Friday, May 1st, 2026

Upcoming Dates

May 6                                       Grade 3 and 4 Students visit McKenzie Highlands

May 7                                       Grade 3 Field Trip to Calgary Philharmonic

May 12                                     Class Photo Day

May 14                                     Kindergarten Open House for 2026/27 Students - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

May 15                                     Non-Instructional Day - NO SCHOOL

May 18                                     Victoria Day - NO SCHOOL

May 19-21                                Grade 3 and 4 Swimming Lessons at YMCA Seton

May 26-28                                Grade 3 and 4 Swimming lessons at YMCA Seton

May 27                                     Fun Lunch - Subway

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***The recommended areas to focus on with your child at home have been moved to the bottom of the page. 

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******We will be going on a community walk on Monday afternoon, with Mrs. Coleman's class. 

Literacy:

- We finished reading the Wild Robot, and completed all of the tasks in our novel study journals. These tasks allowed us to identify definitions of the words used in different contexts, and identify synonyms and antonyms of the new vocabulary words.  

- For the past couple of weeks, we focused on writing stories based on the typical writing structure of beginning, middle, and end. This week, we learned about a different type of story writing, called circle stories. This type of story writing follows 8 specific steps, and the main character ends up in the same place as they started (but they have returned changed in some way). We looked at examples of this type of story (we read some books and also analyzed the plot of Finding Nemo), then we planned our own stories over a few days, and some students have begun expanding their ideas and writing their story. 

- We have been practicing our comprehension and vocabulary skills through word ladders this week. 

Math:

- We have continued with our geometry unit by learning about different polygons, and practicing their transformations through translation, rotation, and reflection. We practiced these skills through various drawing activities, and did some partner work as well. 

Science/Social:

- We continued our Living Systems unit by learning about the different types of diets animals can have (carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore) and learned about how energy is transferred from one living thing to the next through the food chain. We practiced our understanding of these concepts through various games, some of which we played with Mrs. Coleman's class! They got to teach them the Predator vs. Prey game from the Smithsonian's website, and they played a food chain game that has them create food chains from various ecosystems. 

- For Social, we have been learning about the different levels of government, and what they are responsible for. As an end of unit project, Mrs. Coleman and I have created a task where the school is the federal government, each grade is its own province (grade 3 is Alberta and us teacher are the provincial government), and students have been paired up into groups of 2-3 to be community builders within a city (they are not the leaders of the municipal government, but they do have to abide by the rules set out by the city they have chosen to build in). In their groups, they have talked about what makes a community great to live in, and they have been given a budget and a list of items that are a certain cost. Their job is to design a community following the budget and guidelines given to them, and create a map as well as a 3D model of their community. We have looked at real community maps, and talked about how their budgets and designs will change when the "provincial government" asks them to add hospitals/high schools/etc. into their community. We will be going on a community walk on Monday to observe different elements of a community, as well as collect objects from nature for their 3D models.  

- We have continued working on our family crests, which has been a combination of Art and Social!

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Recommended areas to focus on at home to help your child:

- Reading every night:

• focusing on fluency (can they read without stopping to sound out each word),  
• expression (changing their tone of voice to match the punctuation and dialogue of characters), and 
• comprehension (ask your child questions about the story while they read or after they finish). 
• Have them answer inferencing questions that make them think about how the character feels or how their actions impact others to help them expand their understanding. 

- Math

• addition and subtraction, both with and without regrouping (this could be practiced using worksheets or card games like addition or subtraction war)
• skip counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 25s (a great activity to practice this is by counting coins)
• Reading time on an analog clock. 
• Place Value: expanded form, written form, standard form, and block form 
• 3 digit Addition and Subtraction with regrouping 
• 10 more, 10 less, 100 more, 100 less: Write down a set of numbers and have your child calculate what the number would be if you were to have 10 more, 10 less, 100 more, or 100 less. 
• Skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, and 25s
• Counting money (especially coins) is a great way to practice skip counting. 
• Adding and Subtracting decimals
• using money to pay for items, whether in a store or pretending at home is a great way for kids to practice adding and subtracting decimals in a hands on, practical way. 
• Multiplication and Division facts 

- Writing:

• spelling (you could also practice this skill playing games like 'Horse' using a basketball, net, and choosing different words to spell). 
• printing mechanics (are the letters legible, is their a clear size difference with capital and lowercase letters, are their spaces between the words)
• punctuation and capitalization 
• Using nouns, adjectives, and verbs within their writing
• Opinion writing: have your child tell you their opinions on things either in verbal or written form, but have them give at least 3 reasons why they have that opinion, and have them further explain each reason as well. 
• Persuasive writing: have your child write about something they want, and ask them to give at least three reasons why they should get it, and have them add lots of detail to their writing. 
• Writing letters, focusing on formatting and expanding ideas.