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

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

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!

Literacy & Math Centers This Week

This week we spent time adding new activities to our Math and Literacy Centers! Students are very engaged during center time - they are practicing the concepts we learn in class and working on new projects and ideas. It is a great time to see their creative side and to watch as they advance their own inquiries. We often welcome new center ideas. We plan what students can do at the centers and make sure we are practicing key concepts at all centers we create. Students come up with activities and concepts they can practice at each of our centers. The Math Centers were very fun this week. We spent time practicing key concepts we learned in 2D and 3D Geometry!

What can we do at our centers? One of our student's blogged about it on her Kid Blog...have a read at what she said!

We are trying something new in class...Math Centers. Have a read at WN explain. http://t.co/dSi05a9J9q #comments4kids
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) March 5, 2015

DL says: What shapes do you see? @Math_Monkey1 pic.twitter.com/8NHHOXqQ1a
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) March 6, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass Wow! I see triangles, squares, rectangles, parallelograms; so many shapes! I'm wondering what shapes you see and how many?
— Math Monkey (@Math_Monkey1) March 6, 2015

RC says: Guess my shape! @mrskingocsb @lcaluori #guessmyshape pic.twitter.com/eAi2pmUBGX
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) March 2, 2015

@MrsCiampaClass @mrskingocsb we think it is a 3D solid because it has faces, edges and vertices! What kind of angles do you see?
— Mrs. DelahuntCaluori (@lcaluori) March 3, 2015

The boys successfully persuaded me to create a Minecraft Center!

This week, the boys successfully convinced me to open a Minecraft Center in our Literacy Center. They came up with the I-Can List and are eager to demonstrate their expertise with friends. I look forward to seeing what creative learning the students come up with at this new center!

Read to Someone

AB saysWe are practicing to do read to someone centre and we are getting better at it and we made a list of them what we can do #studentlife
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) February 5, 2015

We worked on a brand new center this week at our Literacy Centers. Students have included the Read to Someone Center! We read to ourselves each day during our silent reading time. We have been working towards reading to a buddy for a while. This week we created our I-Can list together as a class. We decided what reading to someone looks like and created a list as our guideline.

The goal of the Read to Someone center is to have students share a book together. Students have a wide variety of books to choose from in our classroom and beyond! We have many authors in our classroom who have written their own books and are excited to share their story with a friend at this center!

They can use the books for shared interest purposes. They can also use the center to practice their reading strategies together. The strategies we've learned in the classroom help us to decode words. We may also use reading strategies that can help us to better comprehend the story (making predictions, asking questions, etc).

After reading the book, we decided that we can share what we've learned by talking about the book with our friend. We can ask questions by playing a game where we use questions sticks or a roll the dice game.

Students also decided that after reading together they'd like to write about their stories online via KidBlog or Twitter. We also said we could create interactive posters or talk about it on AudioBoom. So many great possibilities for our literacy centers!

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

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!!

Missing Numbers

In Math we are currently working on solving algebra equations. Students have been looking at different number patterns to solve for the missing number using addition and subtraction. They are using math manipulatives to help them solve math problems and equations. They are also representing number equations that are equal. For instance, 4 + 4 = 2 + 6! Students are having fun with this math unit and are becoming very innovative with equal number equations. Some students are even challenging themselves by coming up with equal multiplication and division equations. Great math thinkers in grade 2!

At the Teacher Center, students played a number game to represent 10 + 5 in different ways. Excellent!

Literacy Center Writing

This week students have added many new ideas and learning goals to our Literacy Centers. We are having fun and exploring new ways to incorporate writing into our centers.

The boys are enjoying creating HOW TO books at the writing center. We created a new I CAN list with a goal of writing stories to explain something. Some other friends have started creating their own story books using a Narrative writing checklist. Some great writers are emerging in our room. A wonderful idea came from DL to add our completed books to our class library. Excellent idea! Some students are creating rough copies before creating a good copy into a book. We look forward to reading all books really soon.

Also at the Writing Center this week, students continue to write persuasive letters to people in our school. Some students are even getting replies from other teachers. It is really neat to see the fun persuasive ideas our students are coming up with! They are learning how to write good reasons, and how to be even more convincing as the replies come in. I have a few students working very hard to try to convince me to have a class party. I am hoping they can convince with really good reasons or facts!

Have a read at some of the persuasive letters I received this week so far. Students used AudioBoo to record their letter before delivering it to me in an envelope. I wonder if they can be persuasive enough!

listen to ‘HH & ab & md persuasiveing Mrs.ciampa’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘RC. EC. Persuasive Writing’ on Audioboo

More persuasive writing success. WN convinced the grade 1's to have a dance party today!!! pic.twitter.com/ur4Ad9IyMH
— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) May 23, 2014

ABCYA.com

During our Literacy Centers, students are using the SmartBoard to play some word games. One website we use for word games is called ABCYA.com . Students have been using this website all year to access some interactive  word games. We are using the website to build our vocabulary and to practice grade 2 sight       words. I have included a link to this website on our Website tabs.

Please visit this website at home to play word games when you have the chance. It is a great website to reinforce many of the reading strategies and word games that we play on a weekly basis. The website also has some great grade 2 math games as well. Happy playing and learning!

Hand-Washing Posters

Students have completed their hand-washing posters. We followed a success criteria and used the explanation writing format to write about how and why we wash our hands. Students learned about important features like photos with captions and sequencing words to put the hand washing steps in orders. Students read stories and discussed the health benefits of keeping our hands clean. 

We followed a checklist to help keep us on track. We also wrote a rough draft before creating our good copy using the iPads. Students are learning through the editing process. We worked on how to check our own work for errors like punctuation, capitalization and misspelled words. 

Since researching, we learned about how to keep ourselves healthy and how to stop the spread of germs. We've also made a class routine of making sure we always wash our hands before we eat our lunch. Great work to all students! 


Below are our completed hand washing posters that we created using the iPad app Pic Collage  during our Literacy Centers. We hope to put these posters around our school to spread the word about keeping healthy. Enjoy!

New Learning

We are working on some new learning goals in our classroom. In Math we are starting to talk about patterns in numbers. We are looking at different patterns and trying to determine what the pattern rule, the pattern core and the changing attributes for each problem. We created a chart to show what we know. We also added some different types of attributes. We learned a grade 3 math word: Orientation. Ask your child what orientation is another word for. And ask your child to name some of the other attributes we learned about today!

In Language we worked in our new literacy center groups. Students are working in small groups on some descriptive writing activities. We also started to talk about a new online reading program called Raz Kids. I am in the process of setting up login information and passwords for each student. Parent letters will be going home soon! In the mean time, we will continue to practice using Raz Kids during our literacy centers in class. Ask your child what kind of learning they participated in during our literacy centers today!