mrsbarker.ca - Millgrove 3B

Writing to Change the World

1/14/2022

With the new month came a new writing unit, and we’re now working on changing the world around us with our writing! We’ll be writing persuasive speeches, petitions, and editorials in the coming weeks during our writing time, and the class has been hard at work convincing their audiences of their theses. We are working on changing things in our school and community, and the students have been looking for noteworthy topics and fixable problems to write about.

We’ve learned about on developing brave, bold opinions and considering our audience when crafting our arguments. With our recent work on global citizenship in Social Studies, it’s the perfect time for us to be using our writing to change the world around us, whether our school, friends, or community!

Building

1/13/2022

The students were excited to start our new Science unit on building this week! In this unit, students will use a variety of tools and simple techniques to build things for specific purposes. Their tasks will include building a bridge to span a gap, a model playground, and a stool to hold a person. Through these projects, students will learn the value of safety and good workmanship and that different materials and designs can be used to obtain the same result. We will talk about how working together on a common task is easier when ideas and materials are shared collaboratively.

We’ve already had fun planning and building vases to hold a bouquet of flowers and a gift box to hold a chocolate, and the students are eagerly planning their model playgrounds for next week!

Multiplication and Division

1/12/2022

This month our class is starting a Math unit on multiplication and division! Multiplication and division are basic computational skills that children must eventually master in order to succeed in higher levels of mathematics. The focus of this unit is developing an understanding of the process of multiplication and division in order to develop strategies for multiplying and dividing whole numbers up to 5 x 5. Children will use counters, number lines, and arrays to develop their understanding.

In this unit, the students will:

Model multiplication and division up to 5 x 5
Find strategies to multiply and divid up to 5 x 5
Pose and solve story problems involving multiplication and division

You can encourage your child to share different strategies used to multiply and divide.

We use multiplication and division in many day-to-day situations. Here are some suggestions for activities you can try at home:

Look for things that come in groups of 2, 3, 4, and 5 and create problems. For example: Bikes have 2 tires. How many tires are on 4 bikes?
Use a deck of of playing cards, using only the 1s (Aces) to 5s. Shuffle the cards. Flip the first card. This represents the number of groups. Flip the second card. This represents the number of objects in each group. Have your child draw the picture to match the cards, and write a multiplication and division sentence to match the picture. Continue until all the cards are used up.

Character Studies

1/10/2022

In our reading time this month, we are focusing on character study. We’ll be spending lots of time reading fiction books, learning to closely observe characters, make predictions, and sharpen our skills in interpretation. This week we practiced observing how our characters walk and talk, made some theories about our characters, and looked for patterns in our characters’ behaviour. We're following along with the characters in Winn-Dixie to practice are skills in studying characters!

Important Christmas Books

12/27/2021

3B had been working hard in December on Christmas "important books" for their families. We focused on crafting interesting descriptions and making our ideas clear to our audience (who were the students’ families). You can see the original The Important Book below to see our inspiration. The class made the wrapping paper, cards, and everything, and were very proud of their creations. We hope you enjoyed their lovingly authored Christmas books!

Merry Christmas!

12/24/2021

Merry Christmas! Our class of students have been a resilient, hard-working, and conscientious bunch in this school year, and I’m looking forward to what the New Year brings for learning and community in our classroom!

Letter from Santa

12/23/2021

In late November, the students all wrote letters to Santa, and today we got our letter back from him! He sent us a lovely note, including notification that all the students made it onto the nice list! It was the best mail we could receive right before Winter Break!

A Christmas Carol

12/23/2021

A trailer for the Citadel's production of A Christmas Carol (a different adaptation from the David van Belle one we watched this year)

This week we explored a mini-unit on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We read the book, watched the Citadel's David van Belle Citadel play production (which was also available virtually again this year), and watched the Muppet's film version. The students enjoyed comparing the different adaptations of the story, and examining the history of why Charles Dickens wrote the story and how its message is still important today. To cap off our unit, we played Jeopardy to review our knowledge of the story and the students earned an impressive amount (not that the money matters so much, as we learned from Ebenezer Scrooge of course). It was lovely to see the class embrace the Christmas spirit and remember the importance of kindness and generosity this week!

Christmas Shopping in Math

12/22/2021

Today we went Christmas shopping in 3B! Given the students' growing skills with three-digit addition and subtraction, they were given a mission to make a selection of toys and other items for themselves with a budget of $1000 using some flyers. All the students stayed within the budget (except for a few who felt confident to add beyond $1000), and their selections and adding strategies were varied and impressive. We look forward to planing more shopping trips with our math skills!

Ukrainian Christmas

12/22/2021

Today we celebrated Ukrainian Christmas in 3B! We pretended to wait to eat lunch until we saw the first star outside (as some Ukrainians would do to remember the wise men following the star), and learned how to say Merry Christmas in Ukrainian (Veseloho Rizvda or Веселого Різдва). We decorated our classroom with a Didukh that symbolises the large wheat fields in Ukraine and means 'grandfather spirit' to signify people's ancestors being with them in their memories. The students went caroling like many Ukrainians do (singing “'Koliadky”), and we listened to the famous Ukrainian carol “Schedryk” (it has the same melody as “Carol of the Bells”).

We set up our own class nativity scene like Ukrainian families would often do, and made our own spider web decorations like Ukrainian children sometimes make to decorate their houses at Christmas. We read the beautiful book The Christmas Spider’s Miracle to learn about why spiders are so important to some Ukrainian people at Christmas and why there are often spider decorations on their Christmas trees. Finally, we drank some apple juice to pretend we were having uzvar, which is a national Ukrainian beverage, cooked with dried fruits and berries.

Веселого Різдва!

Measuring Mass and Dimensions

12/20/2021

In our measurement unit, we've been honing our skills in measuring mass in grams and kilograms, and measuring length, width, height, and perimeter in centimetres and metres. The students especially looked forward to estimating mass before we measured it using the scales we had in the classroom this week!

Typing Skills

12/20/2021

This week we've started practicing our typing skills in Language Arts! The students have been practicing lessons on Typing Club, and they're getting comfortable using home row. We're aspiring to be accurate and speedy with our typing as the weeks of typing practice go on!

Our Amaryllis Plants

12/18/2021

Our amaryllis plants have continued to rocket up in their growth! As part of our learning about measurement and life cycles, we've been closely observing the growth of the plants over the past couple of months. Our plants have grown exponentially, almost to the height of a metre, in the past month, and many flowers have blossomed this week. You can watch the video below to see a time-lapse of another amaryllis growing.

Christmas Concert

12/17/2021

Mrs. Davies and 3B have put together a wonderful virtual Christmas concert for you to enjoy! The singing was beautiful, the instrumentation impressive, and the whole show went off without a hitch. Mrs. Davies put together a very professional and entertaining concert as usual! You can watch the concert by playing the video above.

Non-Fiction Celebration

12/16/2021

The students have been hard at work over the past couple of months reading and writing non-fiction, and to celebrate we watched the true-story-inspired One and Only Ivan after reading the book in class. Rowen's family sent some delicious popcorn and treats, and the class enjoyed reading their non-fiction masterpieces to each other before the movie. As a class, we'd learned about how our non-fiction writing should teach others, and we certainly learned a lot from each other today!

India

12/13/2021

In Social Studies this month, we began a new unit on the country of India! With 1.3 billion people, India has so much for us to learn about. We’ve been talking a lot about the geography, climate, wildlife and resources of India, and are looking forward to learning more about India’s languages, customs, traditions, and celebrations. You can click on this link to see some of the places we’ve explored in India, and watch the videos to learn more about this amazing country!

Goodbye to Our Student Teacher

12/13/2021

We bid a sad farewell to Miss Gramson, our student teacher, today! We have learned so much from her, enjoyed her warmth and kindness, and appreciated all that she has done for us over the past few months. We're looking forward to seeing her around Spruce Grove, and know that she will be an amazing teacher when she graduates in the spring

Christmas Presents

12/10/2021

The students of 3B have been busy elves the past few weeks as they've been preparing their Christmas presents and cards! They're all wrapped up now, and the class can't wait to give their gifts to their families at Christmas. Their love and care for their families was very evident in all the effort they put into this (top secret) project!

Measurement

12/9/2021

This week, the students were excited to crack out their rulers and begin our unit on the measurement of time, length, perimeter, and mass!

In this unit, the students will:

Use non-standard units, such as pendulum swings, to measure
the passage of time
Identify activities that can be completed in minutes, hours, days,
months, and years
Use a calendar to determine the number of days in a given
month
Create a calendar to show personal events
Estimate and measure length and perimeter in centimetres and
metres
Construct different shapes for the same perimeter
Estimate and measure mass in grams and kilograms

Here are some activities you can try with your child:

Keep a calendar of family events and activities. Encourage your child to refer to it frequently and to add to it as new events are planned
Ask your child to estimate and measure the length, width, height, or perimeter of objects around the house. For example, when your child is setting the table, ask for an estimate, then work together to measure the perimeter of the table, or a place mat
When shopping, have your child identify items sold by mass (g or kg)

Sewing Christmas Stockings

12/8/2021

3B was hard at work today as they sewed very special Christmas stockings! Our wonderful student teacher Miss Gramson prepared all the materials, and the students learned a lot about how to use a needle and thread, how to decorate fabric, and how to connect fabric using special stitches. It was a very Christmas-y afternoon!