How Many Ways

If you were not at math night, ask your kid what this is all about. Using this template for our morning routine with each day's date has really started to improve the students' number sense!

Snow SNOW SNOW!!

We have had alot of snow already this year. For arts education the students learned how to work with pastels. They modelled their pictures after the illustraions from the book "Snowmen at Night" by Caralyn Buehner.

Social Studies

Our World is a big place...

We have been learning about life in different places around the world. This is a display of the students poems that they wrote given the prompt "our world is a big place, floating in space..."

Harvest Dinner

The two grade three classes will be sharing a harvest dinner on Thursday October 25. We will be using the produce harvested from our garden in combination with student donations. The students will all have a hand in preparing the meal. We will be inviting people from our school community, such as Mr. Forsythe and Mrs. Thomas. Please see the note sent home regarding the dinner to find out what food item your child needs to bring for the meal.

Pay it Forward

This past weekend, our class had a homework project to "Pay it Forward" by doing something nice for someone else.
Some of the things we were able to do this past weekend include:

• Raked leaves in my front yard x3
• Cleaned up for my nana and papa to stay in my room.
• Made my mom a cup of tea.
• Helped my sister make her bed.
• My brother, sister and I cleaned up the whole house!
• I helped my mom do the laundry x2
• I cleaned my brother's and sister's bedroom.
• Raked a neighbor's lawn and bagged the leaves.
• Mowed the lawn.
• Cleaned up my room without being asked.
• I helped my mom wash the dishes.
• Cleaned up garbage in 10 yards.
• I baked my mom a cupcake.
• I helped clean up after Thanksgiving.
• I cleaned up my mom's house for Thanksgiving company.
• I cleaned the bathroom.
• I helped my mom make breakfast and coffee.
• I picked up litter outside my grandma's house (Mrs. Kitchen)
• I paid for a stranger's coffee in the Tim Horton's drive through (Mrs. Kitchen)
• We invited a complete stranger and her daughter over for thanksgiving! (Mrs. Kitchen)
• Cleaned up the whole entire kitchen- it was sparkling!

Classroom Makeover!

I spent a lot of time this summer creating a environment that the students would find warm, relaxing and calming to work in. I thought I would share some pictures with you.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school. I am very excited to have a new bunch of grade three's this year. And after the first week, I can say, a great bunch they are! We have had such a great start to the school year already.
A few highlights of week one:

• Checking out the vermi composting worms. EWWWW
• Harvesting the garden last year's grade three's made
• Playing mind reader
• Learning two new math games
• Using magnifying glasses to examine different types of soil
• Learning about Leah Dorion's art work

A big thank to to all the families for completing your child's home reading each night! Keep up the great work. Coming soon... pictures of our classroom, art work and math patterns!

RAN Folders

We are once again using RAN folders for an inquiry based unit. Students are completing research based on an animal and will be creating reports in the form of a poster from what they find.

Plants

Check out the plants we have been growing in Science class. Some of our plants are doing awesome... others not so well. We are also experimenting to see what conditions seeds grow in best (ie) warm, cold, light dark, etc.

Donny Parenteau

We were priveledged to get to listen to Donny Parenteau speak at KCI today. He is a Saskatchewan born, Metis, singer and song writer. He has sang on the Grand Ole Oprey stage, Canada AM, Telemiracle and many more places. He has won multiple awards for his musical talents. He was born and raised in Prince Albert. Donny's message to kids was to find someone you are good at and then go for it, no matter what it takes. He said you need to believe to achieve!
He sang us numerous songs including: My Girl (a song written for his daugher), Mamma Taught Me Love (written for his mom), Johnny Cash songs (Ring of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues and played the fiddle. He is very talented!http://www.donnyparenteau.com/

Report Cards/interviews

Hello Parents,
I will be sending home a note regarding the schedule for parent teacher interviews tomorrow. Interviews will take place on March 27th and 28th. Report cards will be sent home on the 23rd.
I am looking forward to meeting with each of you.
Mrs. C. Kitchen

Happy 100's Day!

Check out our slide show of some of the acitivites we did!

Make a digital slideshow

Tipis

Check out the tipis we made in Science! They were very difficult to make... we got frustrated at times, but... WE DID IT!!

Spelling Strategy

Home Reading

Thank you to those students who are completing their home reading on a daily basis! It is exciting to see you improve in your reading skills. If you have not been doing your home reading on a consistent basis, it is not too late to start. Each child is sent home with a book every night Monday-Thursday.

Monday Spelling Strategy

I appologize for not sending this home this evening, I will send it tomorrow (Tuesday). This week's strategy for spelling practice is to write your word's in syllables.
For example:
Tuesday would be written Tues-day (2 syllables)
went would be written went (1 syllable)
afternoon would be written af-ter-noon (3 syllables)
This strategy not only helps with teaching children spelling patters, but also with helping them to sound out words when they are reading.

Hot Lunch

Hot lunch will now be on Tuesdays and Fridays. This week hotlunch on Tuesday will be Grilled Cheese and on Friday it will be Rice and Chicken.

Volunteers

I am still looking for some parent volunteers to fill up our February calendar. If you can provide an hour or two of your time to listen to students read, please let me know! We would love to have you in our room!

Word Pyramids

This week's home spelling strategy is word pyramids. It is really simple- make your spelling words into pyramids!
See below for an example with the word 'spelling':

s
sp
spe
spel
spell
spelli
spellin
spelling

Spelling Strategy: Red and Blue Letters

Spelling Practice Strategy
January 9th
Red and Blue Letters
•Write your spelling words out using BLUE for the consonants and RED for the vowels (a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y).
•For example: January, school

Special Guests/Field Trips in January

Our class will have a few exciting events in January and two of them are happening on the same day. In grade three, part of the Social Studies curriculum is to learn about communities in other cultures and how they compare to our own communities. Students are to learn about communities in both developed and developing countries. My sister and her husband recently traveled to Kenya where they volunteered for three months. They helped in schools, medical clinics, with the homeless and with construction products. They will be coming to our class to talk about their experience in the morning on January 20th. In the afternoon on the 20th, we will be going to SARCAN for a tour. In our Structures and materials unit we have learned about recycled materials and how they can be used for building new things (we even learned about a house built out of old tires!).
Mr. Musqua will also be coming into our room to talk about the structure of a tipi and the symbolism of a tipi. This is also related to our structures unit.
We will also be taking a couple of trips to the skating rink- please see the calendar sent home for specific dates!

Word Work

We have had doing word work so far! One of the things we have done is build our words with playdough. This is the same strategy that we brought home this week. Each week I will post pictures of the students working on the strategy that is sent home.

Word Work - make slideshow