In our recent work on our Hearing and Sound unit, we’ve been learning about how instruments make sounds with striking, plucking, or blowing, and the students made their own instruments in class (we’ll do more extensive instrument building later in the unit). We explored instruments from around the world, and then experimented to find out how sound is transmitted through gases, liquids, and solids. Next week we get to learn about how our human ears sense sound We took part in Pink Shirt Day today and the students had a lot of ideas about how to stand up to bullying behaviour and get help when we need it. Pink Shirt Day began in 2007 when a student in Nova Scotia was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. It has since been recognized annually worldwide as a day to stand against bullying. We read some books about making school a welcome environment, and the students brainstormed ideas of how we can make Millgrove an inclusive environment for everyone and wrote their personal plans on silhouettes of their hands. You can watch the story The Invisible Boy below for an example of why Pink Shirt Day is so important! Our class has cherished watching and cheering for Canada in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics over the past three weeks, and there have been many teachable moments as we saw athletes have great success, but also some heartbreaking moments. The students each researched an Olympic sport and athlete to write about, and did some creative writing in which they invented their own winter Olympic sport. We also had fun exploring the math and science of the winter Olympics, and learning a bit about other countries in the context of our grade three global citizenship learning in Social Studies. It's a bit sad seeing the games come to a close this weekend, but we sure have had fun and learned lots from the Beijing Olympics! Our first Play Parkland visit was a huge success as the students of 3B (and our friends in 3K) had a great time and learned a ton about gymnastics. We had very knowledgeable coaches and the students really enjoyed getting to use the equipment at the Aerials Gymnastics Club. The students are very excited for our next trip to Aerials!
We’re starting a new Science unit this month on Hearing and Sound! In this unit students will explore the nature of sound, its sources, its qualities and what it is. They will learn that sound is vibration and that changes in vibration can affect the loudness, pitch and quality of sound. We will talk about sound travel by studying what things carry sound, what things make it louder or softer, and what happens to sound when it reaches their ears. The sensitivity of human ears and those of other animals will be examined, as students learn about the safe use of this valuable sense. In the coming weeks, students will learn to:
We had a great Valentine's Day celebration in 3B! We exchanged Valentine cards, watched Because of Winn-Dixie after finishing the book last week, and enjoyed the delicious treats that parents sent in for the students. The class enjoyed exchanging Valentine's and writing notes to each other in the morning. There are plenty of great friendships to be celebrated in 3B! This week we started our Math unit on fractions! Students will build upon their real-world experiences of “fair shares” to recognize a fraction as an expression that relates a part and a whole. In this unit we will:
We use fractions every day in many different situations. Encourage your child to recognize the use of fractions in daily life, for example, when filling a glass half full, measuring ingredients for a recipe, or sharing an apple. Here are some activities you can do with your child to help reinforce the concept of fractions: Fraction Activities
This month in Social Studies we’ll be learning about the country of Peru! Peru is the third largest country in South America, and the class will get to learn about the Amazon rain forest, Machu Picchu, llamas, the Inca, and lots more about the culture and land in Peru. 3B is gradually becoming a class of full-fledged global citizens! The students have really loved playing the game Wordle in Language Arts, and Nerdle in Math over the past couple of weeks! Wordle is a word game that gives players six attempts to guess a five-letter word, and Nerdle is a numbers game where players need to figure out the mystery equation. The students look forward to solving the puzzles every day, and we have some very skilled spellers and mathematicians in 3B!
In the month of February we'll be learning and practicing how to write in cursive, and the class has been very eager to show off their handwriting skills! We've been working on a letter or two a day, and now that we have a repertoire of several letters they've really enjoyed putting the letters together to write words. The cursive letters are looking very neat and fancy in 3B so far! You can watch the video below to see some students who aren't quite as confident as our 3B hand-writers... We were very lucky to have a building expert, Connor's mom, come and teach us about the bridge design and building process this week! Her company has been involved in many bridges in the Edmonton area, and it was really neat for the students to learn about her involvement in projects like the repair of the Groat Road Bridge. You can see the video for a bit more information about that project. Thanks to Karla for sharing her wealth of knowledge and answering our questions about bridges! We had a great time learning about Lunar New Year this week! We learned from books and some online research about this special holiday, and the students were especially interested to learn about their Chinese Zodiac sign and learn how to do some Chinese calligraphy. Our class learned about the history of the Lunar New Year celebrations, and we got to partake in the celebrations with our own Hongbao (red envelopes) and special New Year candy. Happy Year of the Tiger! Gong hei fat choy! Millgrove had a special guest, Felice Gladue, this week who taught us all about her Métis heritage and culture! She was a very dynamic guest, and the students absolutely loved the hour we spent with her. We got to try a jig with her, pretend to go paddling as voyageurs, learned about the many uses of a Métis sash, played tug of war, and got to interact with all of the amazing materials she brought with her. Mrs. Gladue was full of energy, and we loved learning about her Métis culture! To finish off our unit on Building, we had a very special in-school field trip building four types of bridges: a Roman arch bridge, beam bridge, suspension bridge, and truss bridge. The students got to learn very hands-on what steps and skills go into building bridges, and were impressed with how strong their structures were! You can see the video below that our leader Teresa told us about where "Galloping Gertie" (or the Tacoma Narrows Bridge) collapsed because of a design issue (fortunately with no injuries to anyone). A big thanks to the wonderful volunteers who helped us! |
Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three teacher at Millgrove School. She loves science and reading, and lives in a little brick house with Mr. Barker and her kids Jack and Ellie. Archive
April 2024
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