Hour of Code

Today the children participated in the coding initiative called #hourofcode.  This project has been designed to introduce and promote Computer Science, "Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science."  The students had so much fun exploring the world of coding.  If you would like to check out this initiative, visit code.org and ask your child all about it!

When you get to the website, scroll down and click on the box that says "Elementary Courses".

Have fun!

Mrs. Caluori

It is the 2nd Week of Advent

It is the second week of Advent and we will be celebrating as a school at our Advent Mass tomorrow afternoon.  

This week we will be focusing on the meaning of 'peace' and how we can spread peace and light to one another.

The students have enjoyed delivering Advent Blessings to other classrooms.  We are in week two of our deliveries and have had classrooms tweeting messages of thanks, sending back messages to our classroom and we even had Mrs. Green call down with a great big thank you.  It is so wonderful to see how little messages of hope and prayer can really make someone's day.  Ask your child about our classroom Advent project.

We have been busy!

Foodimals have been created and illustrated in Grade 3 this week!  The students have gone through the full writing process and their Descriptive Writing is really coming together.  We have been focusing on using adjectives to describe the created Foodimals and have also been working on editing and revising rough copy work.  This week the students will be representing their Foodimals through plasticine art.  On Friday we watched some art videos and looked at books by the very talented and creative Barbara Reid.  The students were so impressed with her techniques and have been very excited to get started:).  Today the children planned their plasticine art by deciding on background, colours, size of Foodimal, mixing colours to create new colours, and deciding what details they would like to add.   Here are the videos that we watched!

Advent in 2 Minutes

Here is an Advent video that you can enjoy and discuss as a family:).  

Advent Week 1 - HOPE & Other Classroom News

It is hard to believe that December is upon us and that we have begun our Advent Journey.  Today we gathered as a class to bless our classroom Advent Wreath and learn about Isaiah and the message he delivered.  We talked about lighting the first purple candle that represents HOPE and the students began their own wreath in their Religion notebooks.  We also gathered as a Primary Division in the Learning Commons to light our school's Advent Wreath and talk about some of the ways that we can be a light to each other and to the St. Cecilia school community. The children were told about an Advent Project in which they will "light up" St. Cecilia by spreading kindness, helping others and spreading good will.  When a student witnesses a good deed in action they can colour in a light bulb and write about the good deed that was witnessed.  We will be hanging the light bulbs on a string and hope to see lights that go around our whole school:).  We decided as a class that it would be wonderful to do something similar in our own classroom so we will be starting that project tomorrow.

St. Cecilia will also be undergoing a Christmas Hamper Project to help support our two sister schools St. Bernard and St. Elizabeth.  You will find a note in your child's agenda that explains the project in detail.  In addition, please note that there is a label sticker in your child's agenda that lists an item that has been assigned to them to bring in for the family that 3D has been assigned to.  Items for the hampers are due to the school no later than Dec. 10th to ensure all baskets can be organized and delivered to the families before the Christmas Break.  If you would like to donate something in addition to the food/toiletry item assigned you, this can also be brought into the school no later than the 10th of December.  Thank you in advance for your generosity and kindness.  The family that our class has been assigned has a mom and 9 year old boy in the family.  

In Language, the students have been working hard creating their Foodamil inspired by the movie 'Cloudy Chance of Meatballs' Part 2.  The Foodamils that the children have created are so original! We are working hard on using the Descriptive Writing Success Criteria we created to help add a lot of detail to the Descriptive Writing pieces.  We are going through the full writing process with this assignment (planning, rough copy, editing, good copy).  The students have also been illustrating their Foodamil and they are looking fantastic!   

In Science, the students have been presenting their soil inquiry findings to the class.  All of the students chose to complete this learning task by using Google Presentations.  This was a new program to all of the students and they did an amazing job!  The program definitely has a learning curve, but the students showed GRIT and persevered and WOW did it ever pay off!  Students shared their inquiry findings to the rest of the class and helped build their peers' knowledge.  The students took some 'jot' notes about interesting facts and knowledge presented by their peers. We were able to cover all of the topics and information they needed to learn and more and had a lot of fun do it too! 

In Math, we will continue to work on writing pattern rules, extending number patterns and creating patterns.  We will also be learning about Temperature in Measurement.  

In Physical Education, the student have been practising their Volleyball Skills and in Health the children are finishing up their Personal Safety Brochures.  As part of Health and Religion, students will reflect on what they learned through the Digital Citizenship lessons "Samaritans on a Digital Road".