Calling, Australia!

A Few Reminders: 

• Kids Paint Day is December 3rd 
• Early Dismissal Dec. 6th
• Grade 3 Christmas Elves Collections have begun! This year each class is competing for most items donated! Grade 3's will be delivering the goods to Devon Christmas Elves on Dec. 8th. 
• Permission forms will be online. 
• Christmas Concert time! Dec. 18th is the date for Grade 3/4
• Afternoon Showtime is 1:10pm 
• Evening Showtime is 6:30pm 
• Please let Ms. Potter know if you will be away. 
• Last Day of Classes before break is Dec 22nd! PJ & Movie Day!!

CALLING, AUSTRALIA!

We were so lucky this week to interview a friend overseas! 

To prepare for our interview, students had to work on developing relevant questions to ask our special guest. 

First, we determined our purpose - why were we calling this person? We want to get to know all about her. 

Next, we thought of some categories of questions we'd like to ask. If we want to get to know someone we'd like to know their likes, dislikes, where they live, etc. 

Students each got a sticky, and chose a category to create questions for. I was really impressed with how meaningful, appropriate and thoughtful their questions were!

 

Then, we got to make the call!! When we called at 2:00 pm on Monday, it was already 7:00 am on TUESDAY morning for Kacy! This was so cool, because it was like we were calling someone in the FUTURE!
Students sat in a host chair when it was time to ask their questions, and even sang the Canadian Anthem for Kacy!


We got to learn lots about Australia, including how it is their summer right now! Another interesting fact, Kacy is a nurse in Queensland, and her hospitals name is....ROBINA HOSPITAL! That really blew the kiddos away!





Language Arts
In small groups, students did some exploring with words to learn about a new grammar concept. Looking at a group of words, students tried sorting them without any guidance. I like to do this first, because its very interesting to see how students see a group of words and the connections they can make! Once that had shared some of their grouping ideas, I started to give them hints/guidance. They had to sort them into 3 groups, a hint being all the words are nouns. Many students caught onto this clue, that they were all either a person, place or thing.

Finally, I asked the students to create two groups for the words, by looking at the letters in the words. This is where some caught on and saw some words started with CAPITAL letters!

This is when I introduced Common & Proper Nouns.

Common Nouns name any person, place of thing. They do not start with a capital letter.
ex. teachers, park, book. 

Proper Nouns name a specific person, place or thing. They do begin with a capital letter.
ex. Ms. Potter, Lions Park, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Most students understood the concept, and we will continue to reinforce it, as well as, edit our own writing for it.

Reading
When we read, sometimes the author does not tell us everything directly. Often as reader's we have to learn to read between the lines to understand a characters emotions, determine a setting or what is happening. This skill is called Making Inferences: using what we know, and clues from the text, we can determine what the author is trying to tell us. 

To introduce this skill, we watched an Oscar Nominated short film, from 2007. 

Using clues from the video, and knowledge we already have, students first worked independently on these questions:

• What’s the man’s job? How do you know?
• Where does the story take place? (Students may not have the background knowledge to guess accurately, but they can guess the climate.)
• How does the orange octopus/pink octopus/man feel? How do you know? (You can ask this throughout the video.)
• What do you think happens after the end of the film?

Then as a group we shared our answers. It was interesting to see the slight differences between answers, based on everyone's separate background knowledge. 

Want to try at home? 

Check out some of these videos:

(Please preview before watching with your child) 

Crumbs

- Why do the mice look around? Where do you think the crumbs came from?

Simon's Cat

- How do you think the cat feels? Why?

A big part of inferring is to make sure you can find evidence in the video, or text to support your theory. Students reinforced this skill in pairs with task cards. Reading a short paragraph, students worked to answer question about setting, character emotions or what could be happening. 

Ex. 

Kim turned off the lights and everyone found a place to hide. Nicky hid under the table where everyone had out presents. He peeked out and saw the front door starting to open. 

What are Kim and Nicky doing? How do you know?

I think Kim and Nicky are at a surprise party, because they mention presents under a table and hiding as someone is coming in the door. 

What will happen next? Why do you think so?

I think someone will come in and everyone will shout "SURPRISE!" because the lights were off and someone was coming in the front door. 

To create inferences, students had some fun making riddles! Choosing an object, students wrote word clues to try and have classmates guess what it could be!

Students really enjoyed reading these out to the class and having
everyone trying to guess their object.





Math 
Regrouping last week led us to our new concept: Adding with Regrouping! Students worked on adding and regrouping with 2, 3 and even some 4 digit numbers! This is a concept that needs lots of reinforcement, as students will sometimes forget to "carry the one".

We have been practicing this skill through dice games, workbook time and practicing with base ten blocks.  

Science 4  
This week in science we have looked at the many types of waste, including: solid waste, liquid waste, organic waste, recyclable waste and toxic waste.

Then we began looking at pre-consumer waste and post-consumer waste. 

Pre-Consumer waste is what we don't see, it is the waste created before the product gets to use. Often this waste can be recycled and reused to make more products. 

Post Consumer Waste is the waste we do see, it is created after we use the product, including packaging and the product itself. Most of this waste can be recycled as well. 

This brought us onto a discussion on durable, non-durable and disposable goods. These are the different way that products are created. We will expand on these types of goods next week in some activities. 

Social 4 

Celebrations and traditions differ all over the world, and this week students looked at India's various celebrations. Choosing one of our own traditions/celebrations, students compared it to one from India and wrote about how each is celebrated. 

We all got to look at what the traditional clothing in India for boys and girls looks like, and even had some examples brought in by a student, as well as a staff member! 

Next, we will begin to talk about Services in Communities and how they differ around the world. On Seesaw, students worked on a introductory activity about what services are and created a brain web. Check out Seesaw to see your child's work!