I will be teaching Mathematics, Language (Reading, Writing, Oral Communication, Media Literacy), Social Studies, Health and Physical Education. Mrs. Casselman will be teaching Science and The Arts (Drama, Dance, Music, Visual Arts). Mme Dunlop will be teaching French.
Since we have a split grade 3 and 4 class, some of the curriculum overlaps and some of it doesn't. When it overlaps, we will all learn together and when it doesn't, I will teach the grades separately.
I know the following subject descriptions are vague; but when we start a new unit, I will provide more details in the daily posts (i.e. topic and learning goals).
Mathematics:
We will be using Nelson Mathematics and Mathletics to learn. Typically, we use Mathletics (a web-based program) once a week to help reinforce concepts, not to teach new ones.
Reading:
We will begin by establishing a reading community by discussing and picking 'good fit' books from the school and classroom libraries, brainstorming what good readers do, reading together, by ourselves and reading to classmates. Our first read aloud novel of the school year will be Wonder by R.J. Palacio. We will use this novel and other resources to develop our reading comprehension strategies. Some of the reading strategies we will focus on are: activating prior knowledge, making connections, examining point of view, retelling, summarizing, questioning, visualizing and predicting. We will also be using stories, informational articles and graphic texts from Nelson Literacy to help develop our reading skills.
Writing:
We will start the school year by establishing a writing community. We will explore the steps of the writing process and what good writers do. Before starting recount writing in October, students will write an autobiography! The other writing forms we will learn about this school year are: narrative writing, persuasive writing and explanation writing. While learning these forms of writing, we will also develop the following writing traits: ideas, conventions, sentence fluency, voice and organization. We will use the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing) to help develop our writing into longer and more refined writing pieces.
Word Study:
We will be using a variety of resources to learn about parts of speech, punctuation, spelling and grammar. We will also enhance our vocabulary when learning in all subject areas. These activities will help students become better decoders and spellers.
Oral Communication:
Our focus will be on listening. Listening to teachers, to classmates while working as a whole class, working in groups and with partners. We will also use our speaking skills to communicate our ideas, thoughts, connects and personal experiences.
Media Literacy:
Media Literacy is difficult to define, but it's pretty much information that isn't just text. Good examples of media texts are magazine articles that include pictures, public service announcements, pamphlets, posters, advertisements, photographs or interviews. We will look at different media texts and decide who they are created for and what they're trying to communicate. We will also create our own media texts with a topic, audience and purpose in mind.
Social Studies:
In term 1, we will focus on the Geography side of Social Studies. We will learn about Living and Working in Ontario and then Political and Physical Regions of Canada. In term 2, we will focus on the History side of Social Studies. We will start with Communities in Canada, 1780-1850 and then Early Societies, 3000 BCE-1500 CE.
Health & Physical Education:
For Physical Education, the main goal is to get moving! But in order to "get moving," we will need to practice sportsmanship, playing by the rules and safety. Games and activities that we will play may include soccer, soccer baseball, stretching, dodgeball, field games, basketball and cooperative games. It's great to be a good athlete, however, student achievement is primarily based on sportsmanship, playing by the rules and safety. As for health, we will learn about healthy eating, substance use/abuse and human development.
Technology:
I tend to use a lot of technology to help my students learn. We'll be using iPads, Google Apps for Education, Typing Web, Mathletics, etc.
