Happy Earth Day!

In honour of Earth Day we had the opportunity to participate in some special activities on Thursday.

To start off the day, we got to participate in a live reading from author Evelyn Bookless.  With the beauty of technology we were able to participate in this virtual author visit all the way from the Netherlands! Evelyn read her newly released picture book called Captain Green and the Plastic Scene.

 

In the afternoon we had the privilege of participating in a directed drawing lesson over Zoom with an Indigenous artist from the Squamish nation, Gordon Dick. Now, technology can be our best friend and worst enemy simultaneously. Unfortunately, by the afternoon, technology was not our friend at all. During our Zoom session with Gordon, our internet connection became very poor and we received a lag in our video stream. Next, we lost our sound so we unfortunately could not follow along with Gordon’s verbal cues. Not to fret! This was a perfect opportunity for us to practice a) our patience b) our flexibility by going with the flow when something planned does not go as expected and c) our inferencing skills. We continued to persevere with the art lesson and we practiced our inferencing skills based on what we could view while not being able to hear the instructions. Students continued to be risk-takers and attempted to explore various shapes and lines that Gordon was demonstrating. We inferred that Gordon was showing us different techniques for how to use different line strokes to produce different effects that we would then later incorporate into our own drawing. I was pleased to see many students show grit and perseverance during this difficult and unexpected time when our technology disappointed us.

We continue to see growth from our pea seedlings! Ask your scientist how our experimental seedlings are doing – is there any growth from the seedling with no sunlight; no water; no soil? Were your initial predictions correct or incorrect?

In Math, the Grade 3s continue to learn and practice new mathematical skills. We have moved on from our unit on fractions and have now dived into the world of multiplication! This past week, students began to understand the concepts of multiplication as groups of, arrays and repeated addition. For example, 5+5+5+5=20 is the same as 4 x 5 = 20 and also the same as having 4 groups of 5. Students are developing their skill-set in showing their mathematical thinking in both pictorial and concrete representation.

Can you answer the following questions?

a) Doughnuts are sold in packages of 5. On the weekend, Mrs. Ralph bought 3 packages. How many doughnuts did she have altogether?

b) There were 4 sheep in the field and 3 cows in the field. How many sheep were there altogether?

c) Can you draw 2 groups of 6? What is the product (the answer)?

d) Can you draw 3 groups of 5? What is the product?

 

Grade 2s continue to explore the world of addition and subtraction. We continue to primarily focused on number bonds and number sentences, using both operations of addition and subtraction. It can be tricky at times to recognize that the number sentences contain the same numbers, however they are just in a different order. I encourage everyone to continue practicing writing their number sentences to become more familiar and confident with these skills.

For example, 

5 + 4 = 9

4 + 5 = 9

9 – 4 = 5

9 – 5 = 4

In the number sentences above, all four sentences are using the numbers 4, 5, and 9. It is key to remember that when you are subtracting, you are subtracting from the largest number as you need to be able to take away from it.

Can you answer the questions below?

a)

6 + 3 = ________

3 + ________ = 9

9 – ________ = 6

________ – 6 = 3

 

b) Please write two addition sentences for the math story below.

There were 8 birds sitting in a tree, 9 more birds joined the tree. How many birds are there altogether?

 

c) Please write two subtraction sentences for the math story below.

There were 19 cats sitting on the fence. A dog barked and scared away 4. How many cats were left?

 

d) Please complete the doubles and doubles + 1 below:

• 4 + 4 = _________
• 4 + 5 = _________
• 6 + 6 = _________
• 6 + 7 = _________
• 8 + 8 = _________
• 8 + 9 = _________