Friday 28 February 2014

     February In Forest Valley - Liquids & Solids


In conjunction with our Liquids and Solids Unit in Science, our class went to Forest Valley on a beautiful winter day in February. There was lots of fluffy, white snow just perfect for studying water in its solid form. Rich, was our teacher, and he was both funny and knowledgable. We learned about how animals survive the winter by conducting an experiment, found liquids and solids in the environment, tried to build snow structures, made pinecone feeders for our feathered friends, drank hot chocolate, and took part in a new activity for some of the students, tubing. Many students were nervous before they slid down the hill sitting in an inflated rubber inner tube, but everyone loved it and wanted more than the two rides they were allowed.

                                              Rich telling us about our schedule for the day.

                                        Hiking through the woods looking for liquids and solids.

                                           Trying to build snow structures with fluffy snow!
                                            Feeding the birds with our pinecone bird feeders.
                                              Being too noisy and scaring the birds away!
The birds did eventually come. We saw a beautiful cardinal, and many Black-capped Chickadees.

The students had a wonderful time and learned a lot. This was evident in their journal entries, which were written enthusiastically and with great detail upon our return to school. Thanks Forest Valley!

Thursday 13 February 2014

Sight Words





Sight words are words children recognize and read immediately with no need to sound them out or decode them.

Practise your sight words to improve your reading fluency.

Click here to play a sight word game called, Popcorn Words.
There are 3 levels to play through.

Also, don't forget to practise our sight words lists in
Spelling City.

Starfall Homework

Completing the Starfall exercises I have selected for you will help you improve your English. Even if the exercises seem simple, the idea is for you to understand the skill being taught, so that you can apply it in any situation.
For example, after doing the Long a work you should be able to "add a silent e" as one of your strategies to write a long vowel word. Also, if you see a long vowel word in your reading, you can use this information to sound the word out.

                can          cane
         short vowel          long vowel
You can see how one letter sound can completely change the meaning of a word.

Directions For Starfall Homework

Below, you will find directions for completing Starfall homework.
(This information is also in your Language book.)

Click on the link below. When you are on the Starfall site, click on Learn To Read.
There are 3 main sections on this page - PlayBook, and Skills.
The activities on this page are numbered (red numbers on left side of page). Scroll down to the number I have asked you to work on, and follow the directions below.

Play (This section has 2 games for each red number.)
1. Go to the game number I have asked you to work on.
2. Play the game and write the words you make into your Language book.
   (Sound the words out loud!!)
3. Make up a sentence for each word and write the sentences into your Language book.
4. Read your sentences out loud at least 2 times to make sure they;
                                           *make sense and sound right;
                                           *have articles before nouns;  (a dog, an octopus, the store)
                                           *start with capital letters and end with punctuation. ( .  ?  ! )
5. What is the game you played trying to teach you? (Answer in a sentence.)
(I may ask you to do something different with the 2nd game like a word sort, alphabetize the words, make up a word search, etc. I will let you know when I assign the work.)

Book (A story based on the phonics skills just learned from the games in 'Play".)
1. Go to the story I have picked for you to read.
2. Try to read it to the end without help. (Click the words only if you can't work them out.)
3. Read the story again. Copy the sentence from each page, after you have read it, into your Language book. Use a coloured pencil to mark the sound being taught every time you see it in your copied sentences. (For example, if the long a is being taught, mark every long a in the story with a long vowel line above the long a and an arrow from the silent e to the long a.)
4. Read the story again from the computer, and then again from the sentences you copied. Look carefully, there should be NO copying mistakes.
5. Make sure you know all the words and are reading fluently.

Skills (Various activities to review or consolidate a skill.)
1. Go to the skill I have picked for you.
2. Watch the whole movie/video.
3. What is it trying to teach you? Write a sentence or two about it in your Language book. Remember to write a title first.
4. Copy the words from the movie/video into your Language book.
5. Make up 10 more words following the same pattern. You may look in books for help.

                                         Click here to go to Starfall.