Data Collecting

In Math our current focus is on Data Management. Over the past few weeks we've reviewed different kinds of charts and graphs must have. We've talked about what Tally Charts should look like and how information on a Tally Chart can help us explain the shape of our data. We've also converted Tally Chart information into Bar Graphs. Students are very comfortable using graph paper to draw their own Bar Graphs, following a must have checklist to keep on track.

As a class, we created our own survey questions with 4 options. We then went into the Grade 4/5 class to ask them our survey questions. We put their answers into a Tally Chart. Later, we converted the tally information into our Bar Graphs.
We are focusing on using comparative language to describe the shape of our data. Students came up with many ways to describe comparative words such as most and least. We are using these words to help us describe our survey results. Students are also role playing, having math talks and playing games to describe data results. Ask your child about it! We are also using scales to help us read and understand Pictographs better. For fun at home, students can create their own surveys. They can use our Must Have lists to pick a graph or chart to track their results. Ask your child all about our Data unit in Math.

Literacy Centers This Week

This week students became more independent as they explored their interests during our Literacy Centers. Students are getting the opportunity to chose a center that they are interested in and practising a skill or an activity that we are doing in class. Many students mailed letters to Santa this week. They went to the Writing Center to write a friendly letter to Santa telling him what they want for Christmas. They learned how to address an envelope so that he receives it in the North Pole. We are hoping to receive a reply back before we go for holidays. 

Using Tagul, a few students in our room created Word Collages. They are interested in making pretty collages with words that describe Christmas.  A few friends used the Tech Club to work with some Grade 4 friends to create Christmas Word Collages for our upcoming Birthday  Party for Baby Jesus.

Our elf Tallulah kept us busy with many silly antics this week. The students love coming into the classroom each day to find her hiding somewhere in our room. Tallulah inspires our students at the Word Center. We played a making words game using letters in her name. We are writing letters to her and imagining what it would be like if we had an elf of our own. Students got to design their own elf and write about what they would do if they were an elf. 

We help our friends with questions about their KidBlog accounts

Finally, students are really enjoying being experts at using KidBlog. We are blogging from home and during our Literacy Center time. Students are learning how to navigate the website. They are creating blog posts and sharing them with their friends. We are also learning about the comments feature. This week, many students wondered how to comment on a friend's blog. We are currently teaching our friends how to comment and how to write an appropriate response to a friend's post. I am encouraging students to offer effective feedback with a follow-up question. The follow-up questions are meant to encourage more dialogue and authentic conversations. We will continue to work on this in the new year. 

Thank you to all families who blog from home with their child! It is wonderful to see your child excited to blog..and also for you to write together AND comment on your child's writing. This is wonderful for their learning!!

Tallulah made us laugh this week. 

We learn about Christmas eve and we have a class elf her name is Tallulah.DS. CC

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) December 11, 2015

😇 Today I had so much fun learning about Tagul at Tech Club. By: EB

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) December 11, 2015

KidBlog!

https://kidblog.org/class/MrsCiampa/posts

Great news! Over the past few weeks we have been writing on our Student Blogs. We are using the KidBlog website for our student blogging. You can find a link to our Class Kidblog on the magnet that you received at the start of the year.

Today, a Blogging Etiquette contract was sent home. Students and families are welcome to blog and write together for homework each night. It is very important that you read over the Blogging rules and guidelines before posting. We are encouraging our students to post kind messages that support and follow digital citizenship guidelines. Students understand that they are in charge of their own digital footprint. We never post anything inappropriate. We are using avatars for safety purposes. And, we encourage students to have conversations on their blogs through the comments section.

Over the next few months we will continue to focus on blogging to increase our writing interest, practice the skills we learn in class and focus on promoting conversation skills. We hope you follow our blogging adventures!!

Writing Fun at the Writing Center

This week we've had a lot of fun with our new Elf friend Tallulah. Tallulah made her return to our Grade 3 class this week. Each day she's written us letters, moved from place to place in our room and inspired us in our writing. One day she asked us to think of words that describe her. We used this list to write a descriptive paragraph about her. Ask your child about it.

Today she wrote us a letter with a special message about our Writing Center. The Writing Center has been quiet over the past few weeks. She gave us some great writing ideas and reminded us that we could write a letter to Santa. Some students were very eager to write a wish list for Santa. We put our letters into envelopes and addressed them to the North Pole.

One student wondered how to seal an envelope. We taught her that we need to lick it to seal it shut. She was amazed and excited because she'd never done this before. She wondered how Santa would receive her letter so we told her we need to put it in a mailbox to send to the North Pole. She'd never heard of a mailbox either! We spent some time this morning googling mailboxes to show her what happens to mail when it gets sent out. It was a fun morning of learning.

We created a new I-Can checklist for our Writing Center. Students were happy about the writing gifts we got from Tallulah. So many were excited to use our KidBlog accounts to Blog about Tallulah this week. We are practising our writing goals on the Blog. We are aiming to write at least 5 sentences and adding adjectives to our sentences to make them more detailed. Soon, student logins and Blogger Etiquette forms will be sent home so students can regularly access and Blog from home. In the mean time, please have peak at what your child has been doing with their Blogs this week: https://kidblog.org/class/MrsCiampa/posts

Anti-Bullying Week

This week was Anti-Bullying week. As a class we read stories, watched videos and participated in a kindness activity to put our actions and our words into perspective. The paper doll kindness activity helped students to understand the impact that their words and their actions can have on their peers. 

To begin, each student worked hard to colour a picture of themselves. They were told to make it their best work and to make sure that it looked just like them. Then, we sat in a circle and had a discussion. Students were told to tear, rip, scrunch and mark up the doll of a classmate with crayon. Each rip, scrunch, tear or mark represented a hurtful word, a tease, or an unkind action. Students learned that every time they make fun of someone, tease, kick, or exclude a peer they are leaving a mark that cannot be erased or fixed so easily. After the activity we had a long discussion about how the tearing and ripping made us feel. Students used adjectives like disappointed, surprised, tongue tied and heartbroken. When we talked about how it feels when a peer kicks them, teases, laughs or excludes them, the adjectives they used to describe were very similar: sad, sorry, hurt, angry and upset. We made a word collage to represent how we felt during both activities. The paper doll kindness activity and the word collage are now posted outside of our classroom. The students are eager to share with the school what the activity taught them and how they can stop other from bullying or being unkind to their friends. 

This activity was a springboard to our poster project. Together with a partner, students used what they learned this week to make a digital posters to promote kindness. They had to share how bullying makes someone feel and how we can be better friends. They did a great job of capturing their learning and sharing their ideas on Slides. Students have asked to print their posters and they will be posting their work around the school next week. We hope that students in our school can learn from our digital posters. We hope students will stop and make better choices instead of being hurtful friends. 

Growing Patterns

In Math our current focus is on Patterning. We previously worked on understanding repeating patterns. We talked about the pattern rule, the pattern core and the changing attributes. We learned a lot of new attributes and created our own patterns.

Students are now working on growing patterns. We are using number lines, hundreds charts and materials to create, identify and describe growing number patterns. We are recognizing pattern rules in words and matching them to growing patterns using numbers and objects.

Our morning brain snacks are filled with great math problems. Students are beginning their day with growing pattern questions that challenge them to figure out the pattern rule and use many strategies to solve their problem. Our principal Mr. Gautreau gave us some great math questions to think about during our Brain Snacks. It was really neat to discover so many patterns in one question. Hundreds charts have so many patterns in them...who knew? Ask your child about it!

Today @paugaut helped us to find so many patterns in our Brain Snack. We loved the discussion! @Assumption_ocsb pic.twitter.com/pMaTkNBkd3

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 18, 2015

Students had a lot of fun completing growing number pattern activities this week. We worked with partners to figure out the pattern rule to a problem. We also used materials to build pattern rules in a game we created. They all did a great job of collaborating together.
For homework this weekend, students have some math problems to review. They will need to read each question carefully to determine the pattern rule or the missing numbers in the growing number patterns. The questions are similar to the type of questions your child sees each morning during our Brain Snack activities. Please work with your child on these math problems. Next week we will have a patterning math test. This homework will help them prepare for next week's test!

Read to Someone

We are slowly getting comfortable with each of our Literacy Centers. Students have been practising what they can do at their centers independently to practice their reading, writing and vocabulary skills. We will soon be doing our centers daily to practice many concepts that we learn on our own or with a small group. The goal of our Literacy Centers is to have students work collaboratively or independently at centers to practice key concepts in fun and engaging ways.

This week we practiced another center called Read to Someone. We made an "I-Can" checklist as a class to discuss what the rules are for the center. One of the goals that I'd like students to work on is their reading fluency. We practiced this by reading together with a partner and self-evaluating how we did. We had to rate our accuracy, rate, expression and punctuation. A goal for each student is to understand that when we pause during our reading, we need to put a punctuation mark to end our sentence. Students practiced this with their partners while reading their descriptive paragraphs. They did a wonderful job of evaluating how they did. We will keep this evaluation at our center and students can refer to it when reading with a partner at their centers. Ask your child about the new Read to Someone center!

Reflecting on our Learning from the Global Read Aloud Project

CR's beautiful drawings of the 6 books we read during the #GRA15

We have really enjoyed participating in The Global Read Aloud Project over the past few weeks. Students looked forward to finding out about the newest book in the author's study each week. We read 6 books in total. We used the books to increase our vocabulary, to become better writers and to connect and share on a global scale. Thanks to the project, we got to collaborate with a number of classes around the world via Twitter, Padlet, Google Hangout and Google Slides. The students loved seeing how they could interact with a story in so many different ways. We learned a lot about collaborating with friends in our room, and with new friends we are meeting online too.

Students have become better writers as a result of the author study. They are comfortable with answering questions on the books that we read. We used the books to work towards writing descriptive paragraphs that had at least 5 sentences. The students worked hard to write about their best memories and built on the strategies that they've been learning about to write a descriptive paragraph.

Students loved that creating their own OK Book on Google Slides. They are hoping to use the tool again to create books that they can share with the world. They are many blooming authors in our classroom. This book inspired some students to create their own book at the Writing Center!

 

One of the highlights for many of us was the Google Hangout that we got to do with Mrs. Mason's Grade 1/2 class in Kanata. Our classes chatted about our favourite  books in the author study. We shared our OK Books that we both wrote on Slides and took turns answering questions and sharing our learning. It was such a great way to open our classroom and chat with a class who read the same books as us!

@MrsCiampaClass We had a great time hanging out to share about these inspiring, funny & creative books #GRAAmy pic.twitter.com/Jtsgsdi48T

— Mrs.Mason (@MrsMasonOCSB) November 7, 2015

I am grateful to a wonderful teacher who lives in the United States named Pernille Ripp. For the past few years, Pernille has organized and ran The Global Read Aloud Project. Her concept has quickly spread across the world and continues to be a Global Project that many teachers (like me) look forward to teaching each year. She tweeted a thank you on Friday and asked us to share what were our best memories. Students went to the Writing Center during our centers time to reply to Pernille's Tweet with some of their best memories. TC received a response from her and he was SO excited about it. Have a read below at some of our best memories!

EB saya; my favourite book is the ok book because he had a pancake of he head @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

PernilleRipp CD says: My favourite moment is when Mrs. Ciampa went on facetime whith another class. we talked about amykrouse books.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

EB says: My favourite book is plant a kiss because when she kiss the ground and I like your book @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

DS says: my favorite moment is when we did the sides in the ok book by Ds. @pernilleripp

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

BRM my favourite part was the google hangout and writing about if I planted peace !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! @pernilleripp #gra15

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) November 13, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass Awe that is awesome, I am so glad you had a great experience! #gra15

— Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) November 13, 2015

A Little Peace

Tomorrow we will be reading this story during our Remembrance Day ceremony. Please practice reading it with your child at home for homework today. Some students have a reading in their agenda. They can practice reading it at home. If you are able to join us please do! Our ceremony will begin at 10:45.

Adjective Homework November 9-13

One of our current writing goals is to write descriptive paragraphs. The best way to make our descriptive paragraphs more interesting is to add adjective words that describe. We are always trying to come up with fun describing words to add to our sentences when we write. For homework this week, students can add adjectives to our Padlet. This will help our in class writing as we will be referencing this big list when we want to add a fun word to our sentences.

Please feel free to add as many adjectives as you'd like! Parents, you are welcome to help by adding describing words to our list too!
 

Created with Padlet

GRA Week 5: The OK Book

This week during the Global Read Aloud Project, we collaborated with a Grade 1/2 class nearby in Kanata. We were finally successful at connecting over Google Hangout to chat with another class. The students did such a great job at being patient and at chatting with the class over Hangout for the first time. We chatted about all of the books that we've read by Amy Krouse Rosenthal over the past few weeks during the Global Project. It was great to see the students ask so many detailed questions. They also had great answers to the questions that Mrs. Mason's class asked us. A Hangout provides students with many different opportunities to collaborate, to share, to inquire and to discover new ideas. We are opening our classroom doors on a global scale when we invite another classroom into ours via a Hangout. The students were excited about meeting Mrs. Mason's grade 1/2 class and hope that they could do it again soon. After our Hangout, her class sent us many Tweets to share more things they loved about the Global Project we are both working on. Students are beginning to use Twitter to answer questions sent to us from classes we learn with. We experimented with it at our Writing Center today.

All week we talked about what the word OK means. We experimented with Google Slides to create our own version of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's OK book. Students were challenged to use Slides and Google Draw to create their own OK images and learned how to Google and insert their own images onto their Book page. It was great to see the students experiment with a tool that they hadn't used before. They quickly became experts and were excited to help their friends learn some of tricks to using the tools. We will definitely be using Google Slides again for shared learning opportunities. Creating our own class book inspired some students to create their own books at our Writing Center. We are just in the early stages of adding ideas to our writing center but so far we have many eager authors in our room. Below is our completed OK Book. We hope you enjoy reading about our OK adventures!

Repeating Patterns in Math

Our current focus in Math is on Patterning. Currently we are working to understand repeating patterns. Students defined a repeating pattern as something that repeats 3 times. We are looking at many different ways to make a pattern, how to find the pattern rule and how to identify the core of the pattern.

We are also building patterns featuring many different attributes. Have a look at the list of attributes that we are using to build our repeating patterns. We are challenging ourselves to build and identify patterns that have 2 or more attributes. We are also challenging ourselves to make different kinds of patterns that aren't always using the two attributes shape and colour.

In class this week students were challenged to build and describe their own patterns. We have their completed work on the wall in our room. Students are very proud of their patterns and they did a great job!

For homework this weekend, students can build various patterns that have 2 or more changing attributes. They can name the rule and the core of their patterns too. Challenge them to make a pattern that is not ABC. Maybe an AABB pattern or an ABBC pattern....or even an AABBC pattern that extends at least 3 times. Don't forget to have at least 2 changing attributes other than colour and shape. Have fun!

Venus Flytrap Learning

Today in class we consolidated all of our amazing venus flytrap learning. We recalled all of the wonders we had and some of the answers we came up with. We chatted with friends and worked together to write some interesting facts and unusual information. Students learned a lot of great things about the plant. They had more to share but we ran out of time. If they would like to add more learning or photos for homework on our Padlet, please do!

Created with Padlet

Halloween Adjectives

This weekend for homework students can recall some of the Halloween adjectives and nouns we talked about in class all week. Please have your child post some of the ways that we can describe Halloween using adjectives and nouns on our Padlet below. We have a few great examples already. 

Happy Halloween!!

Created with Padlet

GRA Week 4: Exclamation Mark

During Week 4 of the Global Read Aloud project we read the story Exclamation Mark. All week we've had a lot of fun with the story. One aspect of the story that the students enjoyed was seeing the different facial expressions of the exclamation mark. We had many discussions on how we could describe how it was feeling or the way it looked. We then talked about how we could describe ourselves using innovative adjectives.

Students brainstormed a big list of words that described themselves. We started with a small bank of words and soon it quickly grew to include many awesome describing words. Have a look below at the words we came up with. We used the Tagul website to showcase the adjectives that describe us.

GRA Week 3: It's Not Fair

This week during the 3rd week of the Global Read Aloud project, we read a book called It's Not Fair. The story talks about a series of unfortunate events that are just not fair. We made many personal connections to the story as we read through the events that were not fair. The book taught us that sometimes things in life are just not fair, and that it's ok not to get what you want sometimes.

We made text-to-text connections to the story as well as text-to-self connections and talked a lot about what kind of things we feel aren't fair. We wrote about something that isn't fair to us. Some students were reluctant to share what isn't fair, but we reminded ourselves that we are allowed to feel like something isn't fair. As long as we know that everyone feels that way sometimes, we just need to accept it and not let it bother us.

We posted and shared some of our connections to the story on a shared-Padlet again. It is so great that the students have opportunities to post their learning on Padlet with other students from around the world. The students are using Padlet weekly and are becoming experts on how to post. They are also becoming safe and responsible digital citizens who make sure they use their online presence for safe learning.

Created with Padlet

Some students got to read with a friend on the AudioBoom app. Some students are becoming experts at using this awesome iPad app. We are using it to help our reading fluency and to see if there is anything that we are missing before completing our writing task. AudioBoom is a free app. Your child can use it at home to practice reading their favourite book. When you play it back, it is neat to see how we read since we don't get to hear ourselves read very often.

Finally, we attempted to do a Google Hangout with another Grade 3 class in our city this week. We wanted to meet some other students who were participating in the Global Project like us. Students were really excited and had some questions prepared. Unfortunately we weren't able to make the facetime opportunity work. We hope to be able to do our first Hangout this week...stay tuned!

Math Review

Over the past few weeks we have been working on representing, comparing and ordering numbers to 1000. We have played a variety of games and solved problems in fun and engaging ways. Students will have a Math Review Quiz this Monday October 26th. A math review was sent home in your child's agenda today. They can work on this over the next few days to review what we've been doing in math since the start of the year. Please have students practice skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, 25's and 100's (forwards and backwards).

 We used money this week to skip count in fun ways. Try that at home with your child to review how to skip count. Students also created their own skip counting book to help them review how to skip count. They will be bringing this home next week to keep practicing. Ask your child what the skip counting rules are!

Student can also review the greater than and less than symbols to determine the bigger or smaller number. Remember, the alligator always eats the BIGGER (Greater) number.

Finally, we will be reviewing rounding numbers to the nearest ten. Please refer to the videos we learned in class to recall benchmark numbers and how to round to the nearest ten.

GRA Week 2 Duck Rabbit

This week we participated in the 2nd week of The Global Read Aloud Project. This time we read the book Duck Rabbit by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The students really enjoyed reading and laughing along with this story.

While reading the book, we made many great connections to the story. As a class, we talked about the Making Connections reading strategy and recalled the 3 types of connections you can make when reading a book: Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text and Text-to-World. After reading Duck Rabbit, we talked about what other books or personal connections we can make to the story. We had many great discussions and ideas to share. We wrote about our connections and shared them with our partners.
This project is helping us to work on our reading strategies. While reading a story, good readers make connections to better understand the books that we read. Ask your child to make some connections while reading with them at home!

While reading the story, the students had many opinions to share on whether they thought it was a Duck or a Rabbit. We had many great discussions and students and to prove why they thought it was a duck or a rabbit. We still don't know for sure what the answer is. We took the official Duck Rabbit poll. We can't wait to the the results!

Is It a Duck Or A Rabbit? – Take the Official Poll #GRA15 #GRAAmy http://t.co/87D1qUG4Wf

— Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) October 14, 2015

A great thing about the Global Read Aloud Project is the opportunity to make global connections with other students who are also reading this story. This week we collaborated with friends in our class to share on a Padlet created by a teacher in the Ottawa area. Students are learning to share and collaborate with friends by sharing ideas together when posting online. This Padlet was used by other classes from around the world to write about what they liked, their favourite parts and their connections to the funny story Duck Rabbit. What a fabulous opportunity to connect and share with other students globally. Big thanks to Mrs. Martel for inviting us to share our learning with her class and others from around the world. Have a look below at the great learning our class got to share. Students loved that they could read the learning of students that they haven't met too!

Created with Padlet

Additionally, we continue to use the AudioBoom app to read with a friend. Students are using the app to read their work orally. This helps them to practice their reading fluency with a partner. When reading with a friend, we are practicing how to read clearly and with expression. Our partners also help us to make corrections to our writing too. Have a listen below to some of our great connections to the story Duck Rabbit.



Finally, after reading the story it reminded some of us of optical illusions. We looked for many great examples and were really excited about this one. What do you see in the picture?

While talking about DuckRabbit it reminded us of illusions. What do U see? @lcaluori @Gr1MrsMartel #GRA15 @missamykr pic.twitter.com/VfodJMCtP0

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 16, 2015

Venus Flytrap Inquiries

In science we continue on our inquiry journey exploring our new favourite plant - the venus flytrap!

Over the past few weeks we've shared many questions and wonders about the plant. We are reading books, talking with friends, watching videos, consulting Twitter and observing our class plants. Each of these helpful resources are guiding our learning and our fun wonders!

Over the past week, students got to solve many of their wonders. We added our wonders to our class wonder wall, and as we answer a popular question, we post the answer as well. This inquiry has been amazing so far. Students are very engaged in their science learning and are using their spare time to learn more information about the plant. Some students are writing plant stories for homework and posting their plant creations on our Wonder Wall. I even hear students talk about how they are researching the plant when they go home - amazing scientists in action in Grade 3!

Today Mr. Gautreau gave our 3 plant friends a friendly shout-out over the announcements. He welcomed the 3 new "students" to Grade 3....Mario, Thornhead and Spike. We had many curious student visitors to our classroom today who wanted to take a peak at our new class friends. Inquiring in Grade 3 is pretty popular!

Global Read Aloud Project Week 1

This week we began working on another Global Project. The Global Read Aloud project is a 6 week author study project focusing on books by the author Amy Krouse Rosenthal.This project will take us on an interesting adventure. We will read a book by the author each week then share, post and collaborate with it online with people from around the world.

The first book in the project was called Chopsticks. After reading the story, we wrote about what we thought the author's message was. Students worked with a partner to come up with the moral or message in the story that they author wanted us to learn. A few students read their author's message on the AudioBoom app. Have a listen below at some of our great learning.
Additionally, we used Twitter to share our learning with the author of the story herself. In the first week of the project, we've already heard back from her. The students were so excited to hear from her and to see that she pays attention to Twitter messages that we send out. It is great to see the positive interactions we can make with Twitter. Not only are we using it to share our learning on the Global Read Aloud project, but we are interacting with the author of the book too. We are using the hashtag #GRA15 and #GRAAmy to share our learning with students from around the world.  Ask your child about it!

@MrsCiampaClass Well said, each and every one. :)

— Amy Krouse Rosenthal (@missamykr) October 7, 2015

The students were curious about chopsticks after reading the story. They often used pencils to try to imitate how to use chopsticks to  pick up objects. We played a Chopstick Challenge on Thursday to end the first week of the #GRA15. It was so much fun to see who could pick up and place marshmallows in a bin the quickest in 1 minute. The winning student got 26 in 1 minute! It was a great way to end our first week in the project. Next week we will continue with the project and read the story Duck Rabbit.

Showing grit in the Minute-to-Win-it Chopstick Challenge! #gra15 #globalreadaloud pic.twitter.com/wieQGFm5rA

— Paul Gautreau (@paugaut) October 8, 2015

Hi @missamykr Thanks for the message and the amazing book Chopsticks. We think it's really fantastic! #GRA15 #GRAAmy https://t.co/OaABlqhpEL

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 8, 2015

Venus Flytraps

Our current focus in science is on plant life systems. Last week in our discussions, students had many questions about Venus Flytrap plants. We consulted Wonderopolis for some answers and watched some videos to learn more. I searched all over the city and was finally able to find some Venus Flytrap plants to bring into our classroom! These plants will be so helpful for our science wondering and our inquiry into Venus Flytraps. Having a real life plant will allow students to watch how it grows. We are hoping to watch it eat a real bug too!

We tested out what happens when an object gets too close today. It was really neat to see the trap close! Ask your child about it. We are building on what we know and adding wonders to our list. We hope to answer these questions during this inquiry. We voted to give the plants names: Spike, Thornhead and Mario. This will be helpful for when we observe the changes and talk about their differences. We can't wait to find out more information!

IG: The venus flytraps are like our class pets!

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2015

ED: I was surprised to see the venus flytraps. I think they're cool because they trap bugs.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2015

AG: I'm surprised that venus flytraps have really good reflexes.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) October 6, 2015

Rounding to the Nearest Ten

This past week in Math we focused on Rounding Numbers to the Nearest Ten. Students practiced this concept by playing math games and completing rounding activities. We created a chart to help keep us on track and help us to determine the benchmark numbers to help us round numbers to the nearest ten. To help us understand how to round 2-digit numbers, students found that a number line helps them to locate the benchmark numbers. To review, have your child locate the benchmark numbers and round various numbers to the nearest ten on a number line.

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. For homework this weekend, students can review how to round using the math review sheet sent home in their agendas. For more help, 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. 

Science Wonders

Our current science focus is on plants and life systems. In class, we are reviewing what we already know about plants. Students worked with a partner last week to post and share their ideas on what they know about plants on a shared Padlet. Have a read at what we know so far:

Created with Padlet

Today we read through our Padlet and shared what we know about plants. Some students shared what they know and names of different plants they remember. During our discussion, many students shared questions about what a Venus Fly Trap was. We started to research the plant and learned a few things about what it looks like and what it does. We had a few other questions about the Venus Flytrap so we decided to ask the website Wonderopolis for help on our Class Twitter Account....

Dear @Wonderopolis How does a Venus Flytrap eat a bug?

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) September 29, 2015

Wonderopolis is a wonder website that students can access from home to research questions they might have. We will be consulting this website a lot this year to help us with our science wonders. We created a Science Wonder book today and wrote about what we know and what we wonder about plants so far. We can't wait for Wonderopolis to reply to our question and to share with us how they eat bugs.  During our unit in Science, we hope to answer these questions and more. If you would like to research Venus Flytraps at home please do! Ask your child to share with you what they know and what they wonder about Plants so far.

Thank You Wonderopolis for helping us with our Wondering. They posted on our Padlet and shared a link with us. Take a look!

@MrsCiampaClass We LOVE all the WONDERing & thinking represented on the @padlet! We left a message for you! Keep up the GREAT WONDERing!

— Wonderopolis (@Wonderopolis) September 29, 2015

Place Value

In Math we are currently working to represent, order and compare numbers up to 1000. We are learning to represent big numbers using strategies on our criteria chart. Have a look at how many different ways we know to represent a number. We are learning that when the numbers get bigger we need to think of strategies that will help us to represent the number in quicker ways. Students know how to use Base Ten Blocks to represent 3 digit numbers very well. This week we continued to identify  numbers using expanded form and standard form. Practice this at home this weekend. Give your child a 3 digit number (ex: 348). Have them represent the number in 3 different ways. Example: Standard Form (348), Expanded Form (300+40+8=348) and draw out the Base Ten Blocks. Students should also review the place and value on a number (hundreds, tens, ones).

Additionally, we talked about greater than and less than. We remembered the symbols and worked to identify bigger and smaller numbers. Ask your child to compare numbers using the < > = symbols!

When we are finished our math work, we work on our math centers. Currently we are learning to play cooperatively and quietly while others finish their work. We are playing math games that help us to practice what we are learning.

We also play fun math games to reinforce our learning. There are many games on ABCYA that we've been working on. Have your child show you some of the fun games we worked on this week including Guess My Number and Base Ten Blocks fun.

Next week we will continue to focus on place value and work towards skip counting and rounding numbers to the nearest ten. Have a nice weekend!