I apologize for the blog silence last week. We are all getting back into a routine!

The kids have had a great start back to school. There is always something that happens after winter break: students return with a new maturity and focus. Second term is always the most intense, and when I gave them a pep talk about this, they showed they were ready!

We have started new activities in our daily literacy practice, one of which is cursive. If you would like a booklet to practice at home, please let me know! They are also working on comprehension with more difficult texts, and learning how to read closely for understanding. As with the end of first teem, we are working on adding more details to writing, and make their writing flow smoother.

We have been reading the book James and the Giant Peach as a class. It would be neat to read it in English at home (but be careful! There is one inappropriate word in the English version). We will be starting a project this week to show understanding of this book. It will be a very open-ended project as per the new curriculum's assessment guidelines. I will be guiding them through this in class, but they may have some work to finish at home. When we go over the criteria, I will post them here so you can have a better understanding of what we are doing. Assessment in the new curriculum is trying to get as far away from testing as possible. While giving tests was never my style, I'm trying some new ideas for grade 3 with this project. Your patience as I figure this all out is greatly appreciated.

In math, we will be doing subtraction with borrowing this week. I ended up a little behind on math before the break, so we will be pushing through quite quickly. In class, it will be lots of practice, and if you want more practice for home, please let me know.

As you hopefully saw, new dictee came home yesterday, It is 5 sentences, which may look daunting, but there is lots of repetition in each sentence. They will be more varied as the term goes on. Happy studying!