What we are learning about in January 2013!

We have been back together for one week and what a busy week!  This month we are learning some new topics during Math, Health and Career, Science and Language Arts periods.  Please read the list below and talk to your child about what they are learning at school.  Ask them questions, or research questions together at home to fuel their enthusiasm! 

1. In Math we are learning about data collection and graphing.  Students are learning to read different types of graphs.  Students are also creating their own graphs by asking their classmates survey questions.

graph 2. In Health and Career we are using the Canadian Food Guide to learn about healthy eating including the four food groups and how to make a balanced meal.

canada_food_guide_2

3. In Science we are learning about Matter.  There are three main states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.  We are doing experiments to find out how these states interact together (or don’t).  Student are hypothesizing what the outcome of each experiment will be and are asked to explain their thinking.

matter_3states

 

4. In Language Arts our resource teacher and I have been focusing on reading with the students one-on-one to reassess their current reading level.  We have been very pleased with the improvement all the students have made in their reading.  We are moving students into different reading levels as their reading improves.  It is very important to continue to read with your child every night.  It is especially important to ask your child questions about what they are reading.  Ms. Loevenmark and I are finding that our students’ fluency and word strategies have improved but often the students do not understand what they have read.  In a nutshell, they can read all the words but they don’t understand what they are reading.  We are therefore, not able to move all students up a reading level until their comprehension of their reading is stronger.  Please help your child to practice thinking about what they are reading not just their reading fluency and word attack skills. 

reading_comprehension

Thank you for your support!

Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating

In Health and Career we are learning about healthy eating.  Using Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating we have learned about balanced meals that include food from the four food groups- Fruit and Vegetables, Meat and Alternatives, Milk and Alternatives, and Grain Products.  Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating also recommends eating a small amount of Fats and Oils and drinking lots of water.

Our healthy eating rainbows show examples of healthy foods from all the food groups.