Biography Presentations

Our biography presentations will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday! The students should be ready to present the information on their poster as their famous person (with their costume and any props they may have prepared). I do give children the opportunity to go and change into their costume in the bathroom, fix their hair, etc. to become their character if they need to. Children were encouraged to rehearse their presentation in front of parents and in front of a mirror. Do they use good voice inflection? Can they be heard well? Do they make good eye contact with their audience? Have they possibly memorized some parts of the poster? Do they have an interesting way of introducing themselves? A WOW-Factor finale? Just some elements of presenting that we have been talking about in class in preparation for this major assignment.

WEJ Holiday Concert

The students are excited about our performance in our upcoming holiday concert… and they have been hard at work prepping for their big number on Thursday! I cannot stress enough that all children should have a black (or dark) top, black pants, black socks and shoes for our performance on Thursday. We will also most likely have a dress rehearsal tomorrow (Monday)… so please make sure your child has their dark clothes (either worn to school or brought in a bag to be changed into) tomorrow as well. Parents coming to the concert on Thursday should arrive a few minutes early to ensure yourself a parking spot as well as a good seat. The primary concert for parents will begin at 10:00am in the gym on Thursday. Hope to see you there!

We also have Spirit Days this week! (Please see the previous blog post). We hope that everyone shows their school spirit this week. But again…please ensure that your child has the dark clothing items for Monday and Thursday this week!

No Other Homework This Week

No homework duotang this week! No Word Study this week! Both will resume after the winter holidays. Students should be putting the finishing touches on their biography posters and rehearsing their presentation (performed in character as their famous person)…  to be given either on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. I will allow any student to stay in during recesses tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday if they need extra time to complete their poster and/or rehearse their presentation.

Friday is the last day of school before the holidays. All primary students will meet in the gym during part of the day for a movie!

If you are signing your child out early after the concert on Thursday or any day this week for office parties or family activities, please email me and I will try to have your child promptly dressed in their outerwear and down in the office waiting for your arrival.

Here is to a busy… but fun-filled week!!!

Mr. J.

The countdown is on, WEJ! We are one week away from our holiday break! All next week will be Holiday Spirit Week! Starting with Merry Monday- wear any special clothing from a holiday that you celebrate! Dress up and show your holiday AND school spirit next week!

Here is a photo of WEJ’s ‘Christmas Card Tree’.  We counted 231 cards!  Thanks to all the contributors to our Seniors’ Christmas Card Initiative.  The students’ cards will spread holiday joy to many around Ottawa.  They will be going to Meals-On-Wheels, two seniors’ residences, and the Ruddy-Shenkman Hospice.

Yesterday, the students enjoyed learning their first hour of computer science! We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly hinge on understanding how technology works. But only a tiny fraction of us are learning computer science, and fewer students are studying it than a decade ago. The Hour of Code is a worldwide initiative by code.org to introduce computer programming to millions of students and encourage them to learn programming. The event is taking place this week, during Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 9-13). Since this initiative began a few years ago, over 100 million students have tried an Hour of Code. This year, my students are joining tens of millions of students worldwide in over 180 countries! Please check out the links under Computer Science on the right-hand side of this blog page to watch various brief videos promoting this initiative, and let your child try the various coding tutorials offered to students! My students were able to complete much of their first tutorial for beginners yesterday in one hour! All of the puzzles and creative activities at the site are designed to teach students computational thinking and the basics of computer programming. Students solve each puzzle by programming visual code blocks to achieve a goal.

The Hour of Code is just the first step on a journey to learn more about how technology works and how to create software applications. To continue this journey, students are encouraged to try taking a longer course at http://code.org/learn/beyond

Here are some pictures of the students coding from yesterday:

Swim to Survive is a program for all grade 3 students in the OCDSB. Our grade 3′s here at WEJ are once again taking part in the program. The session dates for our class are as follows:

Jan. 14th, Jan. 21st, and Jan. 28th (all Tuesdays) at the Kanata Leisure Centre.

I am sending home a parent information letter and permission form today. Please read the information letter and sign and return the second page of the permission form to me as soon as possible. Thanks! I will need 2-3 parents to come along with us each time. You will be there to provide only general supervision (on the bus, in the changerooms, on the pool deck) as the program is taught and run by qualified swim instructors. Please indicate on the permission form if you would like to volunteer and I will get back to you.

More about the Swim to Survive program:

The Swim to Survive program is run through the Lifesaving Society and was developed in response to the reduction of swim instruction for elementary school children during school hours. Many children are not provided with the opportunity for swimming lessons out of school hours. The Lifesaving Society believes that Swim to Survive is an important first step to being safe around water.  The Swim to Survive program is delivered to grade three children across Ontario.

The program is free as a grant covers busses, pool time and instructors. The program is offered to children in all levels of swimming, including beginners.

The Lifesaving Society’s Canadian Swim To Survive program is designed to teach children the basic skills and knowledge necessary to avoid drowning and other water-related accidents and to learn to make wise choices in any aquatic environment. This is accomplished by focusing on three minimum skills required to survive an unexpected fall into deep water.

The program consists of 3 in-water lessons (1 hour each) focusing on a sequence of 3 skills.

1. Roll entry: To simulate an accidental fall into the water.

2. Treading water for 1 minute: A reasonable time to reorient and support themselves while seeking help.

3. Swim 50 metres: Most accidental drownings occur within 50 m of safety.

4. Three in-classroom water safety lessons:  These have been presented by Ms. Janes in her Health classes.

As you know, not all children can afford the opportunity to participate in swim lessons and yet they are highly represented in drowning statistics. A school-based program is an effective way to ensure that all children have the opportunity for water safety education.

NOTE: Children should wear a bathing suit but are also welcome to wear clean “light weight” (cotton) pants and shirt over top. Children must bring a towel. Goggles and flip flops are optional.

For more information about Swim to Survive, please visit: http://www.lifesavingsociety.com/swim-to-survive.aspx

There will be NO Homework Duotang or Word Study homework this week in order for the students to have time to properly prepare for their major BIOGRAPHY projects. (Please click here to review the requirements of this project as outlined in a previous blog post). Biography posters will be coming home mid-week this week so students can start rehearsing their presentation of the information on their poster. You can support at home by helping your child with their costume, coming up with an interesting introduction, and listening to them practice their oral presentation skills by presenting the information off of their Biography poster page. Enthusiasm, voice inflection, eye contact, hand gestures and body language are all areas of focus. Biography presentations are set for next week (Tue., Dec. 17th and Wed., Dec. 18th). Please have your child bring his/her poster back to school each day (Thursday and Friday… and next week) as there may be time to practise in class.

We will continue rehearsing for next week’s Christmas concert. My class will be performing with Ms. Lewis. class during the concert on Dec. 19th in the gym beginning at 10:00am. Students will be asked to wear black (or dark colours) from head to toe for our performance (that is, black shirt, black pants and black socks and shoes). We hope you can come see us perform!

The school’s Recess Peer Tutoring program has become VERY popular and some of our students have benefited by working with the tutors. Talk with your child and remind them that going to see one of our Grade 6 tutors is a great and positive learning opportunity!

In Science, we continue to look at what makes structures strong and stable. Our unit on Patterns in Math continues as well.

Thank you so much to those families who have generously donated to our school’s food drive.

Finally, if you are planning or know that your child will be away before next Friday and/or will be absent from our Holiday Concert performance on Thursday, Dec. 19th, please send me a quick email to let me know.

Starting this week, your child will be learning about patterns: both repeating patterns and growing or shrinking patterns. The goal will be for your child to identify, describe, extend, and create patterns. For repeating patterns, the focus will be on naming attributes of patterns and how those attributes change. The focus for growing or shrinking patterns will be on the start number and the amount that is added or subtracted each time.

Throughout this time, you and your child may engage in activities such as the following:

• Your child can look around for repeating patterns and create a list of these. They can ask and answer questions about the patterns, such as “What attributes are changing in the pattern?” (for example, colour and size) and “How are those attributes changing?” (for example, colour: blue, purple, blue, purple, repeat; size: small, big, big, small, repeat) and “What is the part of the pattern that repeats (the pattern core)?”
• Your child can decorate items using repeating patterns. For example, they can create their own notepaper or cards by making a repeating pattern around the edge. They can use shapes, names, and colours for these patterns.

Your child can make and use a 100 chart at home to show growing or shrinking patterns. For example, they can start with an item that costs $4, then add eleven $3 items to the “bill.” (They can use the repeat function on a calculator, if possible, to find each new number.) After they mark the numbers on the 100 chart with counters or circles, they can describe the pattern they see and explain the pattern rule.

This week, our class, along with other classes at WEJ, has been writing HOLIDAY CARDS for SENIORS in our community! A few years ago, students at W.E.J. passed on over 300 cards to seniors in the Ottawa area. It is a great way to give back to our community and make someone feel special during the holidays. I am so happy that the students will be helping to brighten a senior’s holiday this year!

In Reading, we have been looking at the literary genre of the biography.  Students have had the opportunity to hear different biographies read to them (e.g. Terry Fox) as well as self-select their own biographies to read during independent reading time. The students have each chosen one biography to focus on. This week, they have started working on a biography poster project on their person of choice. Students will first fill in a planning sheet as they read their chosen biography and record the most important facts and events in their person’s life. After their planning sheet is complete, they may start on the good copy of their biography poster. The students are also expected to plan out what sort of articles of clothing their person would have worn during their era. Ultimately, students will come to school with a costume, dress like their chosen person of interest, and orally present the information on their poster to the rest of the class! Parents are encouraged to help their son or daughter out with their child’s costume. You do not need to go out and buy costumes. Instead, try to make due with what you have at home. The Dollar Store may be an option for those who want to go over the top with accessories or props. The more creative the better! Do a google image search at home with your child to help get a visual of their person. Students do not have to memorize their presentation, but the more confident and comfortable they are with the content, the better it will come across orally. We will work on the posters over the next two weeks. The posters will then be sent home after that so that the students can start practicing and preparing for their presentation. Presentations will take place on Dec. 17th and 18th (during the last week before the winter holidays). (Please let me know if you will be leaving on early holiday that week and we can arrange to have your child present on an alternate date.) 

Click below to see the Biography Poster Rubric, a blank copy of the poster, and two level 4 examples of finished good copies of the poster from a previous year… to give you an idea of what is expected of your child. Again, work on the poster will be completed in class.

Biography Poster Rubric

A picture of the good copy poster