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Week of June 10th

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 Our last unit in Math returns to Geometry and Transformations. In this unit, we are performing, identifying, and describing translations on a grind, including simple maps. We are also learning to identify reflections and rotations of simple shapes and connect reflections to symmetry. As part of this unit, I thought it would be a great connection to the art of printmaking.  Printmaking is one of the fine arts (including painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture) that involves making a “master plate,” which you can then use to make multiple images printed in reverse. There are so many ways to print; it’s almost endless! Potatoes and veggie printing, linoleum printing, bubble wrap printing,  yarn printing… basically any object can be used to print with. Styrofoam printing is really one of the simplest ways to teach printmaking for kids. The students did a great job creating a design and then transferring it to a Styrofoam plate. They enjoyed the process, and I know I would have done mult
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Week of June 26th

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 This will be my last entry for the grade 3 class of 2022/2023! We have had an amazing June filled with great explorations and time outside. I would first like to say a big thank you to the parents who made our National Indigenous People's Day such a wonderful success. The students had a fantastic time exploring Prince's Island Park and participating in many hands-on learning tasks outside in nature. The goslings and ducks did not disappoint!  In class, we finished off the year by writing a letter to our new grade 3 students. Sharing with them all of the wonderful things they have to look forward to as they begin a new year in room 8. After brainstorming our entire year of events and activities, we found it hard to believe all of the learning and adventures we could participate in. We also had fun this month revisiting our poetry unit and creating Limmercks and more Haiku poems. Our math year ended, reviewing past lessons and exploring translations.  In the first part of this u
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Week of June 5th

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As part of our community walks we have started to discover the joins of nature journalling.   In doing so, we are continuing to discover how journaling in nature helps support our ability to pay attention to detail, boosts our creativity and inspires us to observe a location we have become familiar with.   This week and last, we revisited our unit on Data analysis. We spent time reviewing how to read and interpret information presented in the form of pictographs and bar graphs. We learned how to analyze the data presented in the graphs to solve one- and two-step word problems. We will also explore scales and scaled pictographs, and bar graphs. We discovered how to use multiplication and division skills to find the numbers represented on these scaled graphs. As a class, we collected data about a topic that interested us and created our bar graphs. In the following week, we will compare all three types of graphs: pictographs, bar graphs, and line plots ( dot plots) and solve story word p
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Week of May 22nd

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This week we started your Rocks and Minerals unit in Science. In this unit we will be learning about materials found on Earth’s surface—rocks, minerals and soil. We will be examining sample rocks, and discovering the similarities and differences using simple tests and tools. As we discover more about rocks we will learn that each kind of rock has a set of characteristics and that these characteristics can be used in classifying and identifying them. Our unit will also include the study of soil, as we learn that the materials in soil include include rock fragments and remains of living things. As we continue to enjoy the outdoors on our community walk, we focused our attention this week on the beautiful cityscape that we get from the top of Scottman's Hill. We used this as an opportunity to review our knowledge of 2 and 3 dimensional shapes. Further along on our walk, we were also thrilled to discover another pair of mating osprey and their nest at the top of a new structure.   
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Week of May 8th

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 This week in literacy, we continued with our poetry unit and created a Diamanté poem for Mother's Day. We also continued to develop our research skills by choosing and representing an invertebrate of our choice. We also looked closely at the rules required to learn how to add "ed" and "ing" endings correctly. We discovered that when adding "ed," there are three rules to follow. Rule 1: If two consonants follow a vowel, just add -ed. Rule 2: If you have a v-c-e pattern, drop the silent e and add -ed. Rule 3: If a vowel is followed by one consonant, double the last letter and add -ed. When adding "ing" we learned that if we have a short vowel sound with one consonant, we double the consonant and add "-ing" as in putting. If we have a short vowel sound with two consonants we just add "ing" as in jumping. Finally, if a word ends in "e" we drop the "e" and then add the "ing as in joking.  In math, we b
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Week of May 1st

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In class this week, we began to understand the art of persuasion and the art of persuasive writing. We looked at several stories that helped us see characters trying to persuade someone for something important to them. "I Wanna Iguana" by Karen Kaufman Orloff and David Catrow is a great example. This story is a series of letters between a mother and son. In his letters, the son tries to convince his mom to let him get a pet iguana. In her letters, she makes counter-arguments against his reasons for getting an iguana. Some arguments are good, and some aren't as good. But, in the end, Alex's reasons prevail, and he gets his iguana. We discussed what the word "persuade" means, and as a class, we brainstormed topics that we could write a persuasive argument. Here are some examples:  -Being allowed to get a puppy - Extending our recess time -Staying up 15 minutes later in the evening -Getting a new set of golf clubs -Having a swimming pool built in your backyar
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Week of April 24th

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 This week in Math, we have started our money unit. In this unit we will learn how to count money, including coins and bills. We will learn the relationships among coins, including the penny. Although the penny is no longer used in Canada, the value of the penny as one cent is still important as the base value of all the other coins. We will count money amounts involving coins starting with the larger value, and we will learn to represent money amounts using the least number of coins. Once we have familiarized ourselves with coins we will learn how to make change by counting to the nearest multiple of ten and then counting up to the nearest dollar.  Our money unit has a great connection to our Social Studies topic regarding the difference between needs and wants as well discussing and identifying the difference between goods and services. We learned that a good is something you buy and consume. Goods are things that you can keep, eat or use. A service is something that someone does for
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