Kenneth D. Taylor, Grade 3 - Ms. Hargreaves

Did you know that today was Giving Tuesday?   A national day to celebrate giving back.  Giving Day is for helping others in need. There are so many groups and organizations all over the world that appreciate donations.  This gives me a text-text connection to our exploration of values.  Talk about generosity, kindness, belonging, responsibility, empathy, just to name a few.   Today was a day about creating.  At recess we were inspired by nature to come up with similes about the sparkling frost on the grass outside.  Check out this frosty leaf that sparked the simile:  The frosty leaf is as sparkly as a Christmas tree ornament.  Another one was the sun's rays  slice through my vision like shark's teeth.    \ This afternoon we practiced the design mindsets to launch into design challenge #4 which was to create a musical instrument.   We were inspired by the global picture book Ada's violin and the recycled o...

Tuesday, November 29th  and Wednesday, November 30th Popcorn Treat Sale Friday, December 2 is a PD for teachers so no school for students.   Wednesday, December 7 Fun Lunch Friday, December 16 Early Dismissal and Report Cards go home 

Almost at the end of November, we can hardly believe it.  Look at all the outstanding learning we have done so far this year.  I'm so proud of all of you metacognites!  meta = big, cognites = those brilliant thinkers who believe in sparking their neurons every minute of the day. This morning we started our grand conversations with our exciting novels.  This is a wonderful opportunity for us to get together with our friends in the other grade 3 classes to expand our reading comprehension and community building skills .  Grand conversations are " student led  conversations  about a story where students ask the questions, discuss their thoughts and feelings, and make meaning as they talk about the story."  Class norms for group discussion ... • Make sure only one person talks at a time. • Give others a chance to share their ideas. • If you don’t agree ... say so, but be polite! • Listen carefully! What is the speaker really saying? Has the ...

We started Wondering Wednesday by asking the following question:   I wonder what a symbol for the value responsibility would look like?  You used global mind to come up some very creative symbols to represent this value.  We quickly realized and talked about how the reading powers helped us to visualize, connect, question and infer to transform our thinking about what responsibility means.  Have a look at some of our ideas: You all sparked each other's thinking and came up with some meaningful symbols such as a star to represent doing your best, a person standing really straight like a proud soldier, a panther to represent protecting endangered species, a hand to show offering a helping hand, a peace sign to show that responsibility means keeping peace in our world, a leaf to represent growth, in other words taking responsibility for your learning, but also to protect the growth of all things in nature.  This conversation connected us back to our work on ...

Don't forget to wear your favourite color tomorrow for Spirit Day. We are exploring the values that are important to us as individuals and as a community at Ken Taylor School.  So, everyone is coming to school tomorrow in their favourite color to represent the values they live by.   Values are the principles that guide a person's behaviour.  They are what guides your judgement about what is important in your life.    Mr. Dyck and Mrs. Tuttle shared a wonderful video with us about a character called Harold.  The color purple is a special color for Harold and for Mr. Dyck.  Here is a link to the video of Mr. Dyck reading the book Harold and the Purple Crayon.  See if you can connect to this character and the values that he demonstrates. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwEKt-zXqAVXYkk1ZEh3dzFfTUk/view?usp=sharing This morning we used some amazing picture books in guided reading groups to expand our background knowledge about life values. ...

Wednesday November 25th is Spirit Day.  We are asking all students to wear their favorite colored t-shirt on Wednesday.   As a school we will be linking  a colour to a virtue/characteristic/quality that we honour at Ken Taylor School.  This fits right in with what we have been discussing in class about how colors are very symbolic.  They can represent emotions and have special qualities that help us remember what we value.  For example, one of my favorite colors is green and this color for me represents nature and my responsibility to protect our ecosystems and all species of plants and animals.  So two virtues that this color represents for me are kindness and responsibility. Thursday, November 24th,  Spelling Test for Lesson's 11-15.   Since it is a short week again we will be having our test one day early which means that students will take their spelling folders home on Wednesday night to practice their "sticky words". Friday, No...

Did you know that it is Universal Children's Day today? "United Nations Universal Children’s Day was established in 1954 and is celebrated on November 20th each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare." Here is a link to a video about this special day:   Universal Children's Day in 90 seconds

Wondering Wednesday was all about our wonderings and questions connected to our virtual field trip to the Borneo rainforest.  Even before heading to the gym to watch the video on the big screen we were on fire with questions connected to our learning about hearing and sound.  We brainstormed what the word acoustics means.  Our thoughts included:  sound waves, vibrations, volume (loudness and softness), high pitch, low pitch, atoms and different mediums, echo and echolocation.  We then watched a video to expand our understanding of acoustics and learned two new vocabulary words:  ultrasound and infrasound .  Noah immediately made a text to self connection to his mom because this is her job.  We learned that and ultrasound machine creates sound waves that bounce back off organs  in the body.  Very cool.  From this we inferenced that if ultrasound means inside, then maybe infrasound means outside .   We later discovered by loo...

Wowza,  I was so impressed with how many of you were ready for our first spelling test today.  You were so prepared because you had practiced.  I'm so proud of your efforts.  You persisted and it certainly paid off.  Just wait until you see your results tomorrow!  You are building your background knowledge and you are thinking about your thinking as you spell.  The strategies that you are gathering  now in grade 3 will help you throughout your life. A huge thank you to Josh M.'s mom for sending us the magnificent photo of the Super moon! Here is a link to find out more about the super moon  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/what-is-a-supermoon-and-when-can-i-see-the-largest-moon-in-70-ye/  We were inspired by this amazing shot to write some creative poetry.   Our goal in writing is to add details and specific descriptive language.  Well, we really pumped it up today as we brainstormed multiple descriptive words...