Feb 22-26, 2016

Important information was sent home on Monday Feb 22. Please check your child's agenda for these documents (permission form for Meditation Program, verification sheet and other documents to confirm your intent to attend East Elementary in 2016-2017) and return them by Friday Feb 26, 2016. 

Wednesday Feb 24 2016 is Pink Shirt Day. We wear a pink shirt to show that we are taking a stand against bullying. I encourage each and every student to wear a pink shirt (or an item of pink) to support our schools' initiative. 

Language Arts
Writing-separating sentences into the who/what (noun) and doing/describing (verb) and making edits to sentences that are missing capital letters and punctuation; we will be discussing word referents (alternate words to make a sentence stronger and more appealing)
Phonics-compound words, r blend words

Reading-Chapter 3 of 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle'

Daily 5 Read to Someone-continuing "The BFG" by Roald Dahl

Spelling-words this week are 'c' and 'ck' blend words; we discovered that words that contain the letter 'c' make a ssss sound (race) or a kkkk sound (became) and sometimes they blend as a ck to make the kkkk sound (stick). 

Math

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at Addition and Subtraction to 18. We are focusing on fact families (7, 2, 9 is a fact family). Here is an example of a fact family: 

2, 7, 9

2 + 7 = 9

7 + 2 = 9

9 - 2 = 7

9 - 7 = 2

Fact families demonstrate how number equations are connected and help us go back and forth from subtraction to addition. There is a relationship between addition and subtraction, and being able to identify this relationship will help the students find different techniques to solving tough math questions. 

Science

Our crystals are growing! It is pretty awesome to see the changes on a daily basis and have discussion about evaporation. 

This week, we will be exploring a variety of liquids (students will not know what the liquids are). We will be looking at smell, viscosity, color, and other physical properties. 

Then we will take the liquids and freeze them. Then we will look at the liquids and observe if the liquids changed smell, viscosity, and color. 

After that, we will set the liquids out on the counter for a few days to see if they evaporate. Once a few days has passed, we will look at the smell, viscosity, and color to see if they have changed. 

Social

We will be looking at occupations and natural resources of our 3 communities.

Feb 16-19, 2016

Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Family Day! We encouraged each student to go 'unplugged' from technology on Family Day. Each child was asked to record the number of hours that they went technology-free. I have received quite a few forms however all "Unplugged" forms need to be returned by Wednesday Feb 17. 

This Friday we have WINTER FUN DAY. Kids from Kindergarten to Grade 6 will be put on teams and go to 6 different winter outdoor activities. Please ensure that your child is dressed for the weather on Friday. 

Language Arts
Writing-1. annotating expository/informative piece of writing (finding the title/topic, introduction, body, main idea sentences, detail sentences, and conclusion); 2. sorting details and grouping ideas together in writing
Phonics-hard and soft g words (ex. game has a hard g sound, giraffe has a soft g sound), high frequency words (only, laugh, own, even, their, might)

Reading-Chapter 2 of 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle'

Daily 5 Read to Someone-continuing "The BFG" by Roald Dahl

Spelling-words this week are 'wh' and 'ch' blend words

Math

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at Addition and Subtraction to 18. Since we have been working on this a lot lately, it will be a quick unit. 

Science

I sent out an email and dojo message asking for students to bring in a glass jar for our salt crystals that we will be making. This will be a good experiment to witness evaporation and the formation of crystals. 

Our unit that we will be focusing on (until Spring Break) is Exploring Liquids. We will be doing 1-2 experiments every week to explore different liquids, viscosity, absorption, drying techniques, characteristics of different liquids, and differences between solids and liquids.

Social

We will be looking at occupations and natural resources of our 3 communities. 

Feb 8-12, 2016

I hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend! The teachers were at a Teachers Convention (various sessions focusing on different parts of education, curriculum, students, etc) and I got some really awesome ideas! I am so excited to implement them in our class!

This Thursday we have our Field Trip to Telus World of Science. The bus will be leaving right after morning announcements, so please ensure that your child is in the classroom before the bell goes. Students will also need a bag lunch and all items will need to be disposable (no plastic containers, thermos, reusable water bottles, etc). Some great ideas are: sandwiches, granola bars, fruit, yogurt tube, crackers and cheese, cookies, fruit snacks, etc. 

Our test on Hot and Cold Temperatures is this week and we will beginning our 'Exploring Liquids' unit next week. One of our first experiments is making crystals. Each child will need a glass jar to make their crystals in. The best kind of glass jars are Mason jars and pasta sauce jars, or any glass jar that hold more than 500mL.

With our warm weather lately, students are coming in wet from recess. If you would like to send an extra set of pants and socks for your child to leave in their locker, that might be a good idea.

Language Arts
Writing-building comprehension through questions and retelling. Students are going to read a story together then answer a series of questions and retell the story to develop different comprehension skills. 
Phonics-hard and soft g words (ex. game has a hard g sound, giraffe has a soft g sound), high frequency words (only, laugh, own, even, their, might)

Reading-Grade 1D, 2K, and 3S are going to start a ‘Reading Group’. Students from each class are going to be put together in small reading groups and read “The Mouse and the Motorcycle”. This will give them an opportunity to demonstrate their Daily 5 skills, group work skills, comprehension, leadership skills, and listening skills.

Math

We are wrapping up our Numbers to 100 unit and will begin our Addition and Subtraction to 100 unit next week. Although this unit has finished, it will continue throughout the rest of the year as we explore other numbers and equations.

Science

Our Hot and Cold Temperatures unit has finished and we will begin our Exploring Liquids unit next week. Please see the note above about bringing in glass jars to grow crystals.