High Park Nature Centre

Dear Parents, 

It was a great day for a field trip. We spent some time inside learning to look at nature with new eyes and then took a brief walk in the woods to hang our bird feeders and look for animal signs. On the way home, we spent some time in Lithuania Park, where many of the students built nests on the hillside and enjoyed outdoor play. 

Two of the stations involved matching cards. One was a game of concentration where students matched birds, and the other was a 3 way match between an animal, a picture of its tracks and a photo of its actual tracks in the wild. 

The next favourite involved using lard to pack a pinecone and then rolling it in seeds as a natural birdfeeder. 

 

Then, students practiced making a variety of animal tracks and guessing what animal matched each others' efforts.

 

 The favourite station, as always, was making another type of animal sign: scat (really just playdough with cocoa powder in it). Students guessed what type of scat each person decided to make.

 We played another matching game outside, before our hike, while we listened to see if the birds were coming for the feeders. When we finally returned for lunch, we actually saw a woodpecker for a while. It was kind of magical.

After lunch, we headed back up towards the school, walking this time, and stopped at Lithuania Park for a while to play and explore. There was hay in the park that some students used to make bird's nests for themselves, while others played on the play structure or rolled down the hill. 

This student found some twine and made an impromtu fishing rod

 Just before we left, we took a class photo (Staring into the sunlight seemed better than being backlit at the time).

Field Trip Reminder

Dear Parents,

Just a brief reminder that we'll be off on our field trip next Monday morning. This is a half day trip, but students should pack a lunch and we'll see if we can eat there or al fresca, depending on the weather and take our time coming home.

For those who haven't been in the classroom lately, we've been working to talk about characteristics of living things, human, plant and animal. After setting the prompt, "What do we already know about animals?" Students drew these drawings. It's always interesting to see what they put in and what they leave out. Hearts, bones, genitals, and brains made it into all these pictures, but lungs, stomachs, and other organs did not. These pictures and the ensuing discussion gave me starting points for teaching.

 As always, I try to ask what kids are wondering about. Students are curious about how brains work and about the special features of animals, so that also helps give our unit a focus.

We're continuing to work on animal projects and I've also brought a number of non-fiction books about animals into the classroom to support our investigation. We've been talking about the features of these books, like Tables of Content, Indexes, Glossaries, Labelled Diagrams, Maps, and even Photo captions. 

As we move into spring, Non-fiction investigations will continue to be a focus of our language program as well. 

Interview problem solving and printmaking

Dear Parents,

This is a crazy week with Hundredth Day, Valentines and Report interviews all stacked, as well as the beginning of Lent (Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday) and a flu rampaging through the school. Please note that if your child was absent today, their Valentines have been collected and are waiting for them. I also have a couple of report cards still to go home that are hanging out in our Mr. Zippy bin.

With all that said, I'll be absent during the day tomorrow and returning to the school at 4pm to do interviews.

Because of daycare's presence in our room, I'll be doing interviews in Room 202, upstairs across from the library.

I sent home interview confirmations today, but I can see that they'd be easy to miss in the pile of Valentines today. I should have access to email, if you'd like to book an appointment. You can also look directly at my schedule in google calendar and book yourself in by following this link:

February appointments


While I'm blogging, I thought I'd also show you some process and results of our recent printmaking work.

Students created an image then traced it onto a styrofoam plate. 

The image was taped to avoid movement

Once the cover was revealed, students had a workable template to print from

An iguana

A woodpecker

A rhinoceros

An owl

 Here are some of the results:

A manta ray

A loon

A puffer fish

And here's the class display, showing a variety of prints.

Animal Project

Dear Parents,

On Friday, I sent home an outline to help your child complete a shoebox project based on an animal of their choice. A book from our school library based on an animal of their choice accompanied this outline. This project will support our understanding of the needs and characteristics of living things, which is a part of our science curriculum. (Students who were away will be sent home a book on an animal of MY choice on their return. If your child wishes to make changes to their animal, please let me know as soon as possible, so that I can make sure there are no conflicts.)

The project is due Monday March 5^th, 2018.

If you have extra shoeboxes, please send them in. They are always in short supply.

If you need further materials, I do have some playdough and construction paper that I can give to students upon request.  If you have questions or concerns, please follow up with me at my email address.

I promised to post some good websites for learning about animals. Here are some of my favourites, but which animals are included may vary:

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/ --Use the sidebar to help search

https://www.pebblego.com/ (free login for tdsb students is on the library sites card that went home in September) --This site will read aloud the text to students

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids --links to pages about specific Canadian animals

http://kids.sandiegozoo.org/animals --Great photos and information, but a little less intuitive to navigate

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals.html --Good for cool facts about your animals, less good as a primary source

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/mna/main.cfm?lang=_en  --More advanced set-up, best viewed with an adult, but some interesting maps of habitats and specimen pictures

Here are some samples of student work from last year's assignment:

 

Again, please let me know if you have questions or concerns. 

Regards, 

Ms. Goegan

P.S. I've added the appointment link to my calendar for report interviews on February 15th. Feel free to book yourself in, or let me know which times you prefer.

Here's the link:

https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=MnJmNnI2cjU3MmY2YmdjZmRoa3ZiZGQ4ZmkgbGlzYS5nb2VnYW5AdGRzYi5vbi5jYQ&tmsrc=lisa.goegan%40tdsb.on.ca

New Year, fresh start!

Dear Parents,

New Year, fresh start! When we started reading in our yellow folders, many students complained that their reading work was too easy, so I'm focusing on reading with student individually this week and making sure they have fresh books, even if they're at the same level. Still, I'm heartened to see that their hard work is beginning to show some rewards. I'll reform reading groups once we have new levels set.

In math, we're focusing on building vocabulary around measurement and learning to use rulers effectively. It's easy to make small errors by not lining up with zero, or not looking at the unit when we measure. I've set an assignment on Prodigy where students can practice their measurement skills as well.

In Science and Social Studies, we're finishing up some posters and thinking about how to use energy wisely.

I've also sent home Scholastic order forms (due back next week, if you can) and a trip form for High Park Nature Centre (Trip is February 26th, forms due back next week).

I hope you had happy and restful holidays. Looking forward to an exciting rest of the year together!

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Reading Practice and Prodigy Math and Science Check in

Dear Parents,

It's the last week before vacation and excitement has been building. We've been doing a number of thematic writing activities, like thinking of ways to make a grouch grin, and writing a letter applying to be an elf, as well as our usual reading responses to a variety of books. I'll try to do a holiday round up post to show pictures of student work before we go leave for break.

It's easy to fall back in reading during vacation, so during the winter break, it will be helpful to keep on top of reading as a top priority. If you need support with the Raz kids site, please let me know via email. Here's the main site: https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/students/

In math, we've been focusing on problem solving strategies after finishing our geometry unit (focusing on symmetry). All the math sheets students have been working on in class have gone home and our quizzes have marks on them, so that you know how students are performing. Students with marks at Level 3-, 2+, 2, or 2- should focus on rehearsing these skills because students need more practice.

In order to support this practice, I've signed students up for Prodigy. Look in your Mr. Zippy's tonight for the sign up info. It's an online math game that supports grade appropriate skills for students. It's free, and a good way to practice math over the break. Here's the link to the main site: https://www.prodigygame.com . It's free to use and set up like a video game.

In Science, I sent home a checklist for students to follow through on home energy use last week--but I haven't received most of these back. If you haven't completed it, there's a copy available online. Completing it will help us follow through on energy conservation:  Energy at home pdf

Thanks for all your support of student learning. I know how busy this time of year can be.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan