October is almost over! Wow!!!

This week's Global Read Aloud is called Exclamation Mark!  The students are really enjoying our Author Study and are making a lot of meaningful text to self and text to text connections.  This week's reading response is titled "How will you make your mark on the world?".  We are using Padlet to answer this question.

The students really enjoyed watching this little Book Trailer today...

In Visual Arts this week, we are learning about foreground, middleground, background and warm and cool colours.  We have worked hard on our sketches and will be starting with pastels tomorrow.  Ask your child all about it!

Maker Mobile was a HUGE success.  The students used Tinkercad (this is a free website if you want to try it out at home) to create their cookie cutters with a partner and then used the 3D printers to create their projects.  Maker Mobile is through the University of Ottawa and if you decide to create a project at home using Tinkercad, you can go to the University of Ottawa Makerspace on Sundays and print your projects using their 3D printers!  So fun!

Be sure to look through the pictures on our class Twitter to see all of the cookie cutters.

Links below:

Maker Mobile

Tinkercad

We have also been focusing our word work on homonyms.  We are learning that there are many words that sounds alike, but are spelt differently and mean different things.  Our writing goal is to use these words correctly in the sentences we write during Writer's Workshop.  Here is a cute video and a little quiz for extra practice.

In Language, we are busy with our literacy stations writing pretend Halloween Invitations, putting Halloween words into alphabetical order, using Book Creator app to write spooky stories and work on our GRA reading response using Padlet on the Chromebooks.  We are also finishing up our Personal Safety posters and brochures in Health.

Don't forget to check out our Twitter Feed for pictures of classroom activities and learning.  You do not need a Twitter account to follow us as I have a feed on the right hand side of the classroom blog.

All you have to do is scroll down through all of our tweets.

Dance-a-thon is on Friday.  Grade 3 is scheduled to dance during 1st block.  Children are to wear their Halloween costumes, but please leave accessories and masks at home.  I can't wait to see all of the costumes! 

A HUGE heartfelt thank you for all of the canned goods and non perishable food that has been coming in.  All of the food donated will stay within our own community to help out the Barrhaven Food Cupboard.  Thank you again.  Amazing work!

Your Partner in Education,

Mrs. Caluori

More cans please! We have until the rest of this week:)

We Scare Hunger!

Please support the Barrhaven Food Cupboard by bringing in canned food and non perishable food.  Our food drive continues until October 30th.  Thank you in advance.  We can make a difference!

Dance-a-thon

Halloween Dance-a-thon info sheets and pledge envelopes went home today!

Mark Your Calendars...

Up Coming Events and Important Dates

Oct. 15th-30th - We Scare Hunger Food Drive
Oct. 19th-23rd - Waste Reduction Week
Oct. 22nd - Book Exchange Begins (every 2nd     week)
Oct. 27th - Makermobile 
Oct. 28th - Return all Dance-a-thon pledge envelopes and $ 
Oct. 30th - Halloween Dance-a-thon
Nov. 5th - Picture Retake Day & Book Exchange

Dental Screening at St. Cecilia

Dear Parents/Guardians:

Lucy Charbonneau, a registered dental hygienist with Ottawa Public Health, will provide a dental screening using a tongue depressor on November 3 & 4, 2015*, for grades JK, SK & 2 and other children as necessary. If your child’s grade is not selected, but you wish for the dental hygienist to see him/her, please advise the school. Only children identified as having dental needs will bring home a form. Follow-up school visits by the dental hygienist for individual children may be done. THIS DOES NOT REPLACE REGULAR DENTAL VISITS WITH YOUR FAMILY DENTIST. 

* Some date(s) may be subject to change

This dental screening is offered in accordance with the Ontario Public Health Standards from Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Personal Health Information is collected in compliance with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Personal Health Information Protection Act and will be used for the purpose of dental assessment, treatment and oral hygiene instruction, and for statistical purposes.  Questions concerning the collection and use of this information should be directed to the Supervisor of Dental Health Promotion, Ottawa Public Health, 400-1580 Merivale Rd., Ottawa, ON, tel.: 613-580-6744 ext 26376.

It's a short week!

Welcome back after a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend!  I hope everyone was able to enjoy all the blessings of family, friends, food and the lovely outdoors.
Today during our opening morning prayer, the students and I discussed how important it is to stop and thank God for our many blessings and that it is a great reminder that prayers of thanks are wonderful prayers to share with God.  It was so wonderful hearing so many messages of thanks and how excited the children were to share their weekend experiences with our classroom community.

The students worked hard on a recount entry in their writing notebooks.  We practiced writing opening sentences that grab the reader's attention and lets the reader have an idea of what they are about to read!  We are also working on using teacher feedback to 'bump up' our writing.  It is important to take time to read over written work and look for missing words, punctuation, capitals and ensure we have added enough detail and juicy adjectives.

Some important concepts we are working on while reading are visualizing, making meaningful connections, author's message, author's purpose (P.I.E.) and providing an example from the text to support our opinion (e.g. I think that the Author's Message is.....I know this because in the text.....).

In Math, we continue to work on graphing and making sure we include a scale that begins at 0, a title, labels and categories/choices.  We are also working on mental math strategies, adding and subtracting large numbers (2 and 3 digit numbers) and representing numbers in a variety of ways (e.g., Base Ten Blocks, expanded form, standard form, money, place value chart).

Visual Arts has been a lot of fun this year!  We have learned colouring and shading techniques, line art as well as pointillism.  The students worked very hard combining all of their new art techniques in their "Giving Thanks" projects.  Excellent work 3D!

Science is also underway and we have already learned a lot about soil!  The students are very engaged with this unit and some have even started researching some of their soil wonderings. We are gathering information and some students have even started putting together a Google Slide presentation to share with the rest of the class.  If you have soils at home that would be fun to compare and look at, send some samples in!  We would love to examine a variety of soil and look at the similarities and differences.  Ask your child what the 4 Major Components of soil are.

In Religion we continue to learn how special and unique we all are and that we all bring our special gifts and talents with us.  God loves each one of us and calls us by name.  We are loved by our Father.

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine

This Friday is 'wear your jersey to school day' to raise money for United Way!  Pull out those Sens, Redblacks, Blue Jay Jerserys or any other favourite team shirts you have.  Let's support a great cause!




Your Partner in Education,

Mrs. Caluori

Our Next GRA is...Duck! Rabbit!

Here is a sneak peek!!