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| Students worked together today to play a compound word game at our working with words center! |
We continue to work with identifying the geometric properties of 2D and 3D shapes. We are also talking about lines of symmetry in various 2D shapes.
Our new focus in Math is on 3D Geometry. Today students investigated the geometric properties of various 3D shapes. We used post-its to describe the shape, name it if we could and talk about what we notice about it. Some students noticed that 3D shapes have vertices just like 2D shapes. Other students noticed that 3D shapes have 2D faces. We created a list of what we know and learned some new 3D terms like edges, faces and vertices. Ask your child what each of these words mean.
Today we worked on our first draft of our explanation writing on hand washing. We used a mini checklist to help us in our writing. Students continue to use a checklist to help remind them how to write an explanation text. Good writers us a checklist like a success criteria to help keep them on track while writing. We are focusing on how to wash our hands and why it is important for our health! 
Our current writing focus is on explanation writing. Students have been working to add to our writing criteria as well as think about how to explain something they are good at. Today we read a story about personal hygiene and focused on how and why we wash our hands. We did a shared reading of the story using our SmartBoard. Students took turns reading and demonstrating some of their reading strategies. We are working as a class on pointing to the words while we read! This is what good readers do so that they can focus on each word in the story.
Great News! I just discovered a great online reading resource called TumbleBooks. It is a free online e-book service that you can access on the Ottawa Public Library's website! You must access TumbleBooks via the Ottawa Public Library in order to get the free service. Just search for TumbleBooks in the Ottawa Public Library's wesbite or follow this link:
Each day that we do our literacy centers, students get an opportunity to share what they've learned. This is an opportunity for students to read or demonstrate a new strategy that they want to share with the class. The 2 girls worked at the word wall center today. They were using the magnet letters to make some of our word wall words directly on the Word Wall board. What a great idea. They were excited to share it with the class. Way to go girls!
Finally in Math, we are working on 2D shapes. Today we talked about the various features of different shapes like their sides, their lines and their corners. Today we learned that corners is another word for vertices. We also tweeted some new learning.
For the past few weeks, students have been working on data management in math. We have conducted surveys and analyzed data. We compared graphs and explained our findings using math language. Data shows information on a chart (like a tally chart) or a graph (like a pictograph or a bar graph).
Our class has a new learning skill focus: Self Regulation. As a class we watched a video that explain how you can help keep control of your emotions - the students really loved it!
In Art today we started working on landscapes. We are thinking about winter pictures and winter landscapes. We sang a song about landscapes and talked about what background, middleground and foreground mean. 
Here are our 5 new word wall word for this week. For homework, students are encouraged to play some word wall games located in your homework book! We practice many of the games at school during our Literacy Centers time. Ask your child what their favourite word wall game is. 
