Alternative Energy Solutions

On Monday, we had a presentation by the St. Clair Conservation Authority about renewable energy sources. After a brief presentation in the classroom we spent the rest of the first block outside experimenting. The students attached a solar panel to a motor to race a little car. It was very exciting to see which cars went the fastest!  The students also experimented with models of wind mills. They had a blast trying to find the windiest spot on the playground to hear their wind mill make music. Finally, the students were each given a picture of a shape and challenged to try to find their shape in nature. Some were definitely easier to find than others.

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back!  I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing March Break.
We were busy before the break building and testing our floaters and floats.  The students had a great time.  I heard one student say, "This is so much fun.  I wish we could do this all of the time!"

We are wrapping up our unit on Matter (grade 2) and Structures (grade 3) and will be starting our next social studies units soon.  The grade 2's will be comparing a hot community (Zimbabwe) to a cold community (Iqaluit).  The grade 3's will be looking at the different types of communities within Ontario.

In Writing, we are continuing to write narratives.  Our stories with our names in the title are finished and we will be publishing them later this week.  Our next narrative is about something this gets lost.

In Reading, we are working on writing a good retell.  We have to include the characters, setting, problem, 3 events (that happen after the problem), the solution and the lesson learned.  An example of a retell that we did together is shown below.

In Math, we are working on subtraction with regrouping.  For the grade 2's, this is a new concept, so we take it very slowly and step by step.  The grade 3's learn to regroup when subtracting 3-digit numbers and will also learn how to make change.

Writing!

We have read a couple of books from Dan Gutman's My Weird School series and the students LOVE them!

We are learning to write narratives so we thought we would try to write a silly book with a rhyming title! We are writing one as a class called, "Mrs. Coates Found Some Goats". Here is our plan

The students are also writing one on their own using a form of their name. Here is a list of our creative titles!

They will bring them home to share when they are finished. 

Here is a blank copy of our plan if you want to write a story with your child at home. 

Please make sure that the events happen AFTER the problem. 

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing holiday!

We started a new unit in math - addition. The grade 2's will learn adding strategies (counting up, doubles, making tens), how to count change, and how to add 2 digit numbers with and without regrouping. The grade 3's will learn how to round to the nearest 10 to estimate sums and differences, how to add and subtract 2 digit and 3 digit numbers, and how to add and subtract money.

In Language, we are continuing with our persuasive writing. We are also reading the chapter book Miss Klute is a Hoot! which the students are really enjoying!

In Social Studies, the grade 2's are going to begin their research of a celebration in the next couple of days. The grade 3's continue to learn about early settlers in Canada. 

In Drama, the students are busy working on plays.  They will present them to the class using a lot of vocal and facial expressions. 

In Art, we went on a hot air balloon ride last week!

Putting the question in the answer

We were interviewing each other and practicing answering using part of the question in the answer.

Measuring the primary hall

The grade 3s and I were wondering how long the primary hall is so using only 4 metre sticks, they measured the length.  They found that the hall is 55 m and 39 cm long!

Buddies!

Wednesday we read with our grade 8 buddies!  The students in both classes really enjoy this time!