PJ's, Popcorn and Picking Garbage

Fun Fridays continue to be the joy of our week. The kids rocked out some great reading comprehension and almost finished their pen pal letters. We will be mailing them out on Monday or Tuesday and are so excited. We spent time making self portraits that matched ourselves on PJ/Crazy Hair day. 

We spent some time writing about really happy moments in our lives, read some great books and created some winter scenes in art. 

We ended our day with store but not before the entire grade 3 class went out to do a little cleaning of the playground. We all ran around in our PJ's picking garbage all over the playground and had a great time making the playground a much cleaner place.

Love Fridays!

-Mr.G

Venturing into Negatives...the point of no return

Today was a great day :) After yesterday not going as planned in life things today were smooth as can be.

My amazing Sidekick Mrs.R was away and stepping in for her was the amazing Mrs. O. We had a blast and she was awesome to work with.

The kids worked very hard on some art this morning that are turning out wonderfully. We are finishing our Pen Pal letters and working hard on subtraction.

Today some kids ventured into negatives and so we ran with it. Most could not fully understand the concept but we had one Mathamagician that was comfortable with it.

Nothing makes your day as a teacher more than when kids write you notes about how awesome you are or thanking you just for teaching them. Great way to end the day.

-Mr.G

Pen Pal questions= laughter

Today was a quick day for Mr.G I had to step out for the afternoon but the morning went by like a rocket! The kids wrote back to their Pen Pals in Edmonton and had a great time reading their letters and answering their questions.

A few Highlights

• Student being asked if she was Chinese, she laughed but the kids were confused by the question.
• A student asking their Pen Pal to write neater next time...we took that request out.
• A student recounting the time they ate the preserving material in a Beef Jerky package and discussing how he was poisoned but is better now.

The letters they are writing are great and the kids had a fantastic time writing them so win win in my books. I can't wait to see the kids tomorrow and the towers they built this afternoon in my absence.

-Mr.G

Puppies and Social Studies=BEST DAY EVER

Ok so pretty much every day in Grade 3 is a new BEST DAY EVER but today was so fun. Reading NERDS book 2 is great fun but reading NERDS book 2 and having a parent bring in the most adorable little puppies EVER made for a fantastic morning. We also received our pen pal letters and are very excited to write back to our Edmonton friends. This afternoon we had an amazing discussion on quality of life in India and the kids really made the connections to what we have been talking about in class. It was a perfect way to end the day. Tomorrow we write letters, write some friendship keepers, work on subtraction and BUILD A TOWER! Come back soon!

-Mr.G

Oh Monday you come so fast

It is like the weekend does not really exist. Just a blink of the eye and it is gone. That being said there is nothing better than greeting the kids in the morning and hearing about their weekends.

Today we began 2 of the 3 different novel studies we are doing with readers at various levels. We are reading the Whipping boy in one group and it is fun talking about quality of life and seeing the students make connections with their lives, our Social Studies curriculum and the novel.

Our Science class was spent looking at finishing their Playgrounds and they turned out great. Problem solving using Salt Dough, Straws, Pipe Cleaners and various recycling materials was an adventure.

We have a parent bringing in puppies tomorrow, I have been instructed by no means am I to bring one home...We will see.

Already Tuesday tomorrow. Hopefully putting up our Life Maps by weeks end but if not they are coming soon :)

Cheers,

Mr.G

Fun Friday Fun Friday :)

Reading comprehension, spelling quiz, reading, creating our dream bedrooms and creating maps of our lives. The kids worked very hard all day but we had a lot of laughs and a great time. It was very fun to see what they felt was an important event in the early years of their life. Lost teeth, broken bones and baptisms seemed to top the list. The amount of car crashes and close calls I found surprising as well. We are sharing with class members on Monday so it should be fun. We finished the day with Friendship Keepers which is always a fun uplifting way to end the day. Kind words shared with each other creates a great environment and we are already seeing more friendships develop with these social building activities. Great Day! 

-Mr.G

Give peace a chance

Today I give thanks for having the most excellent group of 8 and 9 year olds in the universe. We had a fantastic day in grade 3 with tons of fun in science, tons of learning in math and a great debate during our current event time.

In Science we began constructing pieces of playground equipment. The only rule was that they had to create a blueprint for they piece of equipment. Students used paper clips, tape, straws, cardboard, egg cartons, pipe cleaners and salt dough and they came up with some great things.

In Math we continued working on addition and regrouping. We came up with a strategy of taking the numbers to their expanded form and then adding them together in their easier place value groups. We had a lot of success, kids even chose to keep doing math rather than going outside for recess.

Finally in Social Studies we decided to debate and discuss the issue of hostilities between Israel and Gaza. We watched news clips looked at maps and discussed some of the history and then the kids entered into a debate on what they think should happen. It was very interesting to see what the kids thought. We had some that thought it would be best for Israel to leave the people of Gaza alone and give them more areas to settle and that should solve the problem. Others thought that they should just split up the West Bank area and share it equally. A final group talked about how Israel should only go after Hamas and leave the innocent people in Gaza alone. It was very cool to see that they understood the impact on quality of life living in this region would have and in their simple uncomplicated opinions that the right thing to do would be to help the innocent and protect your families. Of course we came to no conclusion but the ideas floating around the room were very cool to watch develop :)

Teaching is the BEST

-Mr.G

Fire Drills and Frosty afternoons

Great day today, we started Guided Reading and had some great success and practice on our comprehension skills and had a focus on text to self connections. In science we started working on designing a cool playground out of recycled materials. Should be a fun time. We started reading the second book from the N.E.R.D.S series. The kids are excited and it should be a great read.

-Mr.G

Building a community with games :)

Today we had a good amount of fun with just the right amount of work :) The kids might think we do too much math but we will agree to disagree on that.

A big part of my teaching philosophy is centered around building a learning community and you can't be a member of a good community without knowing your neighbours. We did a little TRIBES activity called Extended Name Tags. After they were done filling out their name tags with information like their favorite holiday location or quality they think is most important to have they shared with small groups and then the class.

We practiced word problems in math and wrote a review of our recently finished NERDS Book 1. The kids loved the book and some of their reviews will be posted tomorrow. We will be changing the Hero's Tale section of the site to a book review section. We are excited about the changes and the kids opinions on best parts were really fun to read.

We are starting to design a playground tomorrow in Science which should be interesting. Wish us luck!

Cheers,

Mr.G

Salt dough + Mario t-shirt =

Today was a great Monday. We discussed World Toilet Day and the importance of sanitary bathroom conditions relating to quality of life. Did you know more people die in Africa related to unsanitary bathrooms and the disease from those situations than AIDS and Malaria combined? Well we read today that 3 people die a minute in countries in Africa caused by illness borne from unsanitary conditions. Really gives some perspective on the small problems like someone taking your chair...

We moved on to make some animal sculptures with Salt Dough for Science. One student sporting the most amazing Mario bad guys shirt inspired many a spiky shelled kuppa troopa. We had fun experimenting with how to form our dough creatures. Lets hope they survive the evening :)

-Mr.G

What a fantastic day!

Friendship Friday was a huge success! The kids worked together to solve human knots they made with their arms and we wrote about what makes a good friend and they did a really great job. We also started Friendship Keepers. THe process is that students write anonymous notes expressing appreciation to others in the class and then they are shared and given to the person they are written for. It was really nice to see kids being recognized for their good deeds by their classmates. Aside from all the fun we also wrote a math check up and mathamagicians were running rampant :) We are so close to finishing our first read aloud book NERDS only 2 chapters to go. Have a great weekend!

-Mr.G

Friendship Friday

Sorry I missed yesterdays post for the faithful 5 followers we have. After a fantastic student led conferences on Wednesday and still being on the mend from the flu I completely forgot. That being said I have decided to title today Friendship Friday.

We are going to spend a good chunk of today doing some community building activities and working on building friendships. It is just as important as the written curriculum and so we are taking some time and working on our friendship making skills. Should be a great day :)

I will post some of our results.

-Mr.G

Back to work :)

Five days past and lots to update. Remembrance day was fantastic we had a great presenter, wonderful songs and the kids were respectful. We also had a fun adventure to Lethbridge that had the kids learning about and building their very own bridges at the museum.

We have student led conferences today and the parents are welcome to come check out the things we have been doing.

Half way through November and no signs of slowing down. We are having a great time in grade 3 :)

Cheers,
-Mr.G

Check out all the FUN things we did in the last few weeks!

Remembrance Day art

Science Building Animals

Children's Rights Stuff

Autobiographies

Rights Posters

5 days away from school and I have the flu...

Was excited to get back to class today but sadly I have the flu...Tomorrow we will have a great big update heading into student led conferences.

Have a great week.

-Mr.G

Wrong day to forget the camera...

Today I got to work excited to take a ton of pictures and checked the drawer for my camera and...nothing. As I type this I see the camera on the floor beside me in my house and so no pictures can be posted today. There is a big old blizzard heading down the road so tomorrow might be a winter wonderland but no school tomorrow. I will try to get a good update this weekend.

The day however was fantastic. Remembrance day ceremony went very well. The kids performed well and the entire thing was very nice. We headed into the "city" to go to a great bridge building activity and had a lot of fun and some great visits with kids traveling back to the school on the 30 minute yellow bus ride :)

2 days of PD coming up should be fun!

-Mr.G

Rehearsals and read alouds

Today was a fun day in grade 3. We made some fantastic Remembrance Day art (will post in the AM) and read a chapter or 2 from our great read aloud book N.E.R.D.S. We also had fun writing a paragraph about the tastiest most delicious burger we have ever eaten. Coolest part of the day however was getting a personalized letter from Robert Munsch. It was a very cool time reading the letter and even reading the personalized story he sent along with the letter. Great day, tomorrow we remember those who served our country. Happy Tuesday!

-Mr.G

Short weeks mean busy weeks :)

We only have three days this week but we are working hard. Today we practiced reading comprehension strategies, made posters to advertise the rights of a child, and worked on our animals for science. We also talked about Autism and read a great Peter Reynolds book called "I'm Here". If you have yet to read any Peter Reynolds books please take the time. They are worth the read.

Tomorrow I will post a few pictures of everything we have worked on in the past couple days. Happy Monday!

-Cheers

Mr.G

Friday Fun day's continue

We started out with a mellow morning doing a little language arts and a math check up and ended the day with a wicked fun science activity. The idea was to work on making a stable constructed item. We did this through making animals out of recycled materials. No body finished but check out a bit of the progress.  Have a great weekend.

Mr.G

Blink and you missed it

This week has gone so quickly I can't believe it is Friday. The kids will be making some very fun things tomorrow for science and art. We will have a small math quiz as well. Remembrance Day is just around the corner and the kids are learning a few songs to sing at the Remembrance Day ceremony. I will post a few pictures tomorrow of the adventures we go on. Have a great night!