FYI no writing at home this week. I love reading all of the entries they have been writing!

Today was earth day and we spend the afternoon speaking (in English!) about what we can do to help the earth. We spoke a lot about feelings of helplessness or being to small to make a difference when we think of saving the earth. Instead, we focused on small things we can do at school and at home. I told them that instead of doing an art or writing project for earth day, I promised to help them with whatever ideas they came up with! Check out their list!

Aboriginal Culture Week

This week is our week we are focusing on Aboriginal culture at Douglas Annex. We always include different cultural views when we are learning but this week is to help students gain an understanding of this culture that existed here before we arrived.

Today, we read traditional Coast Salish stories that all had a similar theme - to help others with no expectation of anything in return. We also read what certain animals represent in Aboriginal culture. Students picked one that they connected with, and wrote about why they connect. The answers were so insightful! I will be sure to post a picture tomorrow!

Whew! What a busy week we have had so far! I have been challenging the student with tougher work and higher expectations as we inch closer and closer to grade 4 (can you beleive we are almost at the end of the year?!) 

The students have been working so hard, and seem to be extremely motivated on our writing project. So far we have focused on developing our main character and the setting of our story. Tomorrow we will work on the 'villans' and then start to get to the problem/solution and storyboard stage of our writing! Also, thank you for helping your students remember to bring their writing books to school every Monday. I LOVE reading what they write. A reminder that it is ok to make mistakes in their writing. We are all learning and developing as french speakers and mistakes are a normal part. Encourage the students to write as much as they can in french - mistakes and all - and just google translate only for individual worlds instead of a whole sentence. 

In math we have started fractions. If you are doing any cooking or baking at home, it could be great to incorporate this into it!

In socials we have been learning more and more about Canadian territories and provinces. Today we learned surface area and population. You can find the most current population facts here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_population

In science, we just planted our potatoes and are patiently waiting for them to start growing!

One of my favourote things about being in the portable is how easy it is to take advantage of outside. 

I hope everyone had a great long weekend and got to enjoy the beautiful weather.

We had lots to do in class today. We started our non-fiction writing project by talking about character development. They had fantastic ideas about different characters and developed their own protagonists for their stories.

Also, the weekly writing is looking great! Thanks to everyone who remembered to bring it back today. As this is something new for me, I'm quickly learning that I can't get all the corrections done between Monday morning and Monday at 3pm, so books with new subjects will go home on Tuesdays.

Finally, if you have any extra shoe boxes at home, please send them in as we will be using them for our story writing. Merci!

I happened to come across this resource and thought I'd share. Enjoy! http://www.spencerideas.org/2015/03/ten-conversation-starters-for-parents.html?m=1