Semester 2 Week 14

Five weeks to go until you all Graduate from Grade 3 and go on Summer Vacation. Unfortunately, that also means only 4 weeks until finals but we still have a bit of work to do before all that.

Firstly, a great big well-done to all of you on getting through this tough IOWA testing week. It was a hard week with 2 hours of tests each day and then still having class for the rest of the day. I am proud of you all!

Although it was a hard week there were some fun and exciting times!

There is an English rhyme which goes, "Nobody loves me everybody hates me, I think I will go and eat worms". I had the opportunity this week to try and eat worms for the first time. Wesley had brought back some deep fried bamboo worms from Thailand and he shared one with me. I can't say that I will ever say "I really feel like worms for dinner tonight" but they weren't bad .. crunchy and a bit fishy.

In CSS I was able to watch some performances they were doing based on a traditional Chinese story.

On Tuesday in Science we looked at electricity. Each group had a mini lightbulb, a battery, and a battery holder with wires. We learned how to connect it all together to make the lightbulb light up.

On Wednesday in CC I was very impressed with all your skills using traditional Chinese toys particularly in using the Chinese yo-yo. Excellent work by Mr. William for teaching you all!

Also on Wednesday the 12 A English class joined us in discussing the first 3 chapters of our book "Sarah, Plain and Tall". 3B behaved really well and it was good to hear you all trying to answer the questions and participate in the group discussions. 12 A did a great job in preparing to be group leaders and we wish them all the best as they graduate IBSH this week. We hope they can come back and visit us sometime.

On Thursday we had an assembly line competition. First, 5 students each made their own peanut butter sandwich .... they completed their task in 9 mins 38 secs. Next, we had 3 groups of 5 students who each made 5 peanut butter sandwiches in an assembly line. Two groups proved that assembly lines definitely work faster but one group took longer. The fasted team completed their job in 6 minutes and 1 second. We spoke about how people need the right skills for the right job in an assembly line. It was a fun activity and I think everyone enjoyed eating what they had produced in the end.

On Thursday I handed out the May issue of the NEHS newsletter and it was exciting to see 3B featured. One of the teachers had notices our Kabuka summaries and pictures on our bulletin board a few months ago and submitted it to the newsletter. It was great to see all your wonderful work in print. (Sorry to Alica for not checking the spelling of her name and to Justin and Jason who's pictures and names were mixed up).

On Thursday we completed Chapter 11 Math, Unit F, Chapter 1 Science, and Lesson 27 English. On Friday we did a Science review worksheet and on Monday there will be a test on the Math and English.

This week has been the Elementary Department reading challenge. Our goal was to read 30,000 pages this week. This goal was reached on Wednesday and so we set a new goal of an extra 15,000 pages ... we reached this goal and by the end of Friday afternoon had read a total of 56,676 pages. Great reading everyone!

We finished off the week on Friday by talking about our end of year performance .. which is to be a surprise for the parents and so we are not going to tell you what it is all about just yet.

Well done everyone who received Homework Machine prizes and certificates. Have fun with your balloons!

I hope you all have a good weekend and can recover from this grueling time.

So many people haven't been well and I hope you will all feel better this weekend.

Take care

See you on Monday

Mrs DB

Sem 2 Week 12 and 13

Many things have happened over the past two weeks. Last weekend my hike up Jade Mountain took more energy than I expected and so I was unable to publish last week's blog.

So firstly, here is last week's (week 12) blog:

Happy Birthday Jason .. hope you have a great Birthday. And another Happy Birthday to Yao who was sick on his Birthday a few weeks ago.

Things we have learned this week:

English

Story: Charlotte's Web
Phonics: -tion and -sion as suffixes and as part of a word
Grammar: irregular verbs

Math
We are continuing Chapter 11: Fractions and Decimals. We learned about improper fractions and mixed numbers, and started looking at decimals.


Western Social Studies
We are continuing with Unit 6 which is basically all about Economics.
We finished discussing Henry Ford and Assembly Lines and then began work on a personal glossary with words from this lesson.


Science
We have begun Unit F which looks at Force, Motion, and Energy.
We started by doing an activity to see how energy can be stored in a rubber band and then released.


We learned how all Energy comes from the sun in the form of heat and light energy. Plants use light to make food and all other living organisms eat plants and indirectly also use this energy from the sun.

Wind, water, fossil fuels, and trees can provide energy and energy can be stored in batteries.

Art
Mr. Pousen is guiding the students to make a story board diorama. I am looking forward to seeing the finished products.

Flag Ceremony
The next flag ceremony will be in June.


Field trip

I am really sad that I wasnt able to join you all on this fun day. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves.

Now on to this week (week 13):

Math
We covered lessons 13 to 16 which covered hundredths, decimals greater than 1, comparing and ordering fractions and decimals (this was a difficult lessons which most students managed to complete well), and adding and subtracting decimals.

Next week we will complete Chapter 11 by doing lesson 17 and 18 - Decimals, Fractions, and Money and Problem solving using money. We will also review Chapter 11 and have the test on Friday 28th or Monday 31st.


Western Social Studies
We started looking at Inventors and Inventions. This is an important aspect in our study of Economics because before a product can be made, there needs to be the idea of a product to be made.

Louis Daguerre invested the first form of camera for photography.

Cyrus McCormick invented a reaper to help farmers harvest their crops quicker.

Granville T Woods had 35 patients including telegraph for the railroad and an air brake for trains.

Next week we will look at Jeanie Low and Hans Crhistiansen Lee.


Science

We looked at waves of energy - light energy goes up and down (this we investigated by moving a jump rope up and down) and sound energy goes back and forth (this we investigated by moving a slinky). We also briefly looked at electricity.

Next week we looked at how energy can be changed and we will investigate by using batteries, bulbs, and electrical wire.

English

We finished Lesson 26 - Charlotte's web and did some extra practice on irregular verbs which can be difficult to remember.

We started Lesson 27 - Spider's webs and looked at adverbs. We will complete this lesson next week. Lesson 27 test will be on Monday 31st June.

IOWA tests
IOWA tests take place from Tuesday 25th to Friday 28th May during the first two periods each day. The first test will start at 7:50am and no-one will be allowed to enter the classroom late. Please be on time since you may not make up tests that you miss.

That's all the news for this week.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Mrs DB


3B you are all doing so well. Keep up the good work.

Mrs DB

Semester 2 Week 11

Another week has gone by and many new things have been learned.

Things we have learned this week:

English

Story: Robodogs

Review of Theme 5: There will be a theme 5 test next Thursday

The test will cover the following-

- Phonics "oo" in book, "oo" in school, Schwa: Some words have an "uh" or "uh'r" sound instead of the regular vowel sound. e.g. in the word "reason" the "o" is pronounced "uh", vowel variant "aw" sound which can be spelled "au, augh, al, ough".
Prefixes: pre-, mis-, and in-
Homophones: e.g. whole and hole sound the same but have different spellings and meanings.

- Comprehension including - Cause and Effect: The Effect answers the question "what happened?" and the Cause answers the question "why it happened?"
Sequence: remember to watch out for time order words e.g. next, then, after that.

Grammar including - the verb Be, helping verbs, present, past, and future tense verbs: Usually we had "will" before future tense verbs e.g. will read. Often "ed" is added to the end of a past tense verb e.g. assigned.


Math
We are continuing Chapter 11: Fractions and Decimals. We learned how to compare and order fractions and how to write mixed numbers and improper fractions.


Western Social Studies

We have started Unit 6 which is basically all about Economics.
We started with the definition for Economics, which is "the making, buying, and selling of goods and services". We spent this week looking at goods and services and the students brought in some great pictures - of goods (products)
and services

We also started looking at the making of a product. We read about the model T Ford and Henry Ford.


Science
We spend this week reviewing Unit E and had the test on Friday.

We ended our week by doing a few fun experiements.

First, we looked at the chemical reaction of adding baking soda to vinegar. The resulting gas was enough to partially blow up a balloon.

Second, we watched milk curdle as we added vinegar to it. The milk separated into curds and wey.

Finally, we created a solution in a fun way. We poured milk into a plate. Then added a couple of drops of food color, and finally added one drop of liquid soap. The result was a beautiful mixing of color.

Next week we begin the final unit in our science book which looks at Force, Motion, and Energy.


Homework Machines
This is the first week that the entire class received certificates.
Well done to you all .. congratulations you are incredible homework machines.Reading Log
Well done to everyone for reading so well.

Flag Ceremony
Next week we will have flag ceremony. Please remember to wear your class shirt on Wednesday.

CSS
On Friday the CSS teacher taught the class how to greet others in a traditional Chinese manner. They all had fun greeting each other and playing a fun game to practice greeting others of different ages.

3B you are all doing so well. Keep up the good work See you on Monday

Mrs DB