Ms. Vanderwel's Room

Hello Everyone! It is officially the last Friday of the school year. Where has the time gone? This will also be my last official blog post for this year. I want to wish you all a wonderful summer! Here's a look at what we have been up to this week : )  --------------------------------------------------------- In reading we learned about the -le spelling pattern and sound. The students played some fun games and participated in making words activities using that spelling pattern. We have also been hard at work researching and writing about butterflies. The students will be ready to share their reports soon. In art, we learned about symmetry and looked at examples of symmetry in nature and elsewhere. The students then completed a fun art activity using the principal of symmetry to create a butterfly. They first drew one half of a butterfly. Then they traced it with a dark oil pastel. After that, they folded the paper over and rubbed/pressed their drawing onto the other side of the pap...

Hello and Happy Friday! Here's a look at our week : )  We also want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Have a lively weekend : ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This week the students worked on learning about the 'soft c' and 'soft g' sounds. They listened for the sounds in words, made words containing those sounds and learned to look for the letter clues that tell us when to use the soft c or g sound-- i.e. ce, ci, cy and ge, gi, gy). They also completed a "Write the Room" activity in which they had to find words hidden around the room and sort the words into either soft or hard c and g.  In writing, the students finished taking notes on butterflies and began working on using their jot notes to begin writing their report.  We also released our butterflies into the wild on Thursday. The students were sad to see them go, but excited to watch them fly off into the wind : ) In math, we continued ...

Here's a sneak peek at our leaning this week!  ------------------------------------------------------------  This week in reading we learned about the /ew/ sound. Students can remember the sound these two letters make by thinking of the story of the kids who didn't like mice. When they saw a mouse they would say "ewwww!".  We practiced spelling some /ew/ words with our moveable alphabet and using our word ladder sheet. Our Author Study author this week was Doreen Cronin. She has written many humourous stories such as: Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Fly, Diary of a Spider and the Click, Clack, Moo series of books. Here stories help students to imagine the world from an animal's point of view and the funny situations they can get into.  In writing we continued to work on our persuasive (opinion) writing. Students finished filling in their template and then began their good copy. Once finished they drew pictures of the two animals they wrote about.  In math, students ...

Here's a sneak peek at our learning this week!              --------------------------- This week students learned about the au/aw sound. Students learned a cute story about a rotten apple that tastes 'aw-aw-aw-awwwwwful' to help them remember the correct sound. They also built words (raw, saw, paw, law, lawn, fawn, launch etc.) using those sounds and listened to a song about the au/aw sound.  In writing, students continued to work on their persuasive writing paragraph. They began by looking at the OREO model for writing a persuasive paragraph. After reviewing the 'Who Would Win' videos we watched last week, they then began filling out an OREO template stating their opinion as to which animal would win and why. We also began looking at non-fiction text versus fiction text. Students learned that non-fiction texts are true and contain facts. Fiction texts are make-believe. Next they learned about the specific features of non-fiction books (table of ...