Happy Halloween!

   I hope everybody had a safe and happy Halloween this evening! Students enjoyed their Halloween Parade on Friday and had a few fun activities today in class :)

  In the next few days/weeks please only send a reasonable amount of Halloween Candy each day (one or two treats), and remind students that the candy is only to be eaten after lunch. Thank you!

   Our class has also won the October School Yard Safety Award! Congratulations students, keep up the hard work!

  Mrs. Miller

Pumpkin Fun!

WOW, who knew that carving a class pumpkin could present SO many learning opportunities? Over the past few days we have been doing many different things involving our class Jack-o-Lantern.

  - On Tuesday we started things off by deciding what design our Jack-o-Lantern should be. I gave the students 4 options, then we build our graph and collected the data together to see what the winning design would be. We surveyed the class and kept track with tally marks before putting the data into our graph.

Pokemon was the winner! What a close vote.

- On Wednesday we carved our pumpkin! But first I introduced one of our next topics in Language Arts: procedural writing. Together we made a list of materials we would need to carve our pumpkin, and then thought about what steps we would need to take to turn our pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern. 

The finished result!

- Today we extended our learning even further in Math. First, we read the book "How many seeds in a Pumpkin." Then we estimated how many seeds would be in our class pumpkin. During math centers students had an opportunity to count the pumpkin seeds in small groups. Students had to collaborate together to find a way to count all of the seeds together. Students decided that counting the seeds in groups of 10's was easiest. After centers were finished, we gathered at the carpet and counted the seeds together. Finally, we took all of our original guesses, ordered them from smallest to largest, and decided who was closest to the answer (Congratulations Austin! He guessed the closest). 

   Great work this week students!! We had lots of fun this week while still learning.

      Mrs. Miller

   Wow, what a great day we had today! Students worked really hard today on writing about their pumpkins that they made last Friday. They started by writing a rough, "practice" copy in their writing journals. We then edited their work together using the anchor chart in our classroom to make sure that they have included everything they needed to for their assignment. After the editing was complete, they wrote their descriptions onto their "good" copy.

 

Students were given a choice to choose their work spaces for this activity (choose a "Smart" spot to work). Here are some of the "Smart" spots that students worked at.  

Some of the finished work! Looks great in the hallway, and we already had some compliments from other students and teachers about how fantastic they look. 

Here are a few examples of some of their hard work. 

  Mrs. Miller.

Cold Weather

   It looks like the cold weather may be here to stay! Don't forget to remind your children at home to dress warmly and to bring hats and mittens... we had some pretty cold hands after lunch recess today!

    Litterless Lunches have started at St. Francis, and they happen every Thursday. On Thursday's members from the Eco team will go around to each class and check to see who has brought a completely litterless lunch. Each students with no garbage in their lunch will earn a ballot to be entered into the weekly draw from various prizes.

   Mrs. Miller

Congratulations to all students who completed their first Math test on Patterning last Friday! Everybody worked so hard and I am very pleased with the results :) All of our hard work on Patterning since the beginning of the school year was shown! Students also completed various other Patterning related assignments last week, such as a Patterning Booklet, and they even created their own "quizzes" for their friends to complete.

   Now that our Patterning unit is finished, we will be starting a new Math unit this week: Data Management; students will start exploring graphs this week.

   With Halloween looming around the corner this week will have many themed activities to help us get ready for the big day! On Friday we kicked off the theme by having students create their own Jack-o-Lanterns in Art. First, we listened to the story "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin," and then students were challenged to create their own "imperfect" Jack-o-Lanterns. I was blown away by the hard work and creativity that went into their creations!

      In science we will be starting to wrap up our Unit on Growth and Change in animals in the next couple of weeks, so check back here soon for some more information on a culminating activity that the students will be completing for the unit.

    I hope everybody had a safe (and dry!) weekend.

 Mrs. Miller

First Math Test and Halloween update.

    We will be having our first math test of the year this Friday! The test will finish up our unit on Patterning and will also test a bit of their number sense skills. We are spending the week doing some review and practice questions so that the students are prepared for Friday :) Here are some of the topics that the test will be covering:

                           - Extending and creating repeating, growing, and shrinking patterns.
                           - Creating a pattern with 2 changing attributes.
                           - Identifying the pattern core.
                           - Naming the pattern in different ways (i.e. number, letters).
                           - Counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, and 25's.

 
   Here is also an update on Halloween activities this year, as posted on the St. Francis web page:

Students and staff are welcome to bring a Halloween costume to school on Friday, October 28th. Students will be given time to change into their costume shortly after lunch. Starting at 1:30 p.m., we will be parading in the school. Each class will be invited to select the best costume representing their class and staff will vote on the best three costumes in the school. Winners will get a small prize. On Monday, October 31st, students and staff will be invited to wear orange and/or black clothes. Happy Halloween!


 Have a great night!

     Mrs. Miller

     Mrs.Miller is back on-line! Sorry for the lack of updates recently but I have been away on and off all last week battling a bad cold and stomach bug; I am feeling much better!

    A quick reminder that tomorrow (Tuesday) is picture retake day AND class picture day. So even if your child is not getting an individual picture retaken, please dress them how you would like to see them in the class photo :)

   Thank you for continuing to check the blog on a regular basis, there will be many more updates this week!

       Mrs. Miller

There will be no library visit this week due to our day off yesterday for Thanksgiving. Please remember to bring your current book home before next Monday, thanks!

  Mrs. Miller

Happy Thanksgiving!!

   I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

   Before our week started I wanted to let everybody know that there has been a new rule implemented at our school that affects some of our classmates: Pokemon Cards are no longer allowed to be brought to school. Pokemon Cards have been a growing problem out on our yard these past few weeks and there was an incident last Thursday out on the school yard where a student in our school got seriously injured in an argument over Pokemon Cards. Please do not allow your children to bring these to school, please keep them at home from now on. Thank you!

  This week our school is holding its Thanksgiving Mass, being held in the gym on Wednesday at 9:30am.

   We have a week full of activities and learning opportunities so please continue to check the blog daily for updates on what we are learning and doing in class! The students are so excited to share their work with you.

   Mrs. Miller

At the end of the week I like to wrap up our week of Math lessons by having a variety of Math Centers where students can practice things that we have been working on in class. Here is a snapshot of what our students were working on today! Enjoy your long weekend :)

  Mrs. Miller

Using attribute blocks to build, create, and extend growing patterns.

"Make 10" game where students work on number sense by making "10" with the cards on their mats.

Math games on the IPad and playing with the OSMO.

Connect 4! Working on our subitization, number sense, and addition skills. 

Creating a pattern booklet following different pattern rules (i.e. AB, ABBA, ABC patterns)

Putting together skip counting puzzles.

Way to go class!! Keep up the great work in the yard :)

Our SmartBoard is finally installed and ready to use!! Thank you to our students who have been waiting so patiently for the SmartBoard to be put up. We were able to give it a quick test run today after our Terry Fox run and used it to watch a few little movie clips on Terry Fox while we rested after the race. 

   Mrs. Miller 

     I can't believe it is already time to post an October Calendar and update! These four weeks of September have flown by quicker than I could have imagined. The October calendar has been posted in the Calendar section of this blog and is available for you to print if you wish.

    This past week we have introduced two students from Algonquin College into our classroom as they complete their placements for their Child and Youth Worker programs. Mrs. Dawson is with us Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons and Mrs. Jenny is with us Thursday and Friday afternoons. They will stay with us for the remainder of their school academic year (until April).

   There are some important dates to note this month so please take a look at the October calendar that I have posted. Please note that on Halloween (October 31st) we will be having a "wear orange and black day" so please do not wear costumes to school that day. You will also notice that on Friday, October 28th we have a Halloween Parade scheduled; there will be more information posted about this event later on in the month.

    As always I will continue to post about what we are doing in the classroom throughout the month. The following is a rough plan of what we will be doing in each subject area during October:
               Language Arts: We will continue to learn how to build stamina while doing our "Daily 5" tasks. We will also continue to focus on how to make good predictions and connections to texts that we read and how to improve the quality of the work we complete.
              Math: We will continue our unit on Number Relationships throughout the month. We will try to wrap up our unit on Patterning and start a new unit on Data Management.
             Phys. Ed: We will continue our focus on skills such as bouncing, balance, throwing, catching, jumping, and landing as well as play a variety of cooperative games. We will continue to focus on personal safety and injury prevention while we play.
            The Arts: We will continue to discuss Elements of Design such as line, colour, texture, shape and form. Students will learn these elements through a variety of art projects.
            Science and Technology: We will be continuing our unit on Growth and Change in Animals.
            Religion:  We will continue to discuss how to be good friends and good citizens. We will also focus on the theme of Thanksgiving this month.

      Both September and October scholastic orders were distributed last week and are asked to be returned no later than tomorrow (Monday, October 3rd). Even if you have already paid on-line for your order, please do not forget to return your order forms indicating which books you have paid for as I need this to complete the order! There will not be another scholastic order sent home until the beginning of November.

   Thank you to all parents for your support so far this year as we settle into the new year!

Mrs. Miller