Harris- Grade 3 Ramsay

Despite having a short week to recognize Victoria Day, our friends in Grade 2/3 have been busier than ever. In literacy, we have been working on our ability to focus on the important aspects of revising and editing our work. It is wonderful to see how their understanding has developed, knowing that the initial writing portion of any task is only one-third of the process. This week, they carefully followed a checklist to help guide us through what it means to revise. Our goal in revising is to understand and learn about the craft of writing. Grade two and three writers need to learn that rethinking and reworking a piece of writing is a normal part of the writing process. We discussed how revising helps us pay close attention to whether or not our writing meets the criteria we set out to achieve. It is also a time to think about word choices and sentence structure; this goes beyond fixing a misspelled word or putting in a period.   Connecting to our literacy task, we also finish...

We had a lovely week with lots of variety of activities. To start our new Science unit, testing designs and materials, we used a stem challenge to see if we could discover what type of bridges we could create that would be the strongest using one piece of paper. After many attempts, we performed tests to compare the different bridge designs and determine which one could support the most weight. Our second challenge using an index card was determining which shape, an arch or a square is most robust and holds the most mass. Finally, on our community walk, we took the time to look at the bridge on MacDonald avenue and sketch it. Many students observed the use of many beams and triangles in the structure and concluded that a triangle must be solid and help make the bridge more secure. Sketches from our journal as we closely observed our trees on our community walk as they slowly get their leaves and blossoms.  In literacy, we have returned our attention to story writing. Our task was t...

In literacy this week we continued to develop our writing skill as it relates to the art of persuasion. To begin with we discussed what it mean to "persuade". To help teach persuasive writing the story " I wanna Iguana" and "I wanna new room" by Karen Kaufman Orloff  was a great place to start. These stories are a series of letters between a mother and father and their son. In his letters the son is trying hard to convince his mom to let him get a pet iguana and his dad to let him have his own room. In the end, both parents have great counter arguments against his reasons but the boy's reasons prevail and a compromise is made.  After reading the stories we talked about the specific techniques that the little boy used to persuade his parents such as humor, appealing to his parents emotions and using logical reasoning. We also talked about what makes a good argument. As a class we then brainstormed some topics that we felt would be important to us to try...

This was a fabulous week for the children to get outside! We started with a wonderful opportunity to learn about orienteering through SOGO. This adventure running program helped our students learn about navigation while developing endurance, agility and speed. The students showed great participation during the two days and worked hard to apply their map reading skills.  Since last week the excitement has been building as we prepared to take our first field trip to the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area. We had a wonderful day exploring the park and extending our knowledge about the importance of Nature's ability to work in harmony and balance. We saw first-hand examples of symbiotic, parasitic and predator-prey relationships. Through bio-facts, our facilitators also shared many other aspects about the plants and animals that call this 4800 acres home.  No field trip can be complete without lots of outdoor games, especially Camouflage. Now that we have returned many of the t...

Our class participated in the official public vote for Calgary's official bird this week. We learned that Calgary is home to over 200 species, and we were asked to choose a bird to represent our city. This was a great activity to help guide our conversations about the importance of urban wildlife. We learned that we had lost an estimated 3 billion birds over the last 50 years due to various threats and conditions. To help address this issue, Nature Canada developed a certificate for Bird-Friendly Cities to recognize cities' contribution to saving bird lives. As part of the certification process, each city needs to decide which bird they would like to represent Calgary. The five birds to choose from were:  During our community walk, we used our time to locate these birds and become reacquainted. All of the birds were spotted except the gorgeous blue jay. Upon returning to the classroom, each student picked which bird they felt deserved this honour and researched it. To support o...