Welcome to October!
It is hard to believe we are already starting our second month of Grade 3. Your children continue to amaze me with their hard work and desire to learn! In case you missed it, here is the October Newsletter: Brantford Division 9 Newsletter – October.
Our sound of the week was “ou”, as in the words “un hibou” or “la soupe”. We practiced pronunciation with two special songs, a game called “Tic-Tac-Mots”, word play using Scrabble tiles, and story writing. On Monday, we will have a short dictée spelling test to check our memories and will begin work on the sound “oi”.
In honour of Orange Shirt Day, we read several stories. First, we read Shi-Shi-Etko, and reflected on the lessons that her family taught her before she leaves to residential school. The following day, we spent some quiet time outside reflecting on the special things our families have taught us, and drawing what we would place in our memory bags like the character Shi-Shi-Etko does. We also read I Lost My Talk and I’m Finding My Talk, and reflected on the poetry of Rita Joe, who attended residential school, and Rebecca Thomas, whose father attended residential school and who is re-learning her culture and language.
In Math, we have continued to work on place value through large group and small group games, and individual worksheets. We worked on representing numbers in standard and expanded form. For example, the number 1732 could be expanded to 1000+700+30+2.
I introduced Math Jenga as one of our games for Math With A Friend, and it was a popular station. Each tile has a math sentence that students must answer before the next person’s turn.
As it is a new month, we also created a new calendar set for October. Students were creative and super engaged in representing the numbers on the calendar in a variety of ways! We also highlighted the opposite sides of the calendar cards with different colours depending on if the numbers were even, odd, or multiples of 5 or 10.
We have been learning about conflict management styles, and non-violent communication strategies. We learned about 5 different animal metaphors for conflict styles. The turtle wants to avoid conflict of any kind; the teddy bear/baby bear wants to avoid conflict by making others feel good (sometimes sacrificing their own needs), the shark can attack or engage in conflict easily; the fox is strategic and will make compromises; and the owl will step back, observe and listen to find a solution that works best for everyone. While there are times that it might be helpful to behave like each of these animals, we will be working towards being wise owls who can resolve conflict instead of amplify it.
One of the strategies to resolving our conflict is to use Non-Violent Communication. The four steps are:
- Observations (“I noticed that…”)
- Feelings (“That makes me feel…”)
- Needs (“I need…”)
- Request (I request that….”)
We practiced these steps with improvised role plays based on imaginary conflicts. My goal is to encourage students to develop strategies to navigate personal and social conflicts, and have found Non-Violent Communication strategies helpful even in grown-up life!
On Thursday and Friday, we cycled through Daily 5 literacy stations. Students worked on writing inspired by our sound of the week words (many enjoyed sharing their stories with the class afterwards), word play with scrabble tiles and mini white boards, reading to self, or reading to Mme Anderson.
On Friday, we learned about colour theory with Mix It Up and practiced mixing our own colour wheels or abstract pieces. Then, we read The Skin You Live In and tried our best to mix paint colours that matched each individual’s unique skin colour. I think we all managed to get pretty close! We will re-visit our self portraits again next week to finish up these pieces!
Next Wednesday and Thursday will be our Intake meetings. Wednesday’s meetings will be from 3:15-7:00, and Thursday’s will be 2:00-5:00. There will be an early dismissal both Thursday (1:50pm) and Friday (2:00pm). Intake meetings will take place through Zoom. Please follow the link posted in School Appointments Online. You will be in the “waiting room” until your appointment time.
Thank you very much!
