I’m sure you have had the opportunity to look through your child’s Friday ‘Folio. The majority of students worked so hard on this cummulative task and shared some interesting facts with the class about their particular type of community and its’s special features. Look at the smiles on these kiddos -what a great group!

Friendly reminder that the one minute monologues will be presented this Thursday. I hope everyone is having a great time with this mini project. Practice, practice, practice! On Tuesday, students will have a chance to practice during class time and transfer notes onto cue cards.

Here are some great examples done by kids your age. Pay close attention to their expression, loud voices and gestures. Some even have them fully memorized -amazing!

This holiday season why not give the gift of reading? I have received some emails asking if I could keep orders aside and parents will pick up themselves when the books have arrived. YES! I will do that for you. What a great gift idea! This months scholastic orders are due to me by Wednesday, November 4th.  Send your orders in via a sealed envelope if you want to keep the books a secret from you lil’ munchkin!

From my family to yours, I want to extend warm wishes for a lovely Thanksgiving long weekend. On Friday the kids and I joined our desks together in proper “feast” form and enjoyed our lunches and each taking a turn discussing what we were grateful for this year. Everyone was so engaged and respectful as everyone took turns sharing what warms their heart this year. Take a peek below and see if you can identify your child’s writing and what they are thankful for.

In Writing Workshop and Media Literacy, we have been working hard on identifying “awesome adjectives” and descriptive writing in our Haunted House for Sale writing Advertisements. This week we begin a study on the five basic parts of a friendly letter (heading, greeting, body, closing and signature) and will moved on to persuasive letter-writing. When writing a persuasive piece, the writer must be aware of his/her audience and the purpose for writing. Reasons that support the writer’s opinion are included in the main body of the letter to convince or persuade the reader to do something or change his thinking about a given topic.  This will lead up to our next writing piece – ‘Persuasive Pumpkin Letters.’ I have used the following read-aloud to help the students better understand these persuasive and letter-writing concepts.

In Reading Workshop, the students have been working on their book worm body parts and we have discussed the many ways that students select books to read for independent reading. A goal for the students is to increase their stamina when reading independently. Please continue to support your child at home with his/her daily reading as well as helping him/her find “just right books” to read. I have also modeled during various read alouds how good readers ‘check for understanding’ as they read by stopping periodically and reflecting on their understanding of the text. Summarization, retelling, and paraphrasing are often used as specific techniques. The children will be practicing these strategies while reading independently and with a partner/small groups.

Social Studies: We continue with our unit on People and Environments: Living and Working in Ontario. We are looking specifically at:

• the different needs of different communities and how these needs are met.
• how land is used and developed in different ways to meet the needs of communities.
• different types of communities and their land use (e.g., mining, fishing, forestry, etc.).
• why it is important to work in a community and what jobs are available in different communities.
• this week the students will work in their groups on creating their DIORAMA’s to depict the community they are studying. See the chart below indicating which community your child is working on. Brainstorm with them ideas to make their DIORAMA great as it will be an at school project. Please send in recyclables (old magazines, netting, cloth, ribbon, plastic bottle lids, coloured cardboard as well we are looking for boot boxes, not shoe boxes as our structure for the DIORAMA’s)
• 

In Math, we start this week with our unit continuing on with numeration by looking at money and making change up to an amount of $10. Adding, subtracting money and demonstrating different ways to show the same money total. Please send in any food flyers that you no longer need on Tuesday.

I LOVE to see ALL students engaged, focused, and contributing during class and throughout the school day!! Lots of rest and a fabulous lunch go a long way for these little bodies!

I am also happy to see so many students in my class interested in joining the RECESS GUITAR CLUB and the Primary Sing-A-Long Club which will run all year long! 

Thursday, October 10th, is our school’s Photo Day. A photographer from Earl Havlin Photography will be taking individual and class photos of all our students and classes. For best results, dress in bright colours and try to avoid white or black. The background will be blue. All students will receive a free class photo regardless if you order any packages. The photographer is also offering Family Photo Night that same night – from 4:00-6:00pm. Retake Day will be Monday, Nov. 4th.

Students will be writing a numeration unit test next Wednesday (Oct. 9th). To help prepare for this test, I encourage all students to go to the Nelson Math 3 website by clicking here and, between now and then, complete the following online practice tests for chapter 2:

Lesson 1: Representing Numbers

Lesson 2: Renaming Numbers

Lesson 4: Rounding to Estimate

Lesson 5: Comparing and Ordering

Lesson 7: Ordinal Numbers

The students will be working on these quizzes on the chromebooks in class as well, but it will not hurt to review these questions again at home! Prodigy has also been aligned with what I have been teaching in class -a very useful resource! Students can also go over the place value and number forms related activities at Grade Three Under the Sea. As you can see, there are lots of ways your child can prepare for this test!

Our focus in Math will switch to money next week.