News for Week of April 9 - 12, 2024

On Monday, April 8, we will experience a near total solar eclipse in Ottawa. The eclipse will begin at 2:11 p.m. and will reach its peak at 3:25 p.m. The event will end by 4:35 p.m. We are all super excited! Ask your child to tell you what we've learned about solar eclipses, including the paper model we made on Friday. 

Help Please

We need your help! We are working on a collective Welcoming Multilingual mural. We are seeking parent volunteers to come and help us paint Welcome in as many languages as we have at St. Gabriel School. Thank you to those of you who have already volunteered to help us. If you are interested in getting involved, please fill out this form:

Welcome Mural Form

Our Learning 

Language:

In Writing, we are finishing up our first persuasive letter. We will soon begin to work on retelling fictional narrative stories using the Shape Go! Map as an organizer. We will then use what we have learned about the elements of narratives to write our own narrative stories.  

Our next UFLI phonics lessons will focus on long vowel sounds. Our next lesson will be about the long i vowel sound as in ice cream. The long vowel sound is the same as the vowel's name, I. 

The vowel i says its own name, I, when there is a silent E at the end of a word, like in the words bike and side. The silent E makes vowels say their names, or long vowel sounds. 

*Usually, when there is a silent E at the end of a word it will tell us to say the long vowel sound like in the words five, ride, and kite. The E does not make a sound so we say it is "silent" ("silent E" or "bossy E"). 

New heart words: by, my

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, who, *by, *my.

Math:

In our Grade 3 time unit, we will use analog and digital clocks to tell the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. Please review how to read and write the time to the hour (e.g., 2:00), half hour (e.g., 8:30), quarter hours (e.g., 3:15, 3:45), as well as to the 5 minutes (e.g., 6:05, 6:10, 6:25, etc.). This unit is a short one and should be completed this week.

Link to Grade 3 Parent Summary Letter About Time here

In Grade 2, we will continue to learn how to use non-standard units and standard units of time, including seconds, minutes, hours, to describe the duration of various events.

Link to Grade 2 Parent Summary Letter About Measuring Time Using Non-Standard Units here

Link to Grade 2 Parent Summary Letter About Measuring Time in Seconds and Minutes here

Science:

The Grade 2 students will continue to explore the properties of solids and liquids, because, matter matters!

The Grade 3 students will learn more about magnetism in our forces unit. 

Grade 2 Homework:

The Grade 2 students will bring home their long a vowel sound phonics homework as a follow-up to last week's phonics lessons.

Grade 3 EQAO Homework:

The Grade 3 students will bring home their EQAO At-Home Practice Booklet #3 at the end of this week. It will be due back to school on Friday, April 19th. Please ensure your child brings their booklet back for our discussion and review even if they have not finished all of the questions. It is much easier for them if they have a copy in front of them to follow along with.

Looking Ahead:

April is World Autism Awareness Month

April is Earth Month

Monday April 8th - PD Day & solar eclipse

Thursday, April 11: Library books due