Hello from Prince George!

I hope everyone is doing well! I have been in Prince George for the canada winter games since Sunday! I have 4 Special Olympics skaters from all over BC that I'm coaching here. They have had tons of practices and competitions. It's pretty amazing being at the games. It's like a smaller scale olympics! There is so much going on but we haven't seen it all since we have been so busy at the rink. If you're interested, the skate canada website has updates (www.skatecanada.ca) or you can check out the winter games website here: http://www.canadagames2015.ca  I have two athletes in level 2 women and 2 athletes in level 2 men. We have been doing a few interviews and will post them when I find them! 

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone next week! 

I hope everyone had a lovely day off today! I had a busy day traveling. A lot of people were asking about what I was doing. If you are at all interested, you can check out the games I'm at here: www.sobcgameskamloops.ca or http://www.specialolympics.bc.ca/2015-sobc-winter-games

I'll post more about the other games when I'm there on Sunday!!

Tomorrow's special day

The students won another reward for good learning (they have all been doing so well this past month with all we have been trying to fit in before spring break). They voted and even though there were many choices, they voted for a movie with pajamas or a costume and one 'stuffie'. So, tomorrow is the day!

Update

I feel like we have been doing so much, I have tons of things to update you all on! 

We did lots of structure experimentation. The most important part I want to share with you all is not the final products (which were fantastic) but rather one of those 'teachable moments' that all teachers dream about. There was a lot of frustration with one of the structures, so after we spoke at length about how the point of the activity is not the end product but instead the learning that happens while we are doing the activity. The word of the day was 'perseverance' and what it meant. The next day, the change in attitude when they met a challenge was amazing!! 

One other thing we did around structures was some reading comprehension. One of the last questions led to an awesome class debate! This is something you could talk about at home, to reinforce concepts taught in class. We learned a structure has to 1) carry weight 2) have a defined form and 3) have a purpose. 

The debates we had in class was over a fence and then a piece of grass. Feel free to debate about anything else you might think of!!

Finally, you hopefully saw a poster come home today. It is a long story about how we did it, but the end product is a poster for each child that was made by someone else, that has a sentence from every other student in the class about what they like or appreciate about the person! This is one of my favourote projexts of the whole year, as I think this is one of the most important life practices - recognizing the good and wonderful things in each and every person! 

Valentines update

*sorry for the technical difficulties. I could have sworn I pressed post last night *

I hope everyone had a restful long weekend! It's nice to have that extra day to spend with family. 

There will be no dictée this week. It's a short week and we have so much to do!

This week, we are continuing structures, learning multiplication, and working of free writes. In relation to Valentine's Day, we will be talking about what makes a good friend and how to be the best friend possible to everyone in our class. 

On Friday, we will have a small celebration in the afternoon. If you wish to send a Valentine's treat for the class, you may. If you are bringing cards for people, please make sure you have one for everyone in the class. Many people asked for a class list for valentines cards. Here it is:

Adele

Alex

Connor

Ejî

Ewan

Hermes

Hobee

Jaelen 

Julia

Kyler

Lucas J

Lukas H-F

Logan

Madeleine

Markus

Micah

Quentin

Ramaya

Ricky

Sophie

Soren

Tatum

I hope everyone is healthy and well! I have been out with the flu and/or a cold. Whatever it is, it's no fun! I hope everyone else is healthy! I think I should be back tomorrow. Either way, dictée will still be tomorrow, and we will still have our small célébration of addition and subtraction tomorrow. Students will be practicing in class today.

Structures

Today marked the start of our structures unit! (Please see below for dictée) 

Today was fully hands on. We looked at pictures of famous structures and reconstructed them with different sets of blocks. See if you can recognize which structure we are recreating 

This week's dictée and last week's pictures.

Here is what you need to know about this week's dictée: there is nothing to practice at home. The 'celebration' on Friday will be on words that they have already done, and should know at this point in grade 3. We will practice in class today. 

This week we are starting our structures unit. Thank you so much to everyone who brought in supplies. If you are still looking for something to bring, we could use some most masking tape and long skewers.