Happy Thursday Jan 30, 2020

Reminders:
No School Tomorrow
Feb 4- School council meeting, Parents welcome!
Feb 5- Vaccinations for identified students
Feb 6- Math night drop in
Bridge club every Thursday other then Feb 13
Teachers convention Feb 13, 14 (no school)
Feb 17-No school (Family Day)
Feb 20-Fun lunch
Feb 25- Jump Rope for heart assembly
Feb 28- Pillars of Care Assembly

Today in room 5:

We began our day with Ignite before heading off to library.
The students did a great job picking out books and reading quietly with a partner or by themselves.
We all then headed to gym where we had our final mission impossible!
In the end the totals for the entire school were added up and.........girls won! Congrats everyone!

After gym we had our Snackflix (Netflix Friday new name from the students)

We then transitioned into writing a retest of an assessment I gave the children a few weeks ago with different numbers. I have to say I am impressed with improvements from our last test! Below is a copy of the test for students to practice.

Students then had a health lesson after math in which we learned about what it looks like to physically be angry.



We then drew what we look like when we are angry and a strategy on how to get back to calm!

Next week we will practice this with frustration and silliness.

In the afternoon we continued to work on our health assignment from the morning.

We then had some time to go on a visual journey through Iqaluit looking at all the features of the city and the landforms. Things that stood out to the students were then drawn in boxes. We will finish and label these Monday!

We finished off the day with earned time before cleaning the room!

Hope everyone has a great long weekend and looks forward to a great next week!

Mr Lancee

Happy Wednesday Jan 29, 2020

Reminders:

Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm
No school this Friday

Today in room 5:

We began our day with the morning meeting before doing our reflection for our DL board. The students responded to three questions:
1. What numbers can you skip count by?
2. How can you prove your abilities?
3. Where in the world do we use skip counting

After reflecting on our skip counting we moved into gym for mission impossible!

The class has been learning about the importance of calming and self regulation all week. We have created a calming corner to support kids when they are angry, feeling silly or sad. This goes along with teaching strategies for calming such as:
Ninja breaths, tracing your fingers and taking a 5 minute break.
Below are the strategies we are practicing daily.



Try them at home!

Students did a great job advancing their if you give a cat a cupcake stories today! We are working to write the stories and finish them by next week so they can be hung up and shown to parents.

During math the students used coins to practice skip counting. They were each given a specific number of nickels or dimes and asked to find out how many cents they had in each set of coins.
Try these below at home!

4 nickels

6 dimes

10 nickels

4 dimes

2 nickels +3 Dimes

In the afternoon the students created and packed their suitcases so that we could fly on a plane to iqaluit! I printed out tickets for each student before they grabbed their suitcases and sat in rows in front of the smart board. We watched a video where a plane took off and flew over Canada to Iqaluit where it landed on the runway. Students were ecstatic to see the sights and experience the simulation of a plane flight to our next Social unit!

Hope everyone has a great day!
Mr Lancee

Happy Monday Jan 27, 2020

Reminders:

Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm
No school next Friday

For the next few weeks a supporting teacher has been brought in to help out our class! The students got to meet them today and they will be in the class periodically.

This week in room 5:

Math:
Working with money: this will support our skip counting skills. We will be using primarily pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters for our work.

Language Arts:
We will be writing our own versions of "If you give a mouse a muffin" series. These books are called circle stories and help to teach cause and effect.

Social:
We will be prepping to fly to Iqaluit this week! We will first look at what we need to bring to prepare for the cold. We will also look at some of the features of the land so we know where we will be landing. We will also be pushing an art project we were going to start last week to next week.

Science:
Hot and cold temperatures
Learning about how we keep ourselves protected from the cold, measuring temp each day, and discussing how people survive in chilling temperatures.

Health:
Self regulation strategies.
-Ways to help ourselves calm and become ready to learn.
-Body breaks
-Personal tricks to get back to the green

Phys Ed:
Mission impossible! Students have to navigate the gym without talking through a wild obstacle course all week!

Happy Friday 24, 2020

Reminders:

Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm
No school next Friday

Congrats to all the pillars of care and punctuality award winners :)

Today we began our day with our pillars of care assembly. Students loved our monthly video and seeing all the students recognized for their hard work.

We then went back to class to change for outside gym. We went to the playground to play the ground is lava. This great game has the students running away from their peers trying to tag them with a dodgeball. If they get tagged they do take the ball and become the person it.

After Netflix Friday we were joined by our buddies to complete some Mathletics assignments specifically working on counting by 2, 5, 10. These assignments are still up for students to work on over the weekend.

Students were given some catch up time to work on their prairie writing, science experiment explanations and prairie mural pictures. Once they finished they were able to clean their desks, help clean the room and begin their earned time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Keep up with the reading at home :)

Happy Wednesday Jan 22, 2020

Reminders:
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly at 8:15 am
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Today in room 5:

We started off our day with our usual calendar. Outside of our daily routine we have been recording temperatures each day and comparing them using language such as, hotter than and colder than. I have been working daily with the students to practice our skip counting using 2, 5 and 10.
Students have had success with counting on starting from zero. We have been working to start from a random number and then counting by 2, 5, and 10.
For example:
We roll a dice to get a two digit number, then we count on three times from there!

Try it at home:)

Count by 2's
45, ____, _____, _____
37, ____, _____, _____

Count by 5's
17,____, _____, _____
38 , ____, _____, _____

Count by 10's
34, ____, ____, _____
59 , ____, _____, _____

For word work today we used our aw blend in partners to match aw words to a sentence. Students had great success with this!

Ex. The man used a mower to cut his _____.   pawn      lawn

Students had to circle and write the correct word next to each sentence!

After gymnastics we had some writing time in which we finished off our "If you're not from the prairies stories". I will be marking them soon for parents to see!

When students finished they were able to work on our prairie mural. We worked as a team to create plants, buildings and iconic features from the prairies.

In the afternoon we had mindfulness followed by some quiet reading time. I am pushing students to read books at and slightly above their level using some of our reading strategies.
Make sure you are reading at home families :)


I gave students time to do mathletics in the afternoon working on their assignments before heading off to recess and finally music.

 I will be announcing the pillar of care winners tomorrow in class!

I hope everyone has a great evening!

Happy Monday Jan 20, 2020

Reminders:
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

This week in room 5:

Language Arts:

New letter blend: aw

Reading:
Starting literacy groupings tomorrow.
(read to self) (read to someone) (Guided Reading)
Reading legends from Iqaluit

Writing:
Finishing if you're not from the prairie.
Starting writing about legends from the Iqaluit.

Math:

Repeated addition & skip counting

Social:

Making our Prairie mural to display in our classroom.

Science:

Working with thermometers

How to read a thermometer

How to use a thermometer

Art:

Arctic Inukshuk art

Today:

The students began their day with the usual ignite. In my room we were building things using lego, polygons, and connector cubes.

When the students returned to class we had our morning meeting and went through the calendar, number of days in school, and the weather. After morning meeting students had their spelling test from the words from last week. We marked the words and students corrected mispelled ones. 

We then transitioned into gym where we had our first gymnastics class using all of the equipment. Students were walked through all of the stations before being able to rotate. The climbing wall and large balances were a huge hit. 

After snack we had some time to do our student of the week writing. This quick writing block led us into math where we did a review of skip counting with 5's, 2's and 10's. We then used this knowledge to help us with representing numbers in different ways while making 20. 

In the afternoon I needed some time to catch students up on their work from Friday and today. So While some students read, others finished their skip counting assessment or finished their student of the week writing. 

Students then had some time to explore how to read and use thermometers. We watched a video on how they can be read before actually getting to hold and read the thermometers in degrees celsius. Tomorrow we will be practicing reading the thermometers before we use them to measure actual temperatures in the room and eventually different liquids.

After recess we finished off our day by starting our mural for the prairies. We had to start by drawing some wheat to form the front of our wall mural and we will start to add in flowers, barns, buildings and other features of the prairie.

Hope everyone has a good evening.

Mr Lancee

Happy Friday Jan 17, 2020

Reminders:
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling test Monday (MOVED) 

Special note: Apologies to students and parents that practiced all week for their spelling test today! I had to complete a mandatory math assessment and then with buddies, writing and the craziness of the day we had to push it to Monday. On the bright side, students get a couple more days to practice... HOORAY!

Today in room 5:

Students began their day with a quick morning meeting before doing a math assessment.

The math assessment focused on skip counting. As part of the schools growing policy to support students we are using a concept called spaced practice. This concept has teachers teaching repeat concepts throughout the year to support their understanding an not just cover one unit before moving on. Our DL boards for the upcoming math night will have more details about this concept.
When students finished their assessment they were able to do mathletics before gym.

After gym and Netflix Friday during snack we headed to buddies for some partner reading.

When we returned to class I gave students some time to continue their "If you're not from the prairie writing." This cross curricular social writing project will be continued Monday.

We finished off the day with 30 mins of earned time before cleaning up and heading out for the day.

Students & Parents, Make sure you are keeping up with your reading and mathletics over the weekend :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Mr Lancee

Happy Thursday Jan 16, 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club Thursday
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling test tomorrow


Just a quick blog today!

Today I sent home the students basic facts test from this week. This is one of my strategies for helping parents see how students are doing in class. Please sign and return the sheet for tomorrow. Thanks for your support!

Happy Wednesday Jan 15, 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club Thursday
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling test Friday


Today the students had pajama day! It was such a blast for everyone to wear their cozy clothes and have stuffies at school! We did word work, stories and writing all related to pajama day.

We began our morning with the usual morning meeting. We covered the calendar, number of days in school, and the temperature. Students have started to record the temperature daily. We will use this temperature calendar for graphing and other fun math activities.



After gymnastics we did some writing. I originally planned to do some writing about the kids stuffies...but instead we did some sequencing writing. Our topic: How to host a pillow fight!
This style of writing is great for teaching kids how to write instructions and ordering events in stories.



When students finished they were able to write about their stuffies as an extension.

After writing we moved into math. Today we marked our basic fact quizzes as a class. I want students to see where they made their mistakes and correct their work. Students then continued with their level questions from the day before.


In the afternoon we started with mindfulness. Today I modeled how we can meditate before going to sleep to hep us calm and get our bodies ready for some sleep.

I then had the students using ipads during guided reading to do some raz kids. I like to mix up how the kids read to keep them engaged.

Students then had science and were able to work on their hot and cold collages before we watched the hot and cold magic school bus.

We finished off the day with music before dismissing the children into the frosty cold.

Have a great evening everyone!

Happy Tuesday Jan 14, 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club next Thursday
January 15-Pajama Day tomorrow!
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling test Friday
Two handouts being sent home today: Fun Lunch and Child Safe Canada Resource Guide

Remember: Tomorrow is pajama day! Wear your favourite jammies or onesies to school and bring a stuffy. The stuffy will stay in class and we will be doing some writing about our stuffies.
Today in room 4:

I have started a homework bin for students to pull extra work from. Students can grab any math sheets they would like to be used at home for extra practice!

Students began their day with our usual morning meeting. We have added a thermometer to the morning calendar to help students understand the temperature and how to read a thermometer. This freezing cold weather has been great for showing students just how cold are city can get!

Next the students had work using our letter blend "wh". I added in a few new word work stations for students to use that involved building words using letters, covering the word, and guessing the spelling. Another station involved using codes to build words. The last station used little boxes to build the words and help with letters that go above and below the lines.

After gymnastics in gym we had some writing time finishing our setting descriptions of caves. Tomorrow we will be using our writing time to journal about our stuffies!

In math we did our triweekly basic facts quiz before working on some leveled math questions.

I am writing the math questions horizontally to see how students use their personal strategies to solve questions.

In the afternoon the students had music before we headed back to class for mindfulness and silent reading.

We finished off our day with saying goodbye to our student EA. We all sat in a circle and shared the things we appreciated about our EA. She gave the students some presents (eraser pencils and sharpeners) before cleaning up and leaving at the end of the day!


Have a great evening everyone!
Mr Lancee

Happy Monday Jan 13, 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club next Thursday
January 15-Pajama Day
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling test Friday

This week in room 5:

LA:

Word work using Wh word blend

Spelling words relating to wh blend
-what
-where
-when
-why
-what
-who
-wheat

Bonus:
-whale
-wheat
-white

Today: We covered these words and practiced identifying pictures and words from books that had a wh sound.

Writing:
-Setting descriptions using 5 senses

Today: We learned that settings are descriptions of a stories time and place. We are learning to use our five senses to describe a specific setting. Students used sentence starters and their senses to describe a cave today!

-Creating a prairie story called, "If you're not from the Prairie" which will be used to describe different elements of the prairie. For example, "If you're not from the prairie then you don't know cold! On the prairie it is so cold that it will freeze eyelashes in seconds!"

Reading:
-Starting guided reading groups this week in which the students will be split into groups based off level to do leveled reading with me!

Math
-Addition with and without regrouping.
-Skip counting review and games
Today: We broke our math up into two parts of the day. In the morning the students did an open ended activity in which their instructions were to "Make 25" Below is some examples of the ways students were able to make 25
.
We will be practicing this skill all week!

Social
-Creating prairie stories
-Creating a grain elevator art project to show one of the main services in the prairies and connecting it to our art unit.

Science
Working on concepts related to hot and cold.
We will be exploring what temperature is and how it connects to hot and cold.
We will also be using thermometers to measure temperatures.
If we have time we may also be able to use a heat source to melt and burn materials!
Today: Today I wanted to do a check to see what kinds of hot and cold things students could come up with. We used magazines to cut and glue a variety of hot and cold objects to a sheet of paper. It was up to the students to sort the objects and decide which objects were hot or cold! We will finish this project tomorrow.

Happy Friday Jan 10 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club the next Thursdays
January 15-Pajama Day
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Today in room 5:

Students began their day with a quick morning meeting and calendar:




After morning meeting we did our weekly spelling test. Students used their letter sound knowledge to sound out their words and build on their sight words. Students were excited about the words they got correct and were happy to correct the words they misspelled.

Next we moved into mathletics time on the ipads completing assignments related to addition.
Parents! Mathletics at home is a fantastic way to practice those skills do we each day :)
Thank you for all your support!

After gym and Netflix Friday during snack we had buddies with our grade 5 buddy class. It was great to read our library books and classroom books for a relaxing break.

When we returned to class we had some writing time working doing some student of the week and show and share writing. I have pushed the students to brainstorm ideas about the students interests and from this word web create their own sentences. It is amazing to see the independence that student have developed from the start of the year.

We finished off our day with 30 minutes of earned time doing board games, perler beads, drawing and finishing work. Students work hard all work to earn their time and they had a blast with the positive finish to the end of the week!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Mr Lancee

Happy Thursday Jan 9 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club the next two Thursdays
January 15-Pajama Day
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly
Math Night is Thursday, Feb 6th, 6-8pm

Spelling quiz Tomorrow!
of
did
want
friend
could
down
road

bonus:
hot
cold
flag
service

Today in Room 5:

We began our day with the usual ignite!
Students enjoyed a trip to the library after ignite to read and Ms. P put on a song for everyone to dance to in the last few minutes.

After gym we returned to class for snack and some writing time. The focus of today was finishing our ideas from yesterday and starting to edit. Students were writing in their journals about "If tomorrow was a snow day..." Students loved the idea of being able to plan a perfect snow day and work on their sentences. I then went through their writing editing their work for capitals and periods.

After writing we moved into math and we continued our explanation of addition. We have been working through double digit addition without regrouping. We have begun to start regrouping using blocks and regrouping groups of ones into tens.

In the afternoon the students were exploring the Ukrainians of Saskatchewan and were practicing speaking Ukrainian! We followed it up with some Ukrainian dancing!

We finished off the day by filling in our KW charts on what students know about Hot and Cold Temperature!

Hope everyone has a nice day.
Mr Lancee

Happy Tuesday Jan 7 2020

Reminders:
No Bridge club the next two Thursdays
January 15-Pajama Day
January 23-Fun Lunch
January 24-Pillars of Care Assembly

Spelling quiz Friday
of
did
want
friend
could
down
road

bonus:
hot
cold
flag
service

Today in Room 5:

We began our day with our morning meeting covering the days of the week, number of days in school and the weather. Students predicted it is going to be mostly sunny and windy for the month of January. We shall see!

Students then had some time to practice their weekly words with their word work stations.
We used letters, playdough, pipecleaners and worksheets to practice writing our words.

After some fitness stations in gym we transitioned into snack before writing.

The students continued to work on their My Winter Break writing pushing themselves to write several sentences. Each time they would finish a sentence I would make sure the sentence had a capital and period before getting them to write the next sentence in more detail. This week we will be looking at our writing and doing some editing of our work primarily focusing on capitals and periods.

After writing we moved into math and began to work on double digit numbers with no regrouping. I wanted to ensure the students understood that this type of math is just basic facts over and over!
We will continue our work with regrouping tomorrow.

In the afternoon the students had music before starting 10 minutes of mindfulness.
During this mindfulness time students do 10 minutes of breathing, meditating, or calming videos that focus on living in the moment and thinking about right now. We use anti stress techniques such as clenching and unclenching our hands and feet to help students calm before reading.

During reading the students I was able to work with a few students doing some guided reading. We will be starting reading groups and stations soon!

After reading and recess we came together on the carpet for our science lesson. We started a new unit today: Hot and Cold Temperature! We started a KW chart today to record what the students know and what they wonder about. We will be finishing this chart tomorrow before we head off to music. This is one of my favourite units as we get to do several science experiments!

We tidied the room and were ready for home!

Hope everyone has a nice evening!
Stay warm as it is very cold!
Mr Lancee

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Monday January 6, 2020!

I will be doing the switching of home reading books tomorrow as I did not have time today.

This week in room 5:

Health:
Telling vs Tattling

LA:
Weekly Words:
of
did
want
friend
could
down
road
bonus: hot cold flag service

Journaling & the editing process. From now on we will always be editing our writing and then creating good copies from those edited pieces.

Today we wrote about our Winter breaks!

We will also be working on Charlie and the chocolate factory and using it to support writing about settings.

Math:
Addition all week!
We are practicing writing our numbers on top of each other and regrouping an extra ten. This skill will take us a few weeks.
We introduced this skill today using 2 by 1 digit numbers practicing carrying the ten above the tens place.

Science
No science today.
This week we will be starting hot and cold temperatures.

Social
Finishing up our exploration of the prairies. Focusing on the language of the Ukrainians and services provided in the provinces. I am hoping to start a project by the end of the week or next week to wrap up our unit.

Today we looked at the flags of Saskatchewan and Ukraine. I waited until now to show them the flag as a way to remind them of the significance of the forests and wheat fields of the prairies. This also ties in the main jobs and services provided as well.


Flag of Saskatchewan


Flag of Ukraine

We also compared the symbolism of the yellow parts of the flags relating to wheat and farming.

Have a great day everyone!
Mr Lancee