Ms. Vanderwel's Room

Hello! It's a chilly Friday! Winter has arrived! I hope everyone stays warm and safe this weekend : )  Here's what we have been up to. In language arts students have been reviewing many concepts taught such as capitalization rules and parts of speech (i.e. nouns and verbs) and applying these in their written work. This week we also read a story entitled "If I Built a School" by Chris Van Dusen. After listening to the story students learned about the writing process. They began by brainstorming their ideas of what their dream school would look like. Then students used a planning sheet to sketch out their ideas. Finally, they used a variety of sentence starters to communicate their ideas in sentences. They came up with some fantastic ideas that I really think the school board should consider : )  For example, having a petting zoo, trampoline park, garden and flying desks!    In math, students have been learning about the concept of subtraction. Students learned that wh...

Hello Everyone & Happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a lovely week. Here's a peek at our learning this week : )  In language arts the students have been learning about common and proper nouns. Students learned the acronym M.I.N.T.S to help them remember the various words that need to be capitalized in a sentence. They played some fun games and fixed sentences missing capital letters to reinforce this skill.  In math, students finished learning about greater than/less than/equal to and putting numbers in sequence. They watched a fun video about a crocodile that eats the larger number and built numbers using manipulatives (cubes, base ten blocks) and then 'ate' the larger number. Students also started learning about addition. They discussed the concept of addition, the meaning of the '+' and '=' signs, explored adding by acting out addition problems and solved addition sentences using manipulatives. Number Gators Video Link     Greater Than >,  Less T...

Happy Friday! Here's a peek at our week : )  Students were busy this week learning about and reviewing the letter sounds for /d/, /n/ and /o/. As part of their learning students are beginning to build words using our moveable alphabet. Students listen as the teacher orally segments the sounds in a list of target words, select the letters that match the sounds and then blend the sounds to read the words.  In writing students have been unscrambling sentences listening for the naming part (i.e. noun/subject) and the telling part (i.e. verb/predicate). We worked on a number of sentences as a group and independently. Students also continued to review other important elements sentences (e.g capitals, punctuation, meatball spaces). In math, students focused on skip counting by 5s and 10s. They listened to songs, played games, and used a hundred chart to show what numbers you say when counting by 5s and 10s. Students also discussed why skip counting is important and how it can help us...