Week of Nov. 1st.

 How quickly October has ended, and a new month is upon us. We started this week with the changing of our calendar and an in-depth look at how to read a calendar using ordinal numbers ( 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. ), knowing the order of the months, as well as reciting the days of the week and knowing the abbreviations for them, i.e. Sunday/Sun. The grade three's are also beginning to learn how to read a calendar by indicating what day of the week a particular date falls on, how many specific days of the week there are in each month and saying the date correctly. Throughout the school year, we will continue to develop and build on our calendar skills.  The grade three class has also continued to apply their knowledge of number patterns related to tables. They have learned to identify rows and columns in a table and describe a pattern in a table of numbers. They have also known to use and create a T-table for number patterns made by adding or subtracting. 

The grade two's have been applying their ability to comprehend a math story word problem to represent their understanding using pictures and incorporating an equation to solve the problem. They have been reviewing numbers up to 20, including creating additional questions with a sum of up to 20. Using cubed conversations ( see picture below), we have begun to look at numbers and consider strategies we can use to help up us determine the number of cubes in it. Guiding questions include; How many unit cubes make up this structure? How do you know? How else can you think about this structure? Is there another way to see it?  Are there even more ways you can picture or think about this structure? Which small groups can you see that help you identify the number of unit cubes. 

Our literacy time this week has been filled with so much joy and laughter as we learn to apply our ability to infer using photographs, wordless books and the books of Mo Willems. Time continues to be well spent using picture clues and applying our knowledge of what we see in order to understand the text. We specifically used illustrations that showed a character's emotion. This week we also introduced the idea that when creating meaning from a text we will often rely on the information we have stored in our brain which is made up of background knowledge and prior experiences we have for different topics and ideas. It refers to everything we know (or, rather, everything we think we know) about those topics. Questions that help us tap into this knowledge include; This happened to me when...... I heard about this when........ I learned about this when............ This made me think about................

To help support our writing skills we have been spending time focusing on our ability to differentiate between long and short vowel sounds. We have also been reviewing strategies to identify the number of syllables in a word and applying the knowledge that every syllable in a word requires a vowel. To extend our ability to use the long vowel "a" sound, we have learned to use "ai" in a word such as rain ( ai is used when a long sound is in the middle of a word), and "ay" in a word such as day ( "ay" is used when there is a long a sound at the end of a word). The students are also expected to edit their work to ensure that words do not have uppercase letters in them and beginning of sentences need to start with a capital. Digraphs such as "sh", "ch", "th" and "ph" were reviewed and practiced. Continuing to help your child with the proper pronunciation of words that begin with these digraphs will be important as they transfer their verb skills into writing. Quite often, words that start with a "t" such as "try" are annunciated with a "ch"  and then verbalized and spelt "chry"