May Update

Here is what grade 3, room 102 had to say about May:

The play 'Le nouveau bébé' only had two actors in it. One of them played one part and the other played two parts. 

We had a party called Cinco de Mayo. It is a traditional Mexican holiday. We had juice of mango, pineapple and orange because those fruits grow in Mexico.

We had tortilla chips, guacamole and salsa. We made the guacamole by skinning avocados and then mushing them up in a bowl with guacamole spice. 

We also had taquitos. We were writing about Mexico and getting pictures of Mexico on the classroom iPads. We made brochures and we printed them in colour!

There was an artist who came to our classroom. We are sketching plants, animals and other objects. Our artist is Mme Weibe. She helped us learn about an artist named Ernest Thompson Seton. 

We made pastel resist water colour owls. They were really fun!

Holly, Cassidy and Kiera made wolves because they weren't there when we did it. 

One day we went around the classroom looking at different parts of plants and investigating them. We used magnifying glasses to investigate them. There were roots, parts of bark, dirt, leaves, seeds and flowers. 

We helped Dimitri make part of the mosaic on the wall. This is the Tree of Life. There are some animals like bears, wolves, big foot, bison, beavers and turtles. This is some very beautiful art. There were different groups making different parts. 

In English we are reading a chapter book called Charlotte's Web about a pig named Wilbur and his friend Charlotte the spider. We answer questions about the chapters in our booklets. We decorate and draw things from the book, like crates.

We focused on division in May! Everybody was in groups and one of the groups was doing division. We learned how to divide bingo chips using an egg carton. The other groups worked on the iPads or building geometric solids.

We had a great time in May!

April News

We had an assembly and it was fun. All the classes did Earth themed poems for Earth Day. We got to sing Notre planète c'est la Terre!

In science, we are growing plants and lots of them are growing. Some of the bean plants are getting huge! Some of our plants are wrinkled up. Each day we water them and write in our journals. We count how many leaves and measure our plants.

In social studies, we are learning about Mexico. We know that they speak Spanish. It's really hot in Mexico, there's no snow. They only have 2 seasons. Their rainy season is in September.

For math we are doing centres. One of the centres is answering questions using QR codes on the iPads. We started learning division, which is the opposite of multiplication. We are also studying geometric shapes and solids.

We have been reading Charlotte's Web in English. The author uses roman numerals to number the chapters. So far, Wilbur the pig has met a new friend, Charlotte the spider.

In health, we are learning about organs like the brain, kidneys, etc.

At the symphony we heard beautiful music and one of us feel asleep!

We heard songs and the pigs kept complaining at the grade 4 and 5 musical, The Trial of The Big Bad Wolf.

In gym we did soccer baseball, we played hockey and soccer.

Here is a picture of our geometric shape designs.

Here is a picture of our French poem. We each took a turn writing it out on the big chart paper.

Here is a picture of some of our plants growing in the window.

A note from Mme DeSousa:

- New home reading calendars are going home today for May and June. You just have to initial the day your child read and note the approximate time they read. Students should be reading in French daily. 

- Plants will be sent home eventually. Since it is not really outdoor planting weather yet, you might want to start collecting plastic containers to transfer the plants into until they can be planted outside, if you wish! Sour cream, cottage cheese or yogurt containers all work great for this. The egg carton can be planted right into the soil. Happy planting!

Parenting Today Workshops

Parenting Today Workshops
Workshops will be held from 6 :00 – 8:00 p.m. at Educa􏰀onal Support Services inside Jameswood School, 1 Braintree Crescent (off Olive & Ness). Free pizza supper will be offered from 6:00‐6:30 p.m. and session will take place from 6:30–8:00 p.m. To reg‐ ister please contact Liz Ma􏰁s at 204‐885‐9555 or email ptregistra􏰀ons@sjsd.net
FREE CHILDCARE IS PROVIDED FOR SESSIONS. When registering please indicate for how many children and their ages. Once regis‐ tered, if you cannot a􏰂end, please be sure to contact Liz Ma􏰁s at 204‐885‐9555 or email ptregistra􏰀ons@sjsd.net
April 15, 2014: A Parental Perspective on Autism, Presented by Mia Safiniuk
Mia Safiniuk is a certified resource teacher and school counselor. Since 1991, Mia has worked in the private and public education sectors including First Nation’s schools. She has taught in inclusive classrooms from Kindergarten to Grade 8. Her eldest son has Asperger’s. She brings forth practical connections and understanding between: systems, parental per- spectives, and best practices.
The following workshop will include a personal perspective on inclusion that focuses on: challenges, triumph, change(s), roadblocks, systemic implications, relationships, teamwork, and the power of positive advocacy.
May 6, 2014: Coaching For Confidence, Presented by Dr. Maria Phelps, Educational Support Services, St. James Assiniboia School Division.
Shyness and anxiety are normal human emotions. Some children, however, are much more shy or fearful than the average child. For these children, anxiety may interfere with their enjoyment of school, activities with other children, new experi- ences (swimming lessons, birthday parties, etc.), and their development of independence and confidence. In this session, parents will learn about anxiety in children aged four to seven and gain useful tools to help your children overcome this problem.
May 27, 2014: Speech and Language Summer Activities, Presented by: Speech and Language Pathologists, Educational Support Services, St. James-Assiniboia School Division
Students who receive speech and language support during the school year benefit from continued practice over the sum- mer. The purpose of this presentation is to provide parents with simple, quick, and easy activities that can be done as a part of the daily routine. We will provide suggestions for helping your child continue to practice the speech sounds and language skills they have learned throughout the school year. 

March Update

Bradi B. - We were practicing the Notre planète song for Earth Day.

Chase - We are also learning a poem about Earth Day. It's called Ma planète bleue.

Ryker - We learned how to do a slide show on the iPads using Keynote.

Cassidy - We are doing an art project colouring shapes.

Braxton - We traced shapes on a piece of paper and then coloured them each different colours.

Kiera - We measured how long it took the tortoise and the hare to get through a maze using centimetres.

Carson - We had to measure liquids in litres and objects in grams.

Juliana - We had to write a poem in ELA about a colour.

Emily - We studied synonyms, antonyms and homonyms.

Joshua - We were colouring our Egypt papers and gluing them together.
Mme is reading Ramona the Pest every day before we go home.

Talia - We wrote what was happening in Egypt on our papers.

Sara - We had a presentation on Monday about plants and prairies.

Holly - We were studying structures and pretending to be architects and designing houses.

Andreas- We are doing a beep test in gym.

Braxton - There are 2 kinds of beep tests, the curl-up beep test and the running beep test.

Colton - We are doing our black belts in music - Ode to Joy!

Jaden - Today we had a special snack.

William - Today is sports gear day.


In French we are also working on editing and sounds.
We are eating and drinking healthy. We talk about the 4 food groups every time we have a snack.
We also had wear green day for St. Patrick's Day and we collected money for The Dream Factory.
When we worked on our Keynote projects we learned many things! We learned new information about countries, how to work together, how to share ideas and iPads and how to use Keynote including  cropping pictures, adding transitions, saving images and using the French keyboard.


We had a great spring break party!

February Update!

We made Valentine's boxes to exchange Valentine cards on Valentine's Day!

We practiced compatible numbers to 20 in math with partners until we knew them really well!

In French, each morning we have a sentence to edit and correct. In groups we are working on a presentation of a Robert Munsch book that we enjoy. 

In ELA, we are finishing publishing our own fractured fairy tales.

Here is some of the pottery we made in Pottery Club!

We have become experts on the subject of Ancient Egypt. Here is a picture of our names written in hieroglyphics.

The winter Olympics are here and we are keeping track of the medals on the bulletin board by the office. We have been keeping a journal called podium pages that talks about the athletes and sports. We have been watching some of the sports live on the smart board!

The third week of February was Festival du voyageur week. In gym we played tug of war. We ate pancakes. On Thursday we had activities all through the day. The activities were hot chocolate & bannock, making voyageur necklaces, bingo, gym, music, dancing in the library and sledding outside! We dressed up all week.

Let's hope it warms up soon so we can play outside at recess:)

Science

For our design process in science, we built structures.

January Update!

We made Inuksuks and northern lights. We used chalk pastels. 

It took a long time to make dots that represent beads on our mittens. 

Here are our stuffies! We brought them to school on pyjama day.

This is Jessica's boat! We all made a boat out of foil paper. We used marbles to test the boats and we hoped they wouldn't sink. 

This is a hogan. We built it in groups of 3 during centres. 

Here is an arch. It is the doorway to an igloo. 

This is the design centre. We explored many shapes and First Nations designs. We built totem poles out of cardboard rolls. 

We built tipis using sticks, leather strings and saran wrap. 

We made roofs out of pipe cleaners. We tested their strength. The strongest one was the spider web shaped roof!

Swing it Baby! We counted how many times the baby swung depending on how far we let the swing go. 

Here is the totem pole stencil.

The last centre was playing Tangrams on the iPads.

We have many math apps on the iPads now! We are working on multiplication. We are writing fractured fairy tales. We learned how to hoop dance in the gym. Robert Munsch is our French author study. We learned about what scribes and pharaohs did in Ancient Egypt. We are working on an art project in music for the symphony.