We Can Retell Stories

Today we did a retell of the story "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  A retell is when you try your best to tell all the details of the story that Jan Brett told but in your own words.  We used paper characters and a mitten to help us remember and made a video with the IPad.  Only some of us could video at a time so the rest of us worked on our Valentines Day art.
In Gym we played a relay race while dribbling the basketballs.  W also played bird on a wire again.
In math we talked about numbers in 10 frames and what number comes before and after different teen numbers.  We practiced on the whiteboards and on a paper.
We are also getting excited because Trickster Theatre is coming to our school next week.

Family Literacy Day

Today in Morning Meeting we shared who our favorite team is because today was Jersey Day.  It was also Family Literacy Day so we met the Grade 4/5's in the hallway to read together.  Today we had a volunteer that came to give us new word cards to practice.  We are getting really good at our sight words.
In math we practiced breaking numbers into two groups sometimes the groups had the same amount in each group and sometimes the amount was different.  We had PE and we played a game called "bird on the wire" where we had to try to dribble our ball past the birds on the wire without getting tagged.

High River is Unique

In Social Studies we made a flag about things that make High River unique.  One thing that makes High River unique is that the TV show Heartland is filmed here.  We also have a Medicine Tree and murals on our buildings that tell what High River was like long ago.
We did some catch up today one job was to finish our mitten and the animals to retell the story "The Mitten".  Another job was to fill our book boxes with some new good fit books.  Ms. Mahan's mom also came to show us some word centers.
We read a book about a cat named Comet who was looking for a house and he finally found his home in the light house.  The book was by Jan Brett.  Today we played a pizza game in PE when she called our pizza topping we had to run to the other side.  When she said deluxe we all ran.

Winter Walk

Today we went on a winter walk to look for signs of winter.  We looked for things that animals, people, and plants do in the winter.  We saw a few birds but not as many as when we went on our fall walk and we saw a hockey net.  When we go on a walk we need to stay on the path and stay between the teachers so we can stay safe.

Feeling Wall

Today we put up our feeling wall and we touched it. We wrote sentences about what we felt.  We wrote things like "I feel sticky cereal" and "I feel swirly noodles".  We are working on writing 8 sentences about what we feel.
We had gym and we practiced dribbling basketballs and keeping control.  We played a dribbling tag game.
We read the stories about what snowmen do at night. Then we wrote a story about what our what we think our icing snowman would do at night.  Some people thought that their snowman would sing or dance or play at the park.

Icing Painting

Today we had math and we worked on finishing our teen numbers books. We can make teen numbers by making a group of 10 and then counting on with the ones left over.  We can make teen numbers by adding and by drawing pictures.  In gym we played a penguin game.  We had to cross the gym two times. One time was waddling with a ball between our knees and the other time was sliding on our tummy on a scooters.

Today talked more about our sense of touch and made a list of touch words.  We also made icing a snowman and talked about how the icing felt.  We used our fingers to make the round snowball and then we ripped paper to make the hat arms, buttons, nose and eyes.

We must be growing! We have noticed that there have been a lot of kids asking to go to the fruit bowl for extra snacks the last few weeks. Please know that in our room if we are working on independent activities we are welcome to have a healthy snack while we work. Some of us might ask you to pack a few extra healthy snacks to help our brains do their jobs.

Touching Wall

Today we made our squares for the touch wall. We used white glue that is liquid so we have to wait until Monday when the glue dries to touch them.  We are excited to see how they turn out.  
In gym we played a ship game with mats.  The mats were our ships and the pins were our anchors. You had to throw balls and knock the other teams anchors off.  We also had to protect our anchors from getting knocked over.  We practiced listening by going to different walls doing different movements.
We had an assembly today about Habit 3-putting first things first
Today we read a book about three dassies.  It was kind of like the "3 Little Pigs" except that there was an eagle instead of a big bad wolf.  The first two houses that got knocked over were made of grass and sticks.  The house that did not get knocked over was made of stones.
In music we learned about a girl who was deaf so she took off her shoes and it helped her hear better.  We also got to play the xylophones

Big Rocks

In January we are learning about "Habit 3 - Put First Things First". That means working before we play. We read a story about a porcupine that did not put first things first in studying for his spelling test.   We also read The Very Hungry Caterpillar who "put first things first" to eat first so he can have the energy to turn into a butterfly.  On the papers we wrote about things we do first before we play like doing our home reading, doing our chores and spending time with our family.  We turned the papers into flags and then stuck them into marshmallows.  Those are our big rocks.
Next, we got a cup with rice in it and we talked about little rocks like playing video games and watching TV.  The rice was out little rocks.  We tried to fit our big rocks into the cup with the little rocks already in there but they would not fit!   After we tried putting the marshmallows in first and then the rice and it all fit!  We learned that if we put our big rocks in first then we will have time for everything.  We need to get out work done first and then play.  At the end we got to eat one marshmallow.

We worked on writing and we each wrote a winter story.  We wrote for 8 min and we blew Mrs. M away.  At the end we shared our writing with the class.  Today we also read a book about a huge turnip that was stuck in the ground all the animals tried to get it out but they couldn't until the bears on the bottom pushed it out.

How Animals Use Their Noses

Today we looked in books to find out information about how animals smell.  We looked for the words smell, nose or scent in the different animal books.  In the books we learned that a polar bear can smell prey up to 32 km away and 1 meter under the snow.  That is like smelling things happening in Okotoks when you are in High River!  We learned that grizzly bears smell other bears scents on trees and know to stay away and find a different home.  Hermit crabs and bees us their antennae help smell.  We also learned that Mosquitoes can smell people and animals from up to 30 meters away!

Smell Receptors

Today we watched a Magic School Bus video about smells.  One of the things we learned is you can not see smell eyes normally but you can if you have a strong magnifying glass.  We also learned that our snot keeps dirt and germs out of our lungs.  So when we pick our nose or eat it we are really touching and eating germs and dirt!   We also learned that each smell has its own spot or smell receptor in our nose.  The smell receptor sends messages to our brains.    
We played a new game in PE called Baymax tag. When you got tagged by a person with a pinny you had to go in slow motion.  When you got tagged by a person without a Pinny you got to go fast again.  We learned about the game by reading the Grade 3's blog.

Northern Lights

 

We did art today and made a picture of the northern lights.  We made them with chalk pastels and we used our finger to blend the colours.  In the northern lights we saw lots of colours like greens, blues, pinks and purples.  The Northern lights can be curved and they move.  We also made the ground with dark coloured oil pastels. 

Today we finished our smelling centers that we started yesterday.  We did work on writing again today and lots of us finished the writing we started yesterday.

Smells

We had lots of fun at the smell centers today.One of the centers was interviewing people what their favorite smell and their least favorite smell is. In another center we were smelling containers and guessing what was in them.  We also did some senses games on the computer.  In the last center we smelled little containers and tried to match them to a game board.  Some smelled good and some smelled bad.

We got some new math centers for winter.  One was making a pattern with snowflakes and one was making your own calendar.  We did work on writing and we wrote about anything we wanted.  We are getting better at picking an idea to write about.  

We read a book called Armadillo Rodeo about an Armadillo called Bo who ran away from his mom because he thought that a cowboy boot was another armadillo that he could be friends with.  We are learning about the author Jan Brett this month.  

  

Noses

Today we started talking about noses and we made a nose on a Mr. Potato head.  We will add all the senses to the him as we  talk about them. We also read a little bit about the nose in a magic school bus book and it told us that a dog has receptors in his nose that send messages to its brain.
We read a book about Katy and the big snow about a snowplow that had to rescue the whole city from a snow storm.  We played line tag in gym and we talked about teen numbers.  We made a poster about things that we are like hockey players, brothers, sons and daughters.
We got a new student and we showed him what it is like to be in our class.

Happy New Year!

Today we did morning meeting and we shared what our most favorite thing that you did over the Christmas holidays was. We read a book called "Deep Snow"and at the end the dad had to pull the kids out of the deep deep snow with his jet!  We did work on writing and we wrote about what we are in our class.  We also finished our 2016 goals booklet
In music we did 2 songs called "Splish, Splash" and we also told what we got for Christmas with music notes.  We went to PE and played a game called builders and bulldozers and in math we built a castle that looked the same as a picture using 3D shapes.
We read a book about Magic school bus about the senses.  In the book we learned that the black part of our eye is called the pupil.  The Vice Principal flew the bus right into an eye!
Today Ms. Mahan gave us all of our work from December and we picked our favorite thing and then put the rest of the work in our backpack to go home.