Robert Munsch, FSA and music

Notice:  

Because of the ongoing FSA testing only spelling on test tomorrow

 Today was Robert Munsch Morning.  Following on the heals of our Family Literacy day, the whole school (including teachers and support staff) spent the morning reading, writing, creating, dressing up before gathering as a whole whole group in the gym for a celebration and sharing. All in the name of Robert Munsch.  We spent the time from the beginning of the day making costumes and preparing for the school Assembly at 11:00   At the assembly those students in costume for a specific book stood up as the names of each Robert Munsch book were read.   Last week the school voted on their favorite Munsch book and the three winners were..... 3rd Pigs, 2nd Paper Bag Princess with the most popular of all the Robert Munsch books being Alligator Baby.  It was a fun morning focused on literacy and reading and a specific author. 

 We spent the first two periods in the afternoon doing the Provincial FSA tests online.   This was followed by a music period. Outstanding day everyone.. See you tomorrow when we continue with the FSA paper part of the test.  Next computer part next Thursday.

Writing Contest

Notice: The TD Canadian Children's Book Week Writing Contest (http://www.bookweek.ca/book-week/2013) - There were 10 entries from our class. I mailed everyone's entries today before the Feb. 1 deadline. We have to wait until May to find out who the grade 4 winners are, and to read the winning stories and poems.

Good luck to everyone who entered!!

 

Reminders: Tomorrow is Robert Munsch day. Come to school dressed up as your favourite Munsch character. At 11:00 we will have a Robert Munsch assembly. 

 

Please return signed skating permission forms. We are still in need of some parents volunteers to walk with us and to tie up skates.

I have 2 huge compliments for every single member of our class.

The first is the students have been extremely excited and motivated to write detailed, interesting, well-developed, and imaginative stories. Every single student has worked diligently, learned more about the writing process, and has improved his/her creative writing in the last 6 weeks.
The quality of the modern fairy tales that the students wrote are FANTASTIC and as the students finish their final copy, I'm putting them up on display for everyone in the class to read.

The second compliment is every single student's drawing and artistic ability has improved this year. They are learning to carefully observe and transform what they see into realistic looking images on paper. I have been very impressed by the attention to detail and quality of the students' drawings lately. I've posted some examples of their fairy tale main character drawings.

Awesome job everyone :-)

Mrs. S

Reading, Music and Mini-Books

We began the afternoon with reading.  This was followed by music with Mrs. Awalt where the students played the recorders, learned to read sheet music and had a chance to play Solo.
The last period of the day the students finished off their Mini books on the polar bear.  Students who had finished got a chance to use the document camera to project and read their story to the rest of the class.

Great day everyone ... see you tomorrow...

FSA Schedule

Wilson and  Schneider

Computer:

Reading                                                                                Thursday 31^st 10:30 (Wilson)

Numeracy                                                                           Thrusday 7^th 10:30 (Wilson)

Booklet:

Part 2)  30 minute reading comprehension           Friday March 1^st  9:00 (Wilson)

Part 3)  30 shorter writing                                             Finished (Schneider)     

Part 4)  60 minute Longer Writing                              Monday Feb 4^th 10:30 (Schneider)

Part 6)  30 minute Numeracy                                      Tuesday Feb 5^th 1:00 (Wilson)

Fairy Tales and FSA Testing

Notices: A skating permission form went home today. Please sign and return.

Also, a notice about a writing contest went home today for students who are interested. It is voluntary but about 1/3 of our class took home the entry form to fill out. All information is on the notice. It is Canada wide, by grade level, and put on by the TD/Canada Trust bank.

 

Students wrote their Spelling pre-test this morning, followed by multiplication practise in Math, and time to finish their rough draft of their modern Fairy Tale. The students are so keen and enthusiastic about their writing. It is really awesome to see :-) I've read some of the completed rough drafts and many are so hilarious that we are laughing out loud. Awesome job!! We have some very creative and descriptive writers in our class. Tomorrow we will proofread for COPS (capitals, omissions, punctuation, and spelling).

Before lunch students wrote 1 section of the FSA, the shorter writing section. Students who are not writing the test caught up on unfinished work. Breaking the test into sections seems manageable for the students and they were really positive about what was asked of them.

After lunch was Library, Silent Reading, and time to finish work before playing Poison Ball in Gym.

The 2 students who were goofing around, cut corners on the warm-up laps (students have to touch the corners of the gym), and were trying to get the attention of others were given the spotlight. They had to do the chicken dance in front of the entire class. We were all entertained and as another student said, "That is so embarrasing. I'm totally touching the corners."
We'll see if we have any volunteers to dance next week :-)


Mrs. Schneider

Poison Ball: Students aren't sitting for long, only until the person who got them out gets tagged with the ball. It gives them a chance to catch their breath (literally!) in this continuous game.

Robert Munsch the books, paper puppets, Music and Computers

Notice: 

Pro-D day tomorrow No School

T shares a special stuffy

We began the day with our spelling test.  We then went to our buddy class and read many, many Robert Munsch books.  Today we are preparing for the Family literacy day on sunday.  We would like you to spend 15 min, minimum, doing something literate.  If you could do it using Robert Munsch, all the better.  That took us up to recess.  After recess we again went with our buddies to the computer lab and library and worked on making puppets to act out the Robert Munsch story, The Paper Bag Princess.  It was a creative and fun time and took us up until lunch. 

A takes a tally of the favorite Robert Munsch Books at the Smart Board

After lunch part of the class went to computers to work on a diagram with dialogue boxes.  The goal is they then have to take the comic like speech bubbles and write the dialog out like it would appear in book form. 

The other part of the class worked with Faith, a grade 6 student, who was a student at Tillicum last year.  Faith is one of the great writers to go through our school.  She worked with a group of our students who volunteered to get some extra writing help.  Many of our students may go on to become great writers too, so it is great to see her and have the chance to work with her before she is famous.

The class then went to music. whree they continued working on reading music and playing the recorder.  They have progressed amazingly well.  Music is a great gift to give yourself.  It does help that we have such a great and talented music teacher in Mrs. Awalt to make it positive and happy. 

We ended the day finishing up our test, cleaned up our room, opened the bank for payday, then returned to the computer lab to finish our work.  See you all Monday, as tomorrow is a Pro-D day.