like boxes, desks or chairs) as well as little objects (like pumpkin seeds, coins or toothpicks). Students are encouraged to practice what they recall about finding patterns in numbers at home!

Below is a video of our pumpkin investigation fun. We used the Flipagram app for the first time. What a fun app to capture our pumpkin learning!


 

Skip Counting and Patterns.

In Math, our current learning goal is to recall how to skip count forwards and backwards. We are also working on skip counting at various starting points. Students are creating their own skip counting books and have so far worked on skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. We will be working to skip count all the way to 1000!

At home, students are encouraged to practice skip counting these numbers. We are recognizing patterns in our 100's chart and learning that we can even skip count at many starting points. So we don't always have to start at 10 to skip count by tens....we can even start at 2 and skip count by 10's!

Students are recognizing and writing pattern rules for the skip counting patterns. We are solving math problems each day and adding to our pattern thinking in our pattern books. Please work on skip counting at home with your child. You can use real objects to help you skip count such as toothpicks, coins, erasers, napkins, and more! Have fun with this activity at home.

Tomorrow, students will be working on a fun activity that will require them to recall some of their counting strategies. I wonder if they remember other ways to skip count? Can we skip count by numbers other than 2, 5 and 10??

GRA Week 3: Making Ishful Connections!

This week during the Global Read Aloud Week 3, students had the opportunity to read the great story...ISH! This story by Peter H. Reynolds allowed us to show our creative sides...AGAIN! We explored how to make ishful drawings and we also chatted about Ish connections. 

What does ISH mean? We didn't really know at first. After reading the story, students came up with many different ways to say ISH. Have a look! 

When reading the story, students made text-to-self connections. They noticed that Ramon was not showing grit at the beginning of the story.  He gave up when his brother made fun of his work. Students have been learning how to show grit even when they want to give up, or when a task seems too hard. Here is a link to our GRIT brainstorm from a few days ago. Students are demonstrating that they know how to show GRIT in all parts of their school day. Way to go friends! 

At the end of the story, Ramon demonstrated grit after his sister inspired him to be creative and keep drawing ishful things! Students made their own personal connections and wrote about when they showed grit. We will continue to focus on this important skill as time goes on. Students are working to demonstrate grit in all parts of their day (during a math lesson, when playing a game on the yard, when reading a story, etc).We also had the opportunity to chat with another class on Google Hangout today. We chatted about our connections to the story Ish. Many students got to share their ish drawings and their ish connections that we wrote about. Special thank you to the grade three students in Mrs. Caluori's class. We enjoyed meeting you and can't wait to chat online again. 

Below are some of our Twitter thinking and ishful exchanges after our Hangout today!

Wn an bt says: today we google chat with another gade 3 class!😄
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

jp says: ish menes 5050. #GRA14
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

NN and AB says:Today on google hangout we talked about grit and our connections on our papers and we explained what grit means.
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

HH:Today we ate pizza and it was yummy and we talked with the grade 3 class we talked about ish .
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass GC says, "Thank you students for being so nice and polite when we met today."
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass IL says, "It was fun talking "ish" with you." #GRA14
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

@MrsCiampaClass AL says"We had a fun time meeting you. We hope you had a fun time meeting us."
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) October 24, 2014

Science Wonder

Our Science focus so far has been on plants and life systems. We have explored many types of plants including flowers and trees. This week, students have had many wonders about pumpkins! They must be all over our neighborhood! We created a Know-Wonder-Learn chart. Students posted what they already know about pumpkins. 

We are learning about the features of a pumpkin and talking about a pumpkin's life cycle. We had read a few books about the features of a pumpkin - ask your child to tell you more about what they already know about pumpkins! 

Students are learning that pumpkins are part of the gourd family. Many students are learning about gourds for the first time. We added what we've learned about gourds to our Learned side. Ask your child what they've learned about gourds this week.

Finally, today we came up with a few pumpkin wonders. Students recalled where they could go to get an answer to a wonder. First we used Google. We remembered how to safely Google an image (by writing "FOR KIDS")! Next, students remembered that we could tweet to Wonderopolis to ask a question about one of our wonders. We look forward to hearing back from them soon!

Dear @Wonderopolis is an avocado in the gourd family? #wonder
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 23, 2014

GRIT on Padlet!

We are currently working on how to show GRIT. What does grit mean? And how can we demonstrate grit in our daily life? Have a look at our on-going thinking we are working on using Padlet. Students are welcomed to continue posting their GRIT thinking from home. Way to go to the friends who are currently posting grit examples for homework!

Created with Padlet

GRA Week 2: I'm Here

Our class participated in Week 2 of the Global Read Aloud project. We continue to focus on the author study project featuring books written by Peter H. Reynolds. 

This week's story is called I'm Here. The story is about a little boy who is lonely, playing on the school yard all by himself. We learn how he feels and what he does to keep busy while all other friends are playing. We learn how his imagination helps him to reach out to a friend!

To share and connect using the story this week, we organized a Google Hangout with another Grade 3 class in our city. Mrs. King's Class is a grade 3 class not too far from us. We introduced ourselves and talked about our schools. Some students in our classroom were experiencing a Google Hangout for the first time. We even learned about their school like what a portable is and what kind of earrings their principal wore today!

During our chat, one student in our class recalled how the story reminded her of a previous short video we watched in Religion a few weeks ago. The students made the connection between the friendship video we watched to the book I'm Here. Little did we know...the story I'm Here was the SAME story as the video about friendship we watched! 

As our chat went on, students began to make many connections between Peter Reynolds's books The North Star and I'm Here. We noticed that some of his illustrations were similar. We also noticed that he included a picture of the north star in I'm Here! We thought that was pretty neat. We also shared with Mrs. King's class the Twitter secret we received. Our classes compared North Star Part 2 story ideas. We hope that Peter Reynolds will use some of our cool ideas for the real part 2 that he is writing. Students did an amazing job of listening, sitting quietly and waiting their turn during the video chat. We were happy to meet Mrs. King's class and hope to visit or meet her students one day!

After the chat, we talked about what making connections mean. Students recalled the 3 types of connections we can make to stories (Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self and Text-to-World). We even wrote our own definitions. Some students had the opportunity to build an 'I'm Here' Connection poster. We wrote about our connections to the story I'm Here. Some drew pictures and demonstrated what I'm Here reminded them of. The Grade 3's have wonderful connections to the story. 

ASK YOUR CHILD WHAT KIND OF CONNECTION THEY CAN MAKE TO PETER REYNOLD'S STORY: I'M HERE! Below is a link to the video that we previously watched in Religion. We watched it again to see more connections we could make. 

We are having a wonderful experience with the Global Read Aloud Project so far. Students are getting many opportunities to connect and share their learning. I hope that the next story in the project continues to inspire the students just like the first 2 already have!

Rounding to the Nearest Ten

In Math, students are currently working to represent, compose and decompose 3-digit numbers into hundreds, tens and ones in a variety of ways. 

Students are also working to round two-digit numbers to the nearest ten. Some students need on-going reminders to round numbers, including how to identify and locate the benchmark numbers. 

Students are reminded of the rounding rules. Have a look at our rounding chart that helps us to recall how to round numbers to the nearest ten. 

Here is a fantastic video that will help students who need clarification on how to round numbers to the nearest ten. Practice this skill with your child at home.