Monday 17 October 2016

Middle of October

Good afternoon parents.  Here we are in the middle of October. Halloween is fast approaching already and the weather is cooling off significantly.  We have had some rather sketchy conditions making for not very nice commutes for some. There may be a light at the end of the tunnel by the end of the week, with some more seasonable temperatures.

A few reminders for this week are as follows.  There will be lice checks at East Elementary today or tomorrow, depending when our class gets theirs done. Also, if you have not signed up for a time to do your parent teacher conference, please do so with the following link. www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0C44A4A629A6FD0-parent2 


Language Arts

Writing:

As with every week, we are continuing with our weekly journal entries.  This week the students had the option to write about an event they had with an animal as told a story about a "run-in" with a skunk when I was a child. They also had the option to write about their favorite part about last Friday, as I was away at a medical appointment.  Their third option was to again tell me some details about their weekend.
Our writing program has continued with looking at sentences and sentence structure.  The students already know that a sentences needs a beginning capital letter and ending punctuation.  I introduced to them that every sentence needs a subject (who/what), and a predicate (doing/describing). We looked at some example sentences and understood that words like I, me, we, it, his, and proper names are all examples of a subject in a sentence.  The subject of a sentence  usually comes at the beginning of the sentence. "Fido ate my homework". Fido in this sentence is the subject, and ate my homework is the predicate. I will begin to look for subject and predicate in the students journal writing.


Math: 

The latest concept in number sense we looked at was the concept of equal and not equal.  The students are familiar with the equals sign, = however we also looked at the not equal sign, ≠ . The students got to compare numbers using the equal and not equal signs. We are going to continue with number sense, looking at adding and subtracting in different ways, such as using number lines, counting on, finger counting. It is very important that the students are adept at solving basic math facts as this will enhance their ability to solve 2 digit equations later on in the school year. Social:
Social we have now finished the mapping unit.  Their mapping unit tests are completed and marked and will be sent home tomorrow. It was important that the students understood where the cardinal directions go on a compass (North, South, East and West).  We began our first unit in learning about Canada's dynamic communities.  We are going to be looking at 3 different communities and comparing them to our own community of Leduc.  The 3 communities we are looking at are Iqaluit, Meteghan, and Saskatoon. Iqaluit is an Inuit community in Nunavut, Meteghan is an Acadian community in Nova Scotia, and Saskatoon has lots of Ukrainian influence, in Saskatchewan. We began by talking about culture and heritage, and looked at the flags that represent each community, the Nunavut flag for Iqaluit, the Acadian flag for Meteghan, and the Ukrainian flag for Saskatoon.  The students also got to make their own flag for their "home" and "individual" community that represented what they like and maybe some of their background.  We will next be looking at geographical aspects of each community and how they affect the functioning of the communities.
Science:
We have been continuing to work through our magnetism unit in science.  The latest activity the students took part in was testing whether the magnetic field could travel through certain materials.  The students tested things like cloth, glass, cardboard, wax paper, tin foil, a jar lid, paper, plastic, and wood.  The students found, that if strong enough, the magnetic field would pass through any material, having the magnets remain attracted even though the material was put between them.  We will be finishing up the magnetism unit over the next week and a half.  The last "I can" the students have to complete in this unit is to "Design and produce a device that uses a magnet."  I will be sending home instructions later this week for the students to work on this at home with their parents and guardians.



I hope everyone has a great week ahead.

Mr. Aasen