In math recently, the class has enjoyed creating designs using pattern blocks and adding them up to calculate their "value." Hexagons are worth 6, trapezoids count for 3, rhombuses are 2, and triangles are worth 1 (it's all based on how many triangles fit into the shape). It's been a fun way to practice multiplication and division, and the way students use the shapes together geometrically has been very impressive! In science this week we've been exploring how simple machines including wheels, axles, levers, pulleys, screws, inclined planes, and wedges can reduce the amount of work or force needed to accomplish a task. This week we focused on how rollers and inclined planes can be used effectively to move things along a path or move things upward, and the students were even able to drag the teacher across the room in a bin using some handy-dandy rollers!
Thanks to the collaboration of Mrs. Schmaus and Mrs. Mills, we've continued enjoying our weekly buddy times with Mrs. Mills' grade one class! The class has had lots of fun learning with them, and they always look forward to reading with our buddies. It's such a special way to enjoy reading and build a sense of belonging in our school!
Just one more look at our amazing week at Zoo School at the Edmonton Valley Zoo!
Our last day of Zoo School had plenty of highlights! We got to meet Lucy and learn lots about her, and Anna created a ferret enrichment with snow which was very delightful to observe. (It turns out, pretty much all of our various predictions about what Chacha would do with the snow came true!) We got to see the zookeeper Sarah feed the fruit bats (a challenging task), and we got a good sighting of the two-toed sloths. We helped Anna decide on an enrichment for the Goeldi's monkeys (who are known for being somewhat lazy), and they eventually got around to exploring the lettuce, tissue paper, and meal worms. We also got some hints about which monkey was the dominant one. We said hello to the snow leopard with her very long tail that she uses as a scarf, and had some time at the end of the day to explore the zoo with our groups. It's been an amazing week, and we're so grateful to our volunteers, our educator Anna, and to the Edmonton Valley Zoo!
We learned lots about animal conservation on Day 4 of Zoo School! We discussed souvenirs that can help or harm wildlife, and observed the differences between turtle and tortoise shells! The students got to see a meat-popsicle enrichment with the fur and harbour seals, and we also watched a food enrichment with Sulawe the gibbon (whose favourite TV show we learned is Scooby Doo). Anna introduced us to Rosie the serval cat who is quite elegant an impressive jumper, and we met some frogs, snakes, geckos, fruit bats, and sloths in the afternoon!
Day 3 of Zoo School continued to include lots of adventures and learning! We got to observe a river otter named Steve get trained, and learned about how river otters live in cold climates like Alberta. Steve is named after Steven Tyler of Aerosmith for his impressive vocalizations, and we really enjoyed hearing him chat with us! We spent a lot of time in the commissary learning all about how the zookeepers feed the animals in the zoo (especially the picky red pandas!), and we had many interesting ethical conversations about feeding the carnivores meat. We met a bearded dragon named Pumpkin and a python named Sid, and compared those two animals. There was even a Lucy the elephant spotting in the afternoon which was very exciting!
Day two of Zoo School included a lot of learning about seals, animal training, and a tortoise named Frodo! We got to get up close watch the zoo trainers work with a northern fur seal and a harbour seal, and we were very impressed with all of their learned behaviours (especially their vocalizations and clapping)! Students observed the animal they're becoming experts on in their groups, and we practiced our training skills with an entertaining game as well. Our educator Anna had us interact with some mystery artifacts (the trickiest one to identify was rhinocerous skin), and we learned about how many of these items come from items the government had to confiscate from people because of how they illegally threatened animal conservation. The sea turtle shoes and river otter fur have been at the zoo for many years! We finished the day off learning about Frodo the tortoise and his UV vision. He was very curious and adventurous, and we learned that tortoises aren't as slow as they're cracked up to be!
What an exciting day we had to kick of Zoo School! We met our educator Anna who we'll learn lots from over the course of the week. The zoo was closed to the public today, so we had it all to ourselves, and many of the animals seemed extra comfortable showing off some entertaining antics with so few people there. Students have been placed into five different groups for our week at the zoo, so each group has been assigned to become experts on either the lynx, lemurs, seals, meerkats, or gibbon over the course of the week. The groups closely observed and took notes on their animals today, and they'll continue to do that over the course of the week. The lynx group got to see the lynx eat some fresh quail, the lemur group got to observe them socializing, the seal group heard some very vocal "screaming," the meerkat group noticed them exploring and cozying up in their bed, and the gibbon group witnessed some very dramatic "singing" and energetic swinging around his habitat.
Our animal encounter today was with an albino Nelsons Milk Snake named Novel this morning, and it was really neat to observe her quirky behaviours and learn about how she constricts her prey. We got to observe and touch some python jaws and scales as well as we were learning about snakes. This afternoon we had a talk with a reindeer expert about these fascinating animals, and she brought them out to the garden so we could get up close to them and watch them forage for food and assert themselves with their antlers. We also got to touch the velvet on one of their old antlers. At the end of the day groups got to explore the zoo, so we enjoyed hearing the arctic wolf howl, seeing the gibbon show of his teeth, watch the Goeldi's monkeys play, and observe the red pandas playing with each other. We can't wait to learn more tomorrow! With the extremely cold temperatures this week, we had fun with a few experiments in the chilly outdoors! We learned about how the Mpemba effect causes hot water to freeze very quickly, and made frozen bubbles with some glycerin and dishsoap. It certainly was a great opportunity to reinforce our learning on hot and cold temperatures from our Matter unit!
Our reading mini-lessons this month are all about the strategy of questioning! Good readers ask questions as they read, and sometimes they're not even aware that they do this while they read a text. One thing we're emphasizing in class is that we want to aim for more "deep-thinking questions" rather than "quick questions" because deep-thinking questions enhance the meaning of a book. Students need to ask relevant and meaningful questions, often starting with words like why, I wonder, what if, why do you think, or how do you think. We always have interesting questions in our class, and it's been a joy to hear all of the deep-thinking questions students have with our books this month! As a new year has arrived, so too has a new science unit on Forces and Energy. The guiding question around this entire unit is How can forces relate to changes in movement? In this unit, we will be learning about:
Students will investigate and explain how forces can affect the movement of objects. We've already been learning lots as we explore the world of physics! With lots of indoor recesses this week, we've especially enjoyed our PE times! This week we played a game called Pirates of the Caribbean to get some extra activity into our day. There was lots of stolen treaure and mischievious pirates!
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 within 100. Children will use counters, number lines, and arrays to develop their understanding. We are beginning this unit with multiplication and division with whole numbers up to 5 x 5, and will build up our skills to within 100 as the weeks go on. In this unit, the students will:
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:
Our class loved having the traditional Millgrove Carol Sing two mornings this week, and it was so special as always to join together in familiar songs. Many songs were from this year's Christmas concert, along with many Christmas classics, and the school came together as always. There are few places more Christmasy than Millgrove during the week before winter break, and we were lucky to have some visitors join us for the carol sings as well.
3SB wishes you a very Merry Christmas! 🎄 This week we explored a mini-unit on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We read the book, watched part of the Citadel's David van Belle Citadel play production (which was also available virtually), and watched the Muppets' 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! As we continue to practice our persuasive writing skills in our current writing unit, we delved in the genre of advertisements. The students researched the history of ugly Christmas sweaters and then set to work designing their own ugly Christmas sweaters and detailing numerous convincing reasons that their audience should purchase that sweater. The advertisements were truly convincing, and there are some cunning businesspeople in the making in our class To help Santa prepare his sleigh and fit in the many packages, we practiced our perimeter-caluclating skills today by measuring and adding up the perimiter of different packages.
The students of 3SB have put a tremendous amount of work into their multiple biographies this past month, and this week we capped off that work by publishing them! Mrs. Pirie is going to have them as published books in the library, and our schoolmates will be able to sign them out and learn from all the hard research that these writing pieces represent! There's a wonderful diversity of who the students wrote about, and their use of varied non-fiction text features, clear organization, and in-depth knowledge are very commendable!
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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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