Adventures With Mrs. Craig

This morning we started off with our 'Pillars of Care' celebration. Great job to our grade 3 winners this morning. Room 13 has done a lot of work around kindness and anti-bullying this week. They wrote about all the different ways they show kindness day to day and also areas they know they need to work on. In Math they have been working on basic facts and also went back to rounding to the nearest 10 and 100. We had our spelling test this morning. The number they got correct is written on the top (time ran short and I marked these without check marks). They wrote sentences with these words today too. Monday is a PD day (no school for students). Your child has brought home a February calendar as well as lunch room tax forms. Enjoy your long weekend!

We had a school assembly today about 'Jump Rope for Heart.' In your child's backpack there is a form explaining how to get pledges and prizes to win. We are getting really great at our mindfulness tasks. I am noticing students are nice and calm after our 10 minutes of calm (sitting, laying down, closing our eyes, being still and listening to music). We often watch landscape videos or an aquarium to help calm our minds. Ask your child if they feel it is helping them. In Math today, we had a small lesson on division. We will be further getting into this next learning task with math, in a couple of weeks. We talked about skip counting and how it relates to division and multiplication. They then skip counted by many different numbers in their math books. Afterwards they played an array game with dice and a partner. I will be away tomorrow and Thursday. Please remember to study the spelling words for Friday. Any extra math at home is always encouraged too! Tomorrow is &#

In Science today we learned and compared warm and cold blooded animals. They created a list of each one. They completed their Taj Mahal paintings today with using water colours. They have so much detail and I know they are very proud of them. In writing, they created 5 sentences of 'hints' on any chosen animal. They went into partners and had to guess each others animals. Ask your child what animal they wrote about. In Math we played a new class games. It is called "Scootch." Ask your child about the skill we worked on. Spelling words this week: Red: Math, see, play, mat, flat Green: reading, feeding, making, behaving, skipping Blue: seriously, satisfactory, traditional, leaving, understanding Feb 26 is Pink shirt day for anti-bullying!

In Math today we worked on using numbers lines to complete multiplication facts. They started their guided sketches of the Taj Mahal. Ask your child about the patience and detail it takes to complete these! Please look over your child's spelling test. Have a fantastic weekend!

The continued to have silent writing time today to work on their stories. At the end of the 20 minutes of writing, they shared their first chapters with a peer. Ask your child what their story is about. We talked about protagonists, antagonists, beginning, middle, end and problem. We also talked about imagining their stories as a movie. Look at the date today with your child! We found it fascinating and each listed 3 things we noticed about it. When will this happen again with numbers in our calendar? When did it happen last? 02/20/2020. In Math we worked on high, medium and low fact questions. We made a chart today about "What Room 13 Love About Themselves." We got to brag about our greatest personality strengths and why people choose to be our friends! Ask your child what they were proud to say. I can't believe tomorrow if Friday already! Please remember to study your spelling words tonight.

The past two days we have been studying the history of India. We completed a book today and created the title page. Ask me what I have learned about this amazing country. On Friday we will be completing sketches of the Taj Mahal. Ask your child: What is the capital of India? What is the population of India? What is the main language of India? We had quiet writing time. Everyone started a story of their choice. We listened to calming music to help us concentrate. In Math we have been working on double digit subtraction with borrowing. Many of them find this quite difficult. Extra practice at home always helps! It was the 100th day of school today. They completed 'Number Detectives' with the number 100. Pink shirt day is February 26th for anti-bullying! Spelling words this week: Red: India, go, for, now, bye Green: long, weekend, trying, seeing, drinking Blue: breathing, studying, creating, adventure, language

We had a great day today as we talked about kindness and friendship. They enjoyed handing out their cards and making their own bags. They started off the morning playing with their first little gift (clay). Ask them what they made. In Math they made their own 'colour by number.' This took a lot of patience. Many of them finished and they are in their backpacks. Please look over their spelling tests too. I hope you enjoy the 5 day weekend and enjoy some family time together. See you Tuesday.

We had a busy math morning fitting together multiplication puzzles. They were difficult but they did not give up! We had an awesome PE time today. Ask your child about it! In groups of 4, they presented their animal posters to their peers. They are bringing these home today. Please take the time to review their posters with them. They worked very hard on them! Tomorrow we will have our spelling test! Tomorrow is our last day of the school week. Teachers are excited to learn some new things at teacher's convention!

We had a classroom conversation today about impulse control. We talked about how as we get older, the expectations to control our impulses grow. We also talked about strategies that we could use to control those negative impulses. A few of our classmates are working on the impulse of arguing when it is not appropriate. They worked on a valentine's day writing story today. These were sent home with them today. They had time to finish up their animal posters and will be starting to present these tomorrow. Spelling test is on Wednesday (same words as last week). Remember, it is a long weekend! Thursday - Monday. You may bring cards for valentine's day. Please look at Raz Kids for classroom names. We will be handing these out on Wednesday.

Tonight is Math Night between 6-8pm! We look forward to seeing our families again. Today we enjoyed studying each other's posters on India and looked for 2 stars and a wish. In Math we learned about multiplying by 10. They then completed a chart for true and false. In Science they watched the documentary "Growing Up Wild." We will be finishing this up tomorrow. See you tonight! I am going to extend the spelling words to next week.

We had a very busy morning learning about Tunisia. Teacher's pet was excellent. Thank you to my 2 volunteers who joined us- May and Aundy! Ask your child what they learned. What is the capital of Tunisia? What languages do they speak? What type of games did they play and artifacts did they learn about? In the afternoon they learned how to complete multiplication questions with using a number strand to 30. They then did review math when they were done. Remember next week is teachers convention, which means a long weekend including  family day off. In mindfulness today we learned about compassion.

We started off the day doing a writing assignment in our journals. They answered 2 questions: What does friendship mean to you? What do you look for in a good friend? Most of them could write half a page or more. Ask your child what they wrote about. We did family portraits today. We learned what a 'horizon line' means in art and how we used it to create a portrait that was realistic and had depth. After mindfulness today, we sat in a circle and told our peers one thing that we love about ourselves. This was tricky for some people, which means we need to do this more often! We talked about how it is easier to give others compliments but just as important to see the awesomeness in ourselves! They practiced their basic facts in the afternoon. Tomorrow we have 'teacher's pet' coming at 9am. Thank you to the parent volunteer who will help support this. Thursday is math night from 6-8pm. We will be playing math games in room 12 and 13! Please send your child