June 13-17

We started writing and illustrating the good copies of the stories the kids wrote based on their story plans.

We started work on a huge map of Toronto (on a bed sheet) that has the homes of all the students marked on it. We looked together at the google map I made with students' homes marked on it, and the kids were very interested to see who they lived close to and to tell about the places near their homes. I explained that I had projected this map onto the bed sheet, and marked in pencil the roads, parks, bodies of water and the subway, as well as their homes. Small groups of students painted these features on the map so that everyone had a turn contributing. The big map will be on display for the night of the concert.

We spent the week looking at fractions in math. We read a book that shows the various ways to cut up an apple to share among 2, 3, or 4 people. We talked about how a "half" and a "quarter" come up in our lives all the time, in cooking, in sports, in making art, in talking about time...Then the kids did some exercises that asked them to sort drawings that illustrate a half or a quarter from drawings that don't, mostly to get across the idea that the parts need to be equal.

Our Father's Day art project used the idea of fractions, because we started by folding a long paper into quarters. The kids followed my example, using the dividing lines as reference points to draw the figure of their dad on the paper. Then they used these rough copy drawings as a guide to draw their dad again on a box. They went over the lines with black marker, and then painted over the drawing with light washes of tempura paint.

On Friday morning, we had a very fun time with the "Loose Parts" play session in the school yard. The kids played creatively with all kinds of materials, inventing machines and scenarios together. It was terrific!

June 6-9

This week we played a new drama game, in which one person begins to make a tableau by declaring what they are (i.e. "I am a tree.") Then a second person adds to the scene ("I am a squirrel under the tree.") and then a third person adds to it ("I am a nut the squirrel is eating."). Then the first and second person leave the scene and the tableau is built again starting from the last person ("I am a nut.")

In Daily 5, we talked about blending consonants with the letters s, l and r. We did our martian word game again, with words that contained these blends. We also had a visit from a librarian from Lillian Smith library.

We began a mapping project as part of our exploration of urban communities. The project asks each student to make a map of an imaginary community, with roads, parks, homes and businesses. These components are added as paper cut-outs, and explained in a legend. The collage maps offer a chance to think about how the different places in an urban community relate to one another.

In math we continued to focus on "tens" and "ones". We did individual and partnered problem-solving with questions involving boxes of 10 markers, which asked the students to switch back and forth between groups of ten and single units.

May 30-June 3

We have been playing a fun drama game called "The Wind Blows". We sit in a circle on chairs (one less chair than there are players) and 1 person stands in the middle. That person says "The wind blows for the people who _________________" The statement must be true for them, and the kids have focused mostly on likes and dislikes (the people who love the Raptors, or the people who don't like mushrooms). Everyone for whom that statement is true (i.e. everyone who also loves the Raptors) has to stand up and find another chair to sit in. The person in the middle also tries to sit in a chair, so there is a scramble at the end and one person doesn't get a chair. That person is then in the middle and the game begins again. Lots of fun, and lots of French!

The kids continue to work on the stories they planned earlier. Daily 5 has been going very well, with a lot of focused reading taking place. The kids are motivated because they see me reading individually with every kid to assess their reading level for the end of the school year.

In math we focused on better understanding place value. Place value is the idea that where a digit is located in a given number determines the value that digit represents. For example, the "8" in 18 represents 8 but the "8" in 81 represents 80. We started off with counting a pile of pennies, grouping them into piles of 10. We counted by 10's until we ran out of piles, and then we added on the last remaining pennines 1 by 1. I introduced the vocabulary of "tens" and "ones" (dizaines and unités in French) in relation to our counting. The next day I switched the 64 with the 46 on our hundred chart. I asked the kids if they noticed anything peculiar, and when they did I acted as if it was no big deal because both numbers had a 6 and a 4. I asked them to explain what the difference was if the 4 was in the spot on the right or the spot on the left. Many kids have developed an intuitive understanding of this distinction, but they had trouble articulating it. We finally got around to the idea that when the 4 was on the right, it meant 4 "unités" and when it was on the left it meant 4 "dizaines".

The kids did a partner activity to practise the concept. One partner chose 2 number tiles and put them together. The other partner had to show that number using base 10 blocks, in tens and ones, on a place value mat. Then the first partner switched the numbers around and the first partner had to represent the new number. Then they changed roles.

I also introduced 5 new centres that focus on numeracy, for the last month of school. After explaining each centre through the week, we finally did them all on Friday. The above activity with base 10 blocks is one centre. Another has kids grab a pile of pennies, estimate how many there are, and then put them into groups of 10 to count.

Another centre has 2 card games: one asks kids to match the number with the ten frame and with the number word; the other is a version of "I have...who has" where a kid might read their card saying "Who has 3 tens and 2 ones?" and another would read their card saying "I have 32! Who has 7 tens and 6 ones?"

Another centre has kids using a special balance to write balanced equations:

Since the balance is a 2 person activity, the other 2 people do an activity with dice. They roll 2 dice, and write the numbers as a 2-digit number in the middle box on a sheet. Then they write the number that comes before and the number that comes after in the counting sequence.

The last centre is for practicing the "Friendly 10" strategy for adding (also useful for subtraction). Kids work independently, and fill in the blanks on a worksheet. First they roll 2 numbers from the possibilities of 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. Say they roll 6 and 6. They write these numbers on the sheet, and fill two adjacent ten frames to represent the numbers. Then they move the counters from one ten frame to fill the other ten frame. This makes a ten with remaining counters. The sheet then asks them to fill in 10 + __ and then asks for the answer, which is now made easy because it is adding a single digit to 10. 

The kids really enjoyed the novelty of the new centres, so hopefully that won't wear off too soon!

May 24-27

We reviewed the rules for hard and soft c and g, and played our nonsense word decoding game again with that focus. The kids worked on their story plans and most made progress with writing those stories.

In math, we spent the week exploring probability. After learning the vocabulary (the French words for impossible, improbable, equally likely, likely and certain) we talked about and illustrated a range of future events in terms of their probability. The kids loved coming up with impossible scenarios, like that a dinosaur would walk into our classroom! Then the kids experienced 3 activities in which they recorded with tally marks how many times a given outcome occurred. For each activity I asked them to predict if the stated outcome was improbable, equally likely or likely. They flipped a 2-sided counter (like flipping a coin) and recorded which colour came up each time (equally likely). They rolled a pair of dice and recorded how often they got doubles vs. non-doubles (doubles being unlikely). And they tossed a coin onto a hundred chart, and recorded how often it landed on a 2-digit number vs. a non-2-digit number (2-digit number being likely). Then we talked about our results and our predictions, and came to the idea that more possibilities for something (like more ways to roll non-doubles or more 2-digit numbers on the hundred chart) made it more probable.

I reviewed our probability vocabulary again mid-week, by showing 5 trays of coloured tiles. I asked, if I closed my eyes, how likely was I to pick a blue tile from each tray? The kids matched the probability word with the corresponding tray.

Our next experiment was with rolling 2 dice, adding the 2 numbers together, and marking that sum on a chart. Everyone gathered data on their own and we compiled everyone's results. The kids were surprised to see a pattern in the graph of the dice sums!

As you know, I sent these images home and asked you parents to talk over with your kids why the middle numbers were more likely to be rolled than the smallest and largest numbers. We had a lively discussion on the following Monday - thanks for all the convos at home!

We began our unit on the Local Community this week. I began with building the vocabulary we need. We read a book that follows someone's journey from the country, through farmland and small towns, and eventually to a big city. We talked about the difference between cities, towns and the country. Then I posted a bunch of labelled images of the things we find on city streets: schools, stores, parks, supermarkets...Each child chose one to illustrate with collage.

We played a game to consolidate the vocabulary, where kids paired up to have the following conversation:

• "Yesterday I went/Today I am going/Tomorrow I will go...to the _____________(one of the places in cities)." 
• "Oh, really?" 
• "Yes, really!" OR "No, not really!" 

After each conversation the kids thanked each other and went off to find another conversation partner. They really enjoyed the element of trickery! 

Then we talked about maps and how they show the view from the sky. To bring that concept home, the kids filled in an outline of their classroom, creating a map with all the furniture and carpets in their proper spots. 

All this lead up prepared them for our field trip to Kensington Market! The kids were divided into 4 groups, and each group had a map with a route marked on it and 3 locations to visit. These were things like a bank, a bakery, a fire station...etc. Each group visited a different trio of locations, and their task was to photograph (with an iPad) each location.

We reassembled in the Kensington parkette, and each group showed their pictures and talked about their route to the class (kids were pretty distracted because they all wanted to play in the playground!). Then we had a great time playing in the park before returning to school. Thank you to the volunteers who made the trip possible!

May 16-20

We started the week with the "Journée d'Energie", a day fully focused on our study of energy. We watched the Magic Schoolbus episode from last week again, and this time I asked the kids to pay attention to the types of energy the kids in the show generated. Afterwards, they explained in words and pictures how one of the energy sources in the show worked.  Then we looked at all the energy sources we have talked about, and identified them as renewable or non-renewable. Each student received images of and labels for the different sources and had to match them. Then they made a poster of energy sources, according to the categories of renewable and non-renewable.

This activity was followed by a broader sorting activity that asked the kids to think about where the energy came from for a wide range of things, from sailboating flying an airplane.

We played a game that illustrates the energy chain from the sun to plants at the bottom of the food chain to animals at the top. Everyone starts out as the sun (making "sun" gestures) and any 2 suns can do rock/paper/scissors together. The winner transfers to the next stage in the chain, in this case grass. The kids who become grass wiggle their fingers, and they can get together and do rock/paper/scissors to become a rabbit who eats the grass. The rabbits hop around and when they compete one becomes a snake (who ate a rabbit). The snakes make snakey motions with their hands and can compete to become the eagle, at the top of the food chain, who eats the snake. Eventually everyone becomes an eagle and the game is played out. 

I asked the kids to show me what they had learned about where energy comes from and what it can do, on a mind map. It was an open-ended exercise to sum up their learning. Then we made pinwheels to take home!

In reading, we read more with the puppet character "Le Conte qui Raconte", to learn better how to retell a story after reading it. The kids practiced retelling stories I read to the class through the puppet. They learned to frame their retell with the words in French for "At the beginning", "then" and "at the end". 

We reviewed the elements of a story by watching the video of "Le Tambour Magique" and discussing the characters, the setting, problem/solution and the beginning, middle and ending of the story. Then I told the kids that we were going to write our next story by first making a plan. As a class, we planned a story by deciding on these elements. Then we began writing the story, and found that it was a richer story for the planning. The kids began to plan the characters, setting, problem/solution and beginning, middle, and ending of their next story. 

In math we finished up with patterning with a fun activity. The kids were in pairs and had a card with various letter patterns. One partner made a pattern following one of those given on the card, and the other partner had to figure out which letter pattern corresponded to the pattern they had made. 

We also did more problem-solving, with the kids in partners working to explain why a given answer was true. I find this approach helpful when the kids get too focused on finding the "right" answer, often from other classmates, without understanding why it is correct. 

After working on the problem, we looked at everyone's solutions and talked about the different strategies we saw in evidence.