The Three Little Pigs and the Spaghetti Tower Challenge

Today we started talking about the parts of a story. We learned that stories have a beginning (characters, setting), middle (problem) and end (solution). After reading The Three Little Pigs the students created an outline of the beginning, middle and end. We will be talking more about story writing in the coming weeks.

This afternoon, the students were given the challenge of creating a house made out of spaghetti that would keep one of the little pigs safe from the big, bad wolf. First, they had to draw a plan. Then, they got to work at building their creation.

Our sight words this week are: help, away, here, make and yellow.

Telus Spark Reminder

Reminders: Tomorrow is our Telus Spark trip. We won't be taking backpacks, just our lunch kits.

Thursday early dismissal at 12:30 for Parent Teacher Conference

Friday - no school for students. Parent Teacher Conference.

Please book a time to come in and see your child's teacher. 

Words of the week:

We are practicing the following words and trying to recognize them in books and the environment.

Where, Jump, Red, Blue, Come

We also focused on word families after reading a story called "A Fall Ball for All"

Students used letter tiles to create words in the word family 'an' including 'can, tan, ran, fan, man'

For students who have already mastered these words, we have a words dictionary they can access to find new, unknown words they would like to learn. 

During math we listened to a song about doubles, noticed some patterns when we add doubles and played 2 games to practice our doubles facts. We are trying to memorize these so they can help us solve other math facts that are one away from doubles. 

We are working on an art project about animals in winter. We sketched, outlined and used watercolour pencils.

Central Library

Today we visited the Central Library. Students had the opportunity to look for shapes and letters around the library, as well as exploring each floor to see what it offers visitors. Students also had the opportunity to see the book sorting machine on the 1st and 2nd floor. They recorded their observations and predictions in their sketchbooks. Some groups even had the chance to see C trains running through downtown! What a fun morning exploring the library!

Room on the Broom challenge

Today the students listened to the story "Room on the Broom". They were then asked to create a broom that would hold 3 "animals" using the materials provided. First, they made a plan and labelled their materials. Then, with a partner they built a model of their broom.

Cold weather reminder
We got outside to play for recess and lunch most days. It is important that students are dressed for the weather. On colder days, students are reminded to bring boots, coats, mitts, hats and snowpants.

Halloween Info

With Halloween coming up Thursday, we are doing some Halloween themed learning activities this week.

Today we learned about what bats need to survive and how their bodies are made to help them escape predators, find food and survive the cold. We also talked about the lifecycle of a pumpkin. We used our pumpkins to estimate and measure.

Tuesday we will be doing a building challenge about a witches broom, continuing our bat investigation and estimating then measuring circumference of our pumpkins.

On Wednesday we will be cutting open the pumpkins so please have your child wear clothes that can get messy.

Thursday the students can wear costumes to school. Nothing to scary or gory and no masks please.

Our words for the week we are practicing are: see, down, little, can, we
Below is a game called Roll a Word to practice.

Pumpkins, gourds or squash?

Today the students were excited to find some mystery objects in our classroom. After asking questions to narrow down our ideas, the students found a mix of pumpkins, gourds and squash to explore. They visited different tables and recorded their observations using a notice/wonder chart. What did your child notice? What did they wonder? We will be exploring our pumpkins, gourds and squash more over the next week.

Literacy

Alphabet letters/printing practice 

During literacy time in the morning, we have been working on printing lowercase letters neatly, as well as identifying the sounds that each letter makes and recognizing words that start with the letter of the day. So far we have practiced: l, i, t, f, c, o. We are also learning about vowels and the different sounds that they can make. 

Sight words
The past 3 weeks we have been practicing writing, reading and recognizing sight words. The words we have learned so far are: the, to, and, a, I, you, it, in, said, for, up, look, is, go, we. These words help us with reading and writing tasks. Today we practiced making the words using play dough.

Fall books 

The students have been working hard to write their very own book! We have been learning about Fall and our senses and students have each written a mini book called "All about Fall".