IRIS, Raz-Kids and Voracious Reading over Break!

Reminder: There is no school tomorrow Friday December 22nd. School is out now for the Winter Break. School will resume on January 8th. Have a wonderful holiday season. Rest, Relax and Rejuvenate!!

Today we uploaded videos of our Reader's Theatre presentations. Watch my video and ask me how I improved my Reading Fluency and what I am still working on to improve my "reading for an audience" voice. 

Raz-Kids

Today we talked about using Raz-Kids over the holidays and on the weekends to be a Voracious Reader! Password pictures and username were sent home and we also have them in our classrooms. There is also a link on this blog so that you can log into Raz-Kids. Everyone's username is ilagrana0 and your child should know what their picture password is. If not email me at imlagrana@cbe.ab.ca and I will let you know. 

Today we all logged in to Raz-Kids and read a book and answered the comprehension questions afterwards. Ask me to show you how I logged in and what books I read. 

Literacy

Today in literacy we talked about being a VORACIOUS reader. 

Practise Reading Everyday!

Elfscapades, Literacy, Base Ten Addition, Personification and Prairie Art!

Reminder: Please wear your ROYAL OAK BLUE SPIRIT WEAR Tomorrow or BLUE if you do not have SPIRITWEAR!

Reminder: Tomorrow we will have Caroling in the Gym from 9:15 a.m.; until approximately 9:45 a.m. Please feel free to join us and sing some festive tunes!

Reminder: Report cards came home today. Please ensure that you read them with your child and send back the signed envelope by Thursday December 21st. 


Jingle Joy Craziness!!

Our elf has been busy tasking us with many random acts of Kindness. We have made cards to thank Ms. Sparks and Ms. Bradbury, our office administration Ms. Braun and Ms. Jackson, our Custodial Staff and our buddies. We also make bookmarks to celebrate reading and to hide in random library books to surprise and brighten someones day when they find them!

Literacy

We have continued to work on improving our FLUENCY by Reading Smoothly. We practice this by reading at an appropriate pace. Punctuation can also help give us a clue if we need to slow down and take a pause or STOP and take a breath. 

Today we got video recorded doing our reader's theatre, this time using our puppets and the puppet theatre. Ask me which was harder, using the theatre and puppets or doing traditional reader's theatre where we stood in a line and stepped forward when it was our speaking part? 


Math

In math we have continued adding two digit numbers using base ten materials, mats and our math book. It is important right now to draw each step and not just the answer so that we can understand what we did and if we make a mistake we can figure out what happened. 

Tomorrow we will continue adding double digits, building with base ten materials and showing our work. Ask me if I can do one at home with you on paper to show you what I am learning.

23+14=?

Personification
Writing/Inquiry

Today we talked about personification after reading the little house and being asked to imagine what the house is feeling and why at different parts of the story. 

Tomorrow we will be looking at the pictures and seeing how we think that the city might be feeling at the beginning, middle and end of the story and why? 

We are also looking at the question of How do Communities form and grow? How do they change over time? Is this change good? Is this change bad? Why?

Prairie Art

Last week we created a horizon line and painting a prairie sky and prairie grass/fields. 

Today we cut hay bales and a little abandoned farm house out of cardboard. We mixed paint to create gray for our houses and put a glue swirl on our hay bale. Tomorrow we will paint our hay bale and glue them onto our prairie picture. 

Puppets, People of our Past, Math, Author Study and Buddies!

Literacy

We made puppets for our character from our Readers Theatre scripts. Next week we will be using a theatre and rehearsing our puppet show.

Using these Characters we will be practising adding EXPRESSION into our voices when we read so that our presentation is INTERESTING to an AUDIENCE.

I can practise making my reading exciting at home by paying attention the the characters in the story and how they are feeling and acting.

People of Calgary/Alberta's Past

In inquiry we learned about important people of Calgary/Alberta's past.

We learned about 4 important people:

Bull's Head and First Nations People

Father Doucet

Sam Livingston-One of the First Farmers in Alberta

North West Mounted Police- Inspector Brisbois

http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-150-the-lawmaker-the-treaty-negotiator-and-the-missionary



Math

We have been practicing building numbers using base ten materials and work mats.

We looked the number 112. We talked about how it is make up of 2 cabins (ones), 1 house (tens) and 1 mansion (hundred). 

We practiced making many different numbers and seeing if we could build them on our mats and explain what number we had made. We talked about adding two digit numbers together such as 13+17 using base ten.

First we built each number and were able to say how many cabins (ones) and how many houses (tens) were in each number. 

Next we looked to see if there were 10 cabins.  As soon as we see 10 cabins (ones) we know that we need to move them. They cannot live in the ones anymore! They need to move to the houses (tens). We practiced circling the tens and using an arrow to show the new house (10). 

Finally we added up how many houses (tens) and how many cabins (ones) to see what our total number was. You can practise doing this at home by drawing and/or going on this website. 


http://www.abcya.com/base_ten.htm



Author Study

We have been reading books by Jan Brett. She is an author and illustrator, who has written many books. We are learning about how she gets her ideas for books and her artwork. So far we have read:

You can visit her website too and find lots of information about her and her books.

http://www.janbrett.com/index.html

Buddies
Today was our first day of Buddies! Ms. Mercer's PM Kindergarten class came to our class. They taught us a math game. We read them some books. Ask me what my Buddy's name  is? 

Readers Theatre Performance and Puppets, Pizza Party Tomorrow, Letter Writing and Games/Entertainment in the Past!

Reminder: Tomorrow is our Pizza Party that we won from SOBEY's for our Charlotte's Web Pumpkin!! It is not until 2:30 p.m. so still bring a light lunch for the day. 


Readers Theatre

Today we continued practicing our Readers Theatre scripts. Some groups were video recorded yesterday, some today and some will be tomorrow to watch back and see:

• did I use a nice strong voice so others can hear me
• did I add expression to my voice-be the character!
• did I use the punctuation to add excitement and questioning sounds to my voice? Did I make my voice raised with excitement or go up with the end of my question? 

Tomorrow we are going to begin making puppets to go with our characters for the readers theatre. 

Next week we will act out these puppet shows, using our same readers theatre scripts. 

Letter Writing

We have been practising letter writing. We are starting by writing a letter to a classmate who has left September 28th and will not be returning to our class until March 30th. She went to China to visit grandparent's and learn more Chinese. We are also preparing for writing a letter to an author after winter break. Last year Mrs. Lagrana's class wrote to Jan Brett. We have been reading some of her books and learning how she comes up with new stories and characters. After break we will pick a different author to write a letter to. 

How do I start a letter?

How do I end it? 

What do I always include at the top?

Games/Entertainment/Celebrations from the past

Today we looked at some games, toys and celebrations in the past. We also got to play some games from the past.

What were the differences between games and entertainment from the past?

What is still the same?

What did I notice about games from the past?