Saturday, December 21, 2013

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!!



Wednesday, December 18, 2013

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!


Monday, December 9, 2013

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!!