Gymnastics!

Dear parents,

Thanks for helping your gymnast remember what they needed to wear for Monday! I got to watch the end of their first session and they were having so much fun climbing, swinging, jumping, stretching and balancing. We have one more class with Mary Ann this Friday, so please again remind your gymnast to come prepared with their shorts and t-shirt under their normal clothes. Mary Ann appreciates that we wear our masks in the gym. I will provide these to anyone who needs.

We are working on a multi-step art project. We first talked about texture and looked for interesting textures around our classroom. The brick walls and the holes on the filter were particularly great for our project. Using these, and my (heavily recycled) collection of different items with texture, we filled 3 big pages with texture rubbings in lots of colours. The next day, we used these pages to cut out the pieces for a collage. Many are animals - lots of dinosaurs - which look great with a variety of textures and colours. We might do a little writing about our collages as a final step.

In Science, we are continuing with some deeper looks into different kinds of energy. We know that the Sun is our most important source of energy, and that in addition to it's role in creating wind (see previous post), it provides us with light and heat energy. We did a little experiment warming and cooling the air in an otherwise empty bottle and watching a soap bubble grow or shrink, showing how heat can make things move. Stay tuned for another cool heat energy experiment! We've also looked at several solar-powered toys which the kids were really interested in. The kit to build them was purchased at Dollarama a while ago, but maybe they are still available, if you'd like to build one at home.

We've also talked about how the Sun can be dangerous. We brainstormed ways that we can protect our skin, as demonstrated below. I also gave each student a UV bead bracelet, which they surely showed you immediately. These cool beads start out clear and change colours when exposed to ultraviolet light. We wore our bracelets out to recess yesterday and they immediately went blue, purple and yellow. The kids screamed with excitement, and then promptly ran back into the safety of the shade! It would be neat to wear this bead outside on a cloudy day and prove whether you can still get a sunburn on a cloudy day.

In math, we have been doing some problem solving every day. We have continued to develop and share helpful strategies for showing our mathematical thinking. These have included drawing a neat picture or diagram of the problem, labelling with numbers, crossing off, circling groups, adding numbers one at a time using facts that we know and most recently, we learned how to turn a repeated addition into a multiplication. That strategy is pretty advanced, so it is to be used with caution (I've joked that it is hot to touch, which the kids think is funny).

Before we complete this unit and I do a final check-up, I thought you might like to see how problem solving is going, in case you'd like to practice similar stuff at home. Soon, I will send home a math problem we did that I've marked using a rubric. The rubric explains in detail what I am looking for, and what we've been focusing on. It's important to remember that it's not just about how high we can add, even though those computational skills are excellent to have. 

During literacy centre time, I've been able to read a short book with each child, which gives me a good idea of what we need to focus on next. I'm so happy that many readers are using strategies such as looking for words or phrases that repeat, and sounding out parts of words. I hope the words of the week are making it home, and that RAZ-kids isn't getting boring. It really is so helpful to review just a little French regularly at home. Please let me know if you would like hard-copies of books, or some different books to read.

Despite some chilly weather, we've been having lots of fun at recess and enjoying all the space we have to run and play. For a few days, a big group from our class was working hard near the baseball diamond to create a "chocolate river", which they managed to extend all the way to the fence. Thanks for sending rain pants to help make recess fun in the dreary weather!

See you soon,

Tamara