Wednesday help

Dear parents,

On Thursday, we will be doing a fun winter activity with our buddy class. If you have time Wednesday after school, I would love some help with prep. The more people, the quicker it will be. At the most it will be 45 minutes, and doesn't involve any special skills! If you're worried about what to do with your child, they can hang out in the classroom. If you're free to help, please come to the portable at 3:00 pm. I will get you started while I do supervision until 3:20pm. Merci!

A thought on writing

Monday and Tuesday, we worked on our 3-step write. I do this as a way for the kids to show me all they have learned about writing this term. This term, they wrote instuctions on how to build a snow man, and ALL the steps involved (when we first practiced, they sent me outside in a tshirt!!). Often, we think of writing as just writing stories, but it is important to practice all kinds of writing, such as non-fiction writing, instructional writing, and oppinion writing!

It's beginning to look a lot like winter

...both inside and out!

Photos from the first week of December.

Math Games

The students have been working very hard on math these past few weeks! We have been doing lots of math games in class with cards and dice. You can play games like 'war' but with addition. This can be played with one or two, or even three or 4 cards! We played a similar one with dice, starting with one dice each, and ending with three or four dice each!

We have now moved on to addition with regrouping, but it is still important to practice these basic math skills. Any of these games can be played at home with just a deck of cards or dice. Also, here is the link to a website that has many great math games! http://www.mathblaster.com/parents/math-games/3rd-grade-math-games

Communicable diseases

We spoke a lot this week about ways to stay healthy and prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Be sure to talk with your child about all the things we can do to stay healthy, and what to do when we aren't feeling well. 

Here is the explosion of 'friendly germs' reminding us to be healthy. 

It's wonderful to be back at school! I missed the kids very much and often wondered what they were up to when I was away!

Now that I'm back, I'm looking forward to continuing our daily 5 literacy, and getting a change to read with small groups more often. We are also continuing our space unit, and will soon be delving into more in-depth learning about each planet.

I wanted to share with you this blog post that I found that is about a very cool app that lets students build structures. If you have an 'iDevice' this could be a great way to keep learning about structures! http://digitaldivideandconquer.blogspot.ca/2013/11/cargo-bridge-app-more-engineering.html

You are invited to come visit out class tomorrow between 9 and 915 to come see the structures the kids have made. Nothing big, just a quick walk-through! 

Also, a reminder that the scholastic forms are due on Monday the 18th so that we can be sure we will get the books before we go on holidays!

Just for fun

I wanted to share this with you all because #1 it's so much fun, and #2 I love the bit at the end about why they do 'dinovember'. Enjoy!

https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/6f4cb1886d41

Note home November 12th 2013

Dear div 1 families,                                                            Nov 12 2013

What a busy month October was! I can’t believe how quickly it flew by!

I have been writing a bit about what we have been doing in class on the class blog. Don’t forget to check it out http://mmejessicachapelski.blogspot.ca/

Here are a few notes about the next few weeks:

We will be starting a literacy program called ‘les 5 au quotidien’, or the daily 5. For this, we will have a listening center. I am asking that each child brings a set of headphones for use in class for health reasons (I prefer not to spread lice through the class). You can get decent headphones for relatively cheap from dollar stores, or even London Drugs or Shoppers. The kind that go over the head is best, so that we don’t have them falling out all the time. As always, if this is not financially feasible, please see Mme Alain in the office and we would be able to help out. Please send these headphones to school in a ziplock bag labeled with your child’s name. Merci!

There was a bit of a hiccup with the progress reports. I will be sending these home the week I am back. Thank you for your understanding. Also, please make sure to send the goal setting sheets back to school so I can compile these.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I will be gone for school next week for personal reasons. I will be gone from Monday November 18^th and return Tuesday November 26^th. Please don’t worry! I am fine, and I will definitely be coming back to school! My TOC will continue to check agendas for notices and notes so please continue to communicate in this way. Also, make sure to stop by and introduce yourself, and help our guest teacher to feel welcome at this wonderful school!

Merci!

Mme Jessica

Remembrance Day

What a busy week we have had! Lots of activities related to Remembrance Day.

One of my favourite parts was a discussion we had about what peace is. Students came up with AMAZING ideas of how to create peach in our community. I will make sure to post a picture on Tuesday! 

Thank you everyone for coming in for conferences the past two days. It was great to see you all, and hear about the kids' goals! I'm looking forward to working on these all together. 

This weekend's homework is to finish and re-write their spooky stories for Monday. Don't worry about everything being perfect. We will be editing these on Monday all together. Part of the homework is also to underline words that the student thinks aren't quite correct.
The students did a wonderful brainstorm about what we would see/hear/feel in a haunted house. I have attached a picture for inspiration with writing. 

I've also attached a few pictures of what we have been up to the past few days. Please enjoy! 

Finally, we will be doing a haunted house with our gr 1 buddy class. We are looking for parent volunteers to come in the afternoon on Oct 30^th to help us and our grade 1 buddies turn our class into a haunted house.  We are also looking for parent volunteers to help supervise our haunted house in the morning on Oct 31^st and to supervise the activities in the afternoon.  Please send me a note in your child’s agenda or an email mme.jessica.chapelski@gmail.com if you are able to help us on either the 30^th in the afternoon or the 31^st in the morning and/or afternoon.  If your child has any decorations homemade or otherwise (snakes, spiders, pumpkins, etc) that they would like to bring to add to our haunted house please make sure they are labelled with his/her name and send them on the afternoon of the 30^th.   Children are invited to come to school dressed in their costumes on October 31^st! 

Just incase you don't have this werk's dictée words, here they are 

Today we started writing our first letters to our new pen pals! How exciting! We have no idea who they are, or anything about them, so needless to say, our letters were full of questions! 

Students wrote their dictée pre test today, and if they had their dictée book, they brought it home. If your child forgot their book at home, please help them to remember it for tomorrow!

A big merci to everyone who gave us boxes, tubes, etc to help build our houses. If you still have things hanging around home that you could donate, we could still use them! 

Oops! There were notes to go home about the bake sale this week. It is div 1's turn this Friday. Reminders will go home tomorrow! 

Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures of what we have done for thanksgiving. Needless to say, I was exceptionally impressed with all the things they came up with in their brainstorm of what they are thankful for. 

There are also some pictures of the mindful drawing we did in class today. Be sure to ask about all the steps it took!

Welcome!

Bonjour division 1 of Douglas Annex, and welcome to our blog!

I will be posting here periodically throughout the week (2-4 posts a week) of what we are doing in class, dictée words, and ideas for enrichment at home. Stay tuned for pictures tomorrow of our Thanksgiving projects.

Until then, feel free to browse previous posts from last year, or check out the 'links' section. There are lots of interesting links there for learning at home!

I would officially like to invite you to our classroom on June 27th, the last day of school, from 11:00am to 12:00 noon. This will be just after the year-end assembly which is in the morning before recess.

We have two field trip notices coming home today! One for swimming and one for Stanley Park. I saw there was one set left over in the class...so if you are missing one, please make sure to pick up a new one from the bulletin board outside the classroom! Merci!

What a fun week we have had so far!! 

Here are a few points to start some conversation. 

- Tuesday we had a 'body scientist' lesson from the Saleema Noon group. 

- Tuesday we also started our new (and last) social studies project. Be on the lookout for something big!

- Today we had a chance to visit the micro green fair and learn lots about micro greens! 

- today we also had a visit from the librarian from the West Point Grey library. She read us a great (and hilarious) book called 'I lost my hat' by John Klassen. The next book is called 'Fish' and I've heard it's wonderful!! 

She also spoke to us about the summer reading program at the local library, which I highly recommend!!

Four girls in our class organized a scavenger hunt for Monday's lunch recess. For those who signed up, here are the teams 

Visit to UBC

We had such a fun time! Here are some pictures from our afternoon. Thanks for all the parent help we had!

tomorrow's field trip

Merci for your patience in figuring out details for tomorrow's visit to the UBC chemistry department. Due to circumstances beyond my control, logistics were figured out today (eek!) but I now have information to share with you.

please do not forget to send your child with a car seat if they need it!

I am going to send an email to the addresses I have on file for you with plans for tomorrow.

Thanks again for your understanding!

- Mme Jessica

I have been absolutely amazed by the creativity and hard work that has been going into the comic strip projects. Yesterday, we spent the whole afternoon taking turns with the iPads and working hard on other work when it wasn't our turn. I was incredibly impressed! A few pictures of the hard work are attached. 

Today, we started our last 3 step write of the year. The kids worked really really well on their brainstorming page this morning, so this afternoon we had a fun cooperative game. They needed to build a structure with limited supplies that could hold my keys as high as possible. This activity was a good reminder for certain groups about appropriate behaviour when we do fun games, everyone eventually showed WONDERFUL group work and cooperation! I was very impressed!

New projects

While we are talking about new projects, the students have been working hard on their comic strip projects. Incase they didn't tell you, we will be using iPads to create our comic strips! They started working on their plans while I was away sick yesterday, and when I was looking at their work today, I literally had goosebumps. What they are creating is amazing!! I can't wait to see and share the final results!

We also have a new project that I am asking students to get started on. We will be doing personal interest speeches (art orratoire) coming up in June.

The work for next Wednesday, May 22, is is to come up with what they want to speak about, as well as a list (point form is ok) of what knowledge they ALREADY HAVE (please do not start any research. We will be talking about this at school).

As I said, they can do this about anything they want. When I was in school, I did mine on the life of a gymnast because at that time, I was training many many hours a week in gymnastics. My niece who is in grade 6 just did one titled 'a day in the life of my dance shoes' and even spoke for the Burnaby school trustees! Other ideas, are a pastime or sport they find interesting, a particular animal they like,or a hero. Another idea is to take something we have studied in class already (space, especially with Chris Hadfield's popularity, or a province or territory in Canada), and go more in depth in their speech. The possibilities are endless!

Happy choosing!

Today's update

Here are a few points of information for you!


In math, we have been doing self directed work. The students have been doing SO WELL!! Everyone has been working hard during our math times. I've attached a list of pages to read and do. I've told the kids many times not to be stressed out about all the pages to do. This is their time to work at their own pace. I want to emphasize the same thing to parents reading this. There is lots of time to get these pages done and we work on them in class every day.

One of our students had the idea to have a class vote today in correlation to the provincial vote. We didn't speak very much about what each party represented so students voted on what they already knew. The results were very interesting! Be sure to ask your child about it!

Also, we finally completed the class mural for our door! Check it out!

Weekend's math homework

This weekend, there is some math homework. Unlike usual homework, there is no set amount to do.

In class, we have been working on math at our own pace. I have been writing the pages to read and questions to do, and students work on their own. This has been extremely successful (kudos to the kids for working so well!). Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the list of pages on the board before I left school, so I am asking students to keep working on the page they had started, and if they want, they can move onto the next page. As I said, there is no set amount to do, so please don't stress over finishing the whole chapter. Just as long as some gets done.

Photo dump!

There have been lots of fun things going on in and outside of the class. Here are a bunch of photos from the past few days. Feel free to use them as conversation starters with your children!

Also, tonight's homework said to check the blog. I am asking that if you have a good strong pair of scissors that can cut material, and don't mind lending them to us, to please send them to school with your child tomorrow. We will just be using them tomorrow and they will home tomorrow afternoon. Merci beaucoup!!