Communication in mathematics is very important. It is definitely one of the areas of need in our classroom. Here is an example of problem solving in our measurement unit focusing on communication. Notice that problem solving answers should include a full sentence answer, "show your work", and the "I know because..." communication component. Together we began with a few sentences offered by students and "bumped it up" until we had a comprehensive answer. Please continue to focus on those "How do you know?" parts of homework questions and ask your child how he/she can "bump up" their answer.
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Today we reviewed what living things need to survive and how habitats and ecosystems can change. We began an experiment to investigate the non-living things that a lima bean needs to survive. We wrote our hypothesis today and will continue our observations throughout the experiment. Ask your child to tell you what an ecosystem is and what they wrote as their hypothesis about this experiment.
Students have been discussing the characteristics of a character in a narrative. Ask your child what a characteristic is! Ask them to tell you a characteristic of a character from a story they are reading and to prove it with evidence from the story. As your child to tell you a characteristic of you and to prove it! Students created characteristics of a friend in the class "Charlotte-style"! Ask your child to prove that their friend has this characteristic!In our Dance unit, students are working with streamers. Today we practised synchronizing movements as well as combining different movements and levels together. We can move the streamers in a variety of ways... flicking, twirling, circular, zigzag, wavy. ...and in a variety of levels...high, medium, and low. We combined movements to make interesting designs. We have begun our science unit on Habitats and Communities. Ask your child to define these scientific words: habitat, population, community, migration. Ask him/her what all habitats have and other facts that he/she has learned so far about habitats!
In our Science unit on Light and Sound we have been discussing high and low pitch sounds. Students created their own instruments to try and vary the pitch of the sound. Students performing with their musical instruments!Students are asked to focus on characters in narratives. Characteristics describe what a character's personality is like, not what that character likes to do or what he/she is good at doing. For example, we could say that a character is good at playing basketball. The characteristic would be "athletic". We have had discussions about some interesting words that can describe characters. Instead of words like "nice" and "fun", we listed more interesting words like "courageous" or "artistic" or "kind-hearted". For each characteristic, students need to provide evidence from the story. How do we know that a character has this characteristic? When reading with your child, ask him/her to describe a characteristic of a character and to back this up with proof or evidence from the story. Today, we focused on the character of Templeton in "Charlotte's Web". Writing three characteristics of a character along with evidence is a required question on the CASI reading assessment coming up again later this term! Practice helps!
In our Health unit on Healthy Eating, students have been looking at how many servings a day they need in each of the food groups on Canada's Food Guide. Today, they looked at how much of each type of food makes up a serving. Are you getting enough of each of these food groups per day?
Yesterday, students read Chapter 5 of "Charlotte's Web" in their Literacy Circles and had a discussion about the main idea of the chapter. The main idea is what the author wants the reader to remember or learn. Students did a great job of determining the main idea of this chapter which describes the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Here is an example of a student's understanding of the main idea from Chapter 5. See how this student not only shows an understanding of the main idea but gives evidence (an example from the story) to back it up!
In Science we continue learning about sound. Today, we learned some interesting facts about how the ear works! Ask your child to tell you ways to keep his/her ears safe. Ask him/her to explain how the vibrations of sound are picked up by the ear and sent to the brain.
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