News Week of March 18 - 22, 2024

                      WELCOME SPRING!

I hope everyone had a safe, restful, and fun March Break!

World Down Syndrome Day Thursday, March 21 - Rock Your Socks

We will honour the day by wearing our fun, mismatched socks. Each year on March 21st, we celebrate World Down Syndrome Day, to raise awareness. People with Down Syndrome have an extra chromosome (they have 3 copies of chromosome 21 - hence 21/3, 21st of March!). For more info: https://www.worlddownsyndromeday.org/

World Water Day Friday, March 22

Did you know that there is the same amount of water on Earth today as there was when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth? Unfortunately, there are now billions of people on the planet using that same amount of water. If we are not more careful, we will soon not have enough clean water to sustain all of life on Earth. This year's focus of World Water Day is on Water for Peace. 

To learn more, visit https://www.worldwaterday.org/

Earth Hour Saturday, March 23 - 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Join us on Saturday for Earth Hour in Canada. If everyone in Ottawa unplugs from electricity for just one hour, we could prevent 41. 6 tonnes of carbon emissions! https://www.earthhour.org/

Wacky Weather

Although Spring begins on Tuesday, the cold, wet weather (and, yes, even some winter weather!) is set to continue for a little longer. The warmer temperatures around the corner will mean that the schoolyard will become even wetter and muddier soon. Please help us keep our students, school, and classrooms dry and clean by reminding your child to wear appropriate outerwear such as splashpants, boots, and a warm jacket. Extra gloves or mittens, socks, and even a change of pants are highly recommended. Thank you for your support.

Our Learning

Grade 3 EQAO Homework:

Later this week, I will be sending home EQAO preparation "at-home" packages to help students prepare for the EQAO provincial assessment to be completed in May (dates will be shared when we have them). The "at-home EQAO preparation packages" will be sent home with your child, in paper format, at the end of each week and must be returned back to school on the following Friday. We encourage your child to complete a few questions per night to make it more manageable. We encourage you to review the concepts with your child. This is the perfect opportunity to improve your child's confidence in these areas. Do not worry if your child is not able to complete all the questions as we will be taking up and reviewing each question in class on Fridays when the packages are returned.

Most of your child's preparation is taking place at school but we have heard from students and parents that they would like help in feeling well-prepared. The ministry EQAO assessment is based on students' cumulative learning of the curriculum from all grades up to and including Grade 3. The "at-home" practice packages have been prepared by a team of Grade 3 teachers and are meant to be a link between home and school, and are designed to allow parents to see the sorts of concepts that may be assessed and the types of questions that have appeared on the EQAO assessments in the past. Please note that there have been many changes to the EQAO assessment over the last two years but teachers have to rely on previous years' assessments to use as practice for this year. Additionally, there is also a link on the ministry EQAO website to an online practice test and we have already begun exploring the Language practice test. We will also be doing the Math practice test in the next month. Thank you for your help and support in improving your child's confidence and feeling of readiness for the provincial test. The most important thing is that your child is not feeling anxious about the test. 

Language:

Our current UFLI phonics lesson is about the digraph ng, as in the words king, long, ring, rung, rang, sing, sang, song, sung, hang, thing, wing, bring, swing.

New heart words: or, for

Please have your child practise the heart words we have learned so far in class: the, I, a, said, to, do, of, see, he, be, me, from, you, what, have, look, book, are, was, your, want, go, no, so, goes, says, they, their, were, talk, walk, could, should, would, *or, *for.

Spelling Check-In:

On Friday, March 22, we will have our second heart word spelling check-in. Your child is expected to know how to spell the heart words learned in class so far. At home, please continue to help your child by practising reading and writing the heart words. Remember, the heart words are high-frequency words so it is essential that your child learns to read and write them 'by heart".

In Writing, we will continue to explore the elements of persuasive texts and practise writing a persuasive letter to convince or persuade others that our opinion of a topic is correct.

Reading Comprehension:

To develop reading comprehension in both Grade 2 and Grade 3, over the past few months, we have been working on strategies such as identifying the important ideas and supporting details in a text, making inferences by using stated and implied ideas as evidence, making connections to our own ideas and experiences, visualizing, asking questions, and using text features to find information in a text. 

The Grade 3 students will bring home a reading comprehension assignment, titled "Snowshoe Adventure", in their yellow Assessment Folder. Please take some time to have your child show it to you, then sign the work and return it as soon as possible as we will refer to it when trying to improve on further tasks. Before completing this task, we reviewed the criteria for answering comprehension questions. We are using APE to help us:

The Grade 3s also looked at scoring exemplars created by the Ministry of Education (based on past EQAO task). These criteria were used when your child's work was marked and feedback was provided. Please note that their "scoring guide" uses the levels  10, 20, 30, and 40. A level 10 corresponds to a level 1, which is equivalent to a "D". A level 20 corresponds to a level 2, which is equivalent to a "C". A level 30 corresponds to a level 3, which is equivalent to a "B" (which is the ministry standard). A level 40 corresponds to a level 4, which is equivalent to an "A". Click here to see the exemplars.  

Math:

In Grade 3, we will continue to explore how to measure the area of 2-dimensional shapes using non-standard units and standard units, such as square centimetres. 

Link to Grade 3 parent summary letter area using non-standard units 

Link to Grade 3 parent summary letter measuring area using square centimetres

In Grade 2, we will continue our 2-digit addition and subtraction unit. This week, we will focus on adding large numbers using base ten materials and place-value concepts. 

Link to Grade 2 parent summary letter adding 2-digit numbers using base-ten blocks

Religion:

We will continue to discuss the meaning of Lent as a time to ask for forgiveness, with a focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We will also learn about the Parable of the Lost Sheep. 

Important Dates:

Thursday, March 21: Rock Your Socks for Down Syndrome Awareness Day!

Friday, March 22: World Water Day - how can we protect our groundwater sources?

Saturday, March 23: Earth Hour at 8:30 p.m.