Season's Greetings

It has been an amazing first term for our wonderful class!  We have worked so hard to accomplish so much!  The Huskies are an incredible group of children who amaze us every day with their knowledge, kindness, caring and unique personalities!!

As we move into the Christmas break and the holiday season, we would like to wish everyone Season's Greetings, Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, and a very special New Year!!  Whatever way you and your families celebrate, may it be merry and bright!  Enjoy every minute of your time with family and friends, relax and rejuvinate!

Love, Mrs. Metz, Mrs. Fletcher and the Huskies!!

Santa Claus

What if you got to meet Santa, what would he really look like?

Here are some of our ideas!! 

 

Marty McGuire

We read an amazing book this term called Marty McGuire.  It was about a class of third graders who were putting on the play 'The Frog Princess'.  We had a lot of discussion about characters, plot, problems and solutions and settings while we read.  It was a great book.

After we finished, we all worked together with the Cheetahs and wrote summaries for the 14 chapters in the book.  The process was quite difficult, but working with groups of 3 or 4 of us together really helped.  We talked together to come up with the main 'big' idea in the chapter and then listed some of the events that happened around this 'big' idea.

When that was done, we worked as a group to decide how we would represent the chapter ideas.
These are some of the ways we chose:
-draw a picture on Draw and Tell, and then record our voices to tell the information
-make puppets and then act out the chapter while someone records our acting
-draw pictures and then take a photo and print the ideas on the ipad
-pretend we are the characters and act out the chapter while someone films us
-use an ipad program that has puppets in it

We did a wonderful job with our ideas and representations!!  I am very proud of all the Huskies and Cheetahs and how they worked together to make this project turn out so well.  It was lots of fun too!

 ipad draw and record

 draw and take photo

 ipad and record

 ipad and typing

 ipad and recording

 ipad and printing ideas

 ipad drawing/record

 ipad drawing and record

 make puppets and act

 make puppets and act

 

Structures All Around Us

Did you know that there are structures all around us that are naturally made by animals?  The grade 3's have been learning all about these kinds of structures.

A beaver dam and lodge are examples of natural structures.  They have a certain shape and form that allow beavers to create a home that is strong and stable.  The shape of the lodge is called a dome.
We made dioramas that show how a beaver uses a dam to create ponds and waterways and also allows them to build the lodge where they live.

Also, bees make honeycombs that are shaped like a hexagon.  This shape allows the bees to make the most use of the space inside their hives.
We created our own honeycombs! 

Natural structures made by beavers and bees are quite amazing, don't you think???

Snow People at Night!!

What do you think snowmen do at night while we are all sleeping? Could they be dancing, singing, playing, reading, listening or.....are they sleeping?

Have a look at our snowmen at night!

Our Gingerbread Chalet

Our whole school participated in a gingerbread house building contest.  Save-on foods supplied us with the ingredients for each class to build one large gingerbread house. After they are all finished, one house will be chosen to be displayed at Save-On Foods.  I wonder which one will win??

If you go to Save-On Foods this week, be sure to vote for the Chantrell Creek gingerbread house as your favorite!

The Huskies all worked together on our creation.  Leif's mom helped us design our house shape and then everyone participated in making the roof, doors, windows and the garden.  It looks good enough to live in.....or maybe eat instead!!

It turned out wonderfully, don't you think?

We Are All Actors!

For 3 days we have been so lucky to have Robert Randall working with us and helping us to do drama! We have tried many new, fun, active and interesting activities.

We needed to use our imagination the whole time, which can be hard to do, but we were getting better at it!!

We had so much fun pretending to be lots of amazing things and people.  We tried to use our bodies to express different feelings without using our facial expressions. We wore masks to hide our faces.

We even used 'things' and pretended they were different things, like a banana could become a telephone or a moustache and a dog toy became a pair of glasses.  We had to be so convincing with our actions that the audience could guess what we were using.

We also created a stutue garden.  Each person must 'freeze' in the position of a person or an object, then each additional person must join the 'garden' and become something that makes sense being there.  Then some or all of us gets to put the ideas into action.  For example, if you were a bridge in a park, then the next person could be the pond, or the ducks in the pond or a person walking in the park, etc. 

We played lots of games to get our minds working in creative ways! Have you ever thought of being an actor/actress?  Would you like to try some drama games sometime??

               It was a great time for all!!

Smile for Similes!!

Last week we were learning about similes.  Have you ever heard of a simile?
Similes compare 2 things and use words and phrases like:
as big as a house or jumps like a kangaroo

We first listened to a book called "As Quick as a Cricket" to get some ideas about what similes sound like.
Then we watched a video called "My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks!"

We would like to make our writing more interesting by trying to use some similes. So then we starting practicing making up similes.
Some of the ones we made were:

as hot as the sun,
as wild as an elephant
as cold as the arctic

To further our practice of making similes we used adjectives (describing words) to tell about ourselves.
Then we turned those adjectives into similes.
Here are some examples:

I am as pretty as a princess
I am as mathematical as a calculator
I am as funny as a clown
I am as tall as a giraffe
 
After that, we all created a Simile Portrait of 'who we are' complete with a simile poem!

We used objects to make the parts of our faces using something that could represent the simile in the poem.  For example, if someone was as tall as a giraffe, they might draw a giraffe and use it as their nose.  Another example would be someone who is as sweet as candy might use pictures of candy to make their hair and someone who is as smart as a brain could draw 2 brains for their eyes.

Aren't they amazing??!!

Drop by to check out our Simile portraits and poems showing 'who' each of us are!!

ps. thanks to Ms. Betts (Mrs. Betts' daughter) for this wonderful idea!!!

Windy Weather

Have you ever wondered how artists make their paintings look like there is movement in them??
We have created some amazing art work doing just that!

First we talked about space on our paper, and then we showed a horizon line that separates the sky from the ground.  After that we took our paint brushes and used swirling motions to create a blue sky that appears to have movement in it. We thought about a windy Fall or Winter day.  Then we added hilly ground that has different heights to it by making curvy and wavy lines.  We left some areas white to add depth and could also look like a snowy field.

The last part was to add the bare Fall/Winter trees that we see around us in our neighborhood.  To do this we used watery dark brown paint and blew through straws to creat lots of branches.  We learned about foreground and background and showed this with a large tree in the foreground and several smaller ones in the background. 

It was so much fun to make our bare trees blowing in the windy weather!

Learning about Internet Safety with our Buddy Class

Recently we have been talking about internet safety.  We watched a video with our buddy class that showed us how important it is to be very careful when using the internet.  Garfield and his friends helped us remember by teaching us about YAPPY.  Can you guess what YAPPY means?
Well......we will tell you!
Never, ever share these things (never be yappy about your yappy!!)
Y - your full name
A - address
P - phone number
P - passwords
Y - your plans
If you never 'yap' about these things on the internet, then you will stay safe!

We made some posters with our buddies.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we have started to practice how to create our own blog.  We are doing this because after the Christmas holidays, we will each create a personal blog and we will need to know some very important information and understand good internet manners in order to share on our blog.

We are designing our blog on paper first with our buddies.  They are also designing a paper blog.
We will choose a title and a pattern, picture or design to be our background.  We will write our first post.  Our buddies will comment on our post and then we will reply to their comment.  It will be fun to 'post' on our blog and even more fun when we have our real blog in the new year. 

Keep checking back for our personal blogs in January!! 

Remembrance Day

Last Thursday, our school had a Remembrance Day Assembly. It was a special time to honor the men and women who have been involved in wars and who helped to bring about the peace that we are so lucky to have today.

We talked in class about what this special day means and if we knew anyone who had been involved in war or peacekeeping activities.  It was amazing to learn about all our personal connections.  For many of us, it is difficult to understand the true meaning of what the soldiers, marines, nurses and others lived through.

A piper playing the bagpipes began and ended the ceremonies.

Our choir sang some very meaningful songs, some of our students made presentations and we watched a video and song about war and peace. We were honored to have 2 veterans who were able to be at our ceremony.

Our gym was decorated with beautiful art that the students had made.

 

When we returned to our class, we read a book called Tusk, Tusk by David McKee.  It was a book that taught us about understanding others and accepting other people's differences. 

Thank you to everyone who made this ceremony so meaningful for all the students at our school.