An update on what went on in
April in Grade 2/3A- Rm. #12
Our Learning Skills Work: Communication during Teamwork
I started April off by sharing a story about a boy named Hiep who was a street child
working in Hanoi, Vietnam. The idea was to show students how their thinking can be
transformed by reading stories and debating. This boy, who chose to work on the
streets, was then forced by a new governmental law to return to his family. We used
this very interesting story, to practise how we communicate with people, when we do
not always agree. Below are some photos from our circle sharing and from the strategy I
use frequently in the class, 4 corners. The government was right to make a law banning
children from working on the street. Do you:
 Agree
 Strongly agree
 Disagree
 Strongly disagree
This activity connects nicely with the importance of backing up any point with evidence!
Character Education: “Take a walk in someone else’s shoes.”
On April 8th, the TDSB recognized Pink Day. We used this day in Room #12, to talk about
gender stereotypes. The children were so enthusiastic and had a lot of angst and
excitement about how toys and clothes are marketed to boys and girls differently. We
decided to create a pair of shoes that both a boy and girl could wear. Check out their
work and their reactions to certain stereotypes:
Math: Fractions & Probability:
We finished our work on division and moved into fractions and probability. Fractions
can be a tricky concept to understand, so I approached it using some of these big ideas:
 A fraction is a part of a whole
 A fraction has a numerator and a denominator
 You have to know what the whole is to say the fraction
 A fraction can be represented in many different ways
 Fractions with numerators greater than their denominators are greater than 1
Just this week, we started Probability. This is a great unit for students to think about the
‘chance of an event occurring’ and to make connections to our fraction unit. The
students will need to know the language of probability, which is where we started, ask
your child about the words:
 Likely
 Unlikely
 Equally likely
 Certain
 Impossible
We started off our unit by tackling a probability problem: How many times are
you likely to roll a number less than 3, when you roll a number cube 20 times?
The students completed a pre-assessment and after some lessons, they will
show their new understanding in a post-assessment.
Reading: Some of the great books we read this month:
 Hiep
 The Great Kapok Tree
 Living Sunlight
 Mirror
 Don’t Laugh at Me
This month we started to learn more about perspective and the reading power of
transforming. I shared a story about a boy in Vietnam named Hiep and used a graphic
organizer to have students write about how their thinking changes during a story. Our
learning goal in reading this month was connected to our science work: To think about
the environment from different perspectives. I read the class the text The Great Kapok
Tree and using a graphic organizer, they had to see the reasons behind each
perspective.
As well, the Grade 3’s have been given the opportunity to practise Reading EQAO
questions. They have read a narrative, non-fiction, and poetry piece and learned how to
respond to questions using Level 4 Success Criteria.
Writing:
Our Ology writing continues. The students wrote a descriptive paragraph
describing one small moment of their ology topic. Their first drafts were okay, so I used
this opportunity to remind them of our Writing Goal: It is a great start, but we can make
it better! After a few mini-lessons and descriptive feedback, the students rewrote their
paragraphs more successfully.
Writing with a purpose and writing that is authentic for students:
We then moved on to Letter Writing. In one of our mini-lessons, I highlighted that
letters can still have voice and be funny, so together the class wrote a letter to Starbucks
that I wanted to share with you:
Dear Starbucks…
We have a brilliant idea that we think will make you millions! Drum roll please…..
We have a new recipe for a potato and carrot muffin. Our class, Room #12, is full of
creative geniuses!
The muffins are full of delicious and healthy CARROTS! Parents would go crazy
knowing their children are eating healthy food. But secretly, you will add in lots of
perfect potatoes, freshly churned butter and wonderful sweet sugar! These muffins will
melt in your mouth, faster than ice cream on a hot day!
We would like you to buy our recipe. It is for sale for $500,000. But it now before
the price goes up or we sell it to Tim Horton’s!
Sincerely,
Creative Geniuses
Room #12
Here are some of the real people the class wrote letters to:
 The CEO of Vale mining
 CEO of BHP Billiton
 CEO of Pet smart
 Tony Abbott, PM of Australia
 Government of Ontario
 Monarch Home Builders
 Head Coach of the Boston Patriot’s Bill Bellichick
Check out this very creative letter that a student wrote to the world’s largest Mining
Company:
Science:
We started the month by designing, building, and then testing a contraption that would filter out
dirty water. I asked the class, why are we doing this and here were some of their interesting ideas:
 Because some countries do not have safe water. We can make the water safer. –Sammy
 To find out how the water of the world gets cleaned- Asher
 To save the people of the world and to stop water pollution- Julien
 If I were stranded on an island, I would need to clean my water- Dean
 To learn about what type of materials are good- Rowan
 To learn how to it when we are grown-ups- Erin
 To see how water can be filtered in easier ways so people in poorer countries can filter
water- Izzy
 To find out if we can build a contraption that can clean water- Katherine
 We are doing this experiment to make a solution for pollution- William
 To clean water because some places do not have water treatment plants- Charlotte
 To clean water and to make the world a safer place-Graydon
 To express ourselves and to help water get clean- Sandra


Lots of water is polluted. Some countries have unsafe drinking water- Thomas
 So we can take pollution out of water- Nick
 To let us see how water changes- Ray
To help find ways to clean water sources. Also to release our creativity to solutions! –
Kirsten
Our mini food inquiry:
The author Gail Gibbon’s wrote the book The Vegetables We Eat. This was a great
introduction to the big idea of humans being dependent on plants for food. Your
children can talk a lot about vegetables!!! So many important ideas came up; here are a
few great ones:
 Vegetables are hard to grow and it costs a lot of money to transport them
around the world.
 People do back breaking work to allow us to have food on the table.
 Food comes from far places.
 We should protect our fertile farmland because we can’t live without vegetables.
From here, students have been bringing in stickers and containers from fruits and
vegetables, as we map out the places around the world where our food comes from.
How does pollution affect an ecosystem?
We spent time as a class going back to our original question for our unit. We decided to
spend time on the word pollution. What does it mean? What does it look like? The class
then created a mini-mural showing the different forms that pollution takes. We will use
these murals, to think about the type of pollution we want to research more about.
Social Studies:
The class spent time on a fictional country called Greenston. After exploring real maps in
the Atlas, the students began to look closely at where cities, ports, bridges, borders,
steel mills, etc. are located in a country. Each student was given a map of Greenston
and had to label parts of the country in places that they felt made the most sense. I also
used this activity to have students practise justifying their answer, which is an important
skill they will use throughout the grades. Here are some of their responses:

Mines should be close to factories so the materials can get there faster


Ports need to go near the most open part of water for faster transportation
 Cities need to be close to water
 Cities need access to farmland
 Ports need to be near cities to help transport goods.
 Steel mills should be far from cities because of the pollution they cause
Cities should be close together for more resources and so they can communicate
more
 Bridges need to be built for faster transportation
 Factories should not be put in places they can pollute
 Electricity plants should be near water
Next, I read the class a great book called Mirror. This book allows children to think about
how people around the world meet their needs. The Grade 2’s used this text to create a
class publication showing what actions humans take to meet their needs and create
their wants. I asked the Grade 2’s this question:
What verbs come to mind when you think of what humans do to meet their needs?
Share
Mine/Dig
Create/Make
Trade
Discover/Find
Farm
Work
Explore
Invent
Change/retrofit/recreate
Destroy
Shop/Buy
Grade 3’s: The students were divided into 4 different groups to read, explore and
question 4 different types of communities in Ontario.
Toronto, Ontario
Uxbridge, Ontario
Oshawa, Ontario
Sudbury, Ontario
Learning Goal: To research a community in Ontario and learn about its natural resources
and economy, its population and how it uses its land.
Enduring understanding: Both grades will read information, pull out important facts and
then use the fact/react strategy to arrive at questions and new thoughts. They will think
of possible impacts human activities have on the environment. These new thoughts will
encourage them to think of possible solutions.