Narrative Writing

Today we began narrative (or story) writing. This is one of my very favourite writing units. The kids practically jumped out of their seats with glee when they learned that this is what we would be doing for the next few days. 

Mrs. Mihalides has developed a formula to teach kids how to write dialogue in their stories correctly. It is called the "Said/Replied/Said" method and it works very well! 

Attached is a youtube video of the slideshow Mrs. M has put together to teach the kids this great method.

Video

Finding Area

Yesterday we learned how to find the area of a shape. In grade three it is quite simple... just count up the squares!

Here are 6 shapes that you can find the area of. Remember to record your answer in square units.

Have We Convinced Ya?

In room 209 we have been working very hard on our persuasion skills. I am most impressed by how convincing many of us are! All of the chickadees can take something that sounds as silly as having a longer recess and make it sound very reasonable with  just a few convincing points. I think I may have a roomful of future lawyers, negotiators or sales people!

Hopefully they have not yet caught on to using these skills at home to convince moms and dads as to why they need to stay up later, eat less vegetables or not brush their teeth ;)

Today the writing task was to choose an animal and then write a letter to convince me as to why we need this for a class pet. I can't wait to send home the Writer's Notebooks so you can read them too!

Club Announcements

Over the last couple of days we have been learning how to write announcements.  The other day the light bulb went off for me...pair up this writing format with our latest text form of persuasive writing! The task I gave the kids was to write an announcement for a club that you are starting. I told them that they want kids to join so they have to make convincing points to encourage other kids to sign up. 
I don't think I have ever seen kids so engaged in a writing task and boy oh boy are the announcements good! We have some interesting ideas for clubs with very persuasive ideas for joining them. I love when the creative juices get flowing in Room 209!
We will share our announcements as a class tomorrow. I can't wait!

New Math Unit

We have started one of our last (hooray) math units for the year. This is another unit in measurement. We will learn about measuring using centimetres, metres and kilometres. In addition  we will learn how to calculate area and perimeter.


- the short form for centimetre is cm
- the short for for metre is m
- 1m = 100 cm
- we use kilometres to measure longer distances
- 1000 m = 1 km
- it takes about 15 minutes to walk 1 km

Here is a problem to try:

If Mrs. Linse walks around a track that is 500 metres. Have I walked a km if I walk around the track two times?
Explain your thinking.

Go Leafs Go

I know I'll be cheering on the blue tonight. Hope you will be too!

GO LEAFS GO!!!

Fraction Test

Tomorrow is math test day!

We did about a half hour of review this afternoon and most of us look to be in great shape.

Here are two practice problems to practice at home tonight.

1. Champ has five cheese bones and 4 meat bones. 
    What fraction of the bones are cheese?


2. Ashleigh has 16 gumballs. 
    Two fourths of the are green.
    How many are green?