Ms. Vanderwel's Room

Hello Everyone! Happy February : ) Take a look at what we have been working on this week. In ELAL students worked on using sentence starters to write about various topics in their journals. They are learning to vary the way they start their sentences to add interest to their writing. The students enjoyed writing about their favourite colour, their favourite animal and their favourite landmark or region of Canada.  In math, we continued learing about 2D and 3D shapes . Towards the end of the week, the students had an opportunity to rotate through a variety of math stations in which they had to use their knowledge of shapes to sort, compare and manipulate shapes in a variety of ways. This required students to work cooperatively and also to think logically and problem solve to determine the rule needed to correctly sort the shapes. They also worked on building 3D shapes using toothpicks and plasticine to better visualize the number of sides, edges and vertices. In science, students r...

 Hello! Here's a look at this week's learning... In language arts students continued working on developing their visualization skills. They listened to the story 'Owl Moon' by Jane Yolen. As students listened they worked on creating a single image visualization rather than a series of scenes from the book. This involved trying to imagine a birds-eye view of the story. They also worked on developing their ability to identify words that evoke sounds, feelings and other senses.  In math, students explored 3D shapes and their characteristics. They learned that 3D shapes have length, height and width and can be described by the number of faces, edges and vertices. They played a Mystery Shape game in which they had to describe a shape only by how it feels, not by looking at it. They also created 3D shapes from nets. They cut them out and then folded them to make the 3D shapes. Finally they used these to create a 3D shape city!  In science, students began exploring different t...

Hey Everyone! Take a look at our learning this week : ) In ELAL we have continued to learn about visualizing and how it can help us to better understand what we are reading. The students did a whole group visualizing activity in which some volunteers came up to the whiteboard and drew what they were imagining while listening to the story "In the Small, Small Pond'. After they drew their picture they talked about what they drew and the class also contributed some details that they envisioned. Students were also challenged to add a few key words that stood out to them from the story. Seeing what other students are visualizing helps students to expand their own drawings to include more details.  In math, students learned about the concepts of symmetry and how to sort 2D shapes based on their attributes. An attribute is a characteristic of a shape such as the number of sides/corners, size, colour, thickness, shape etc. Symmtery refers to something that is the same on both sides li...