The Sakura Medal Challenge

Posted on April 26, 2018 by rbanyard

During Sakura Medal season, the ES students have the amazing opportunity to read an interesting selection of books and vote for their favourite in the collection. When students start Grade 3 they move from the picture books category into the Grade 3-5 chapter book category.

In 3B some of the students set a challenge for themselves to read as many of the Sakura Medal books as possible. They worked hard to select books that were a good fit, and then read their books carefully to make sure they understood everything.

Three students focused on the challenge and made a plan so that they could reach their reading targets. As a result, they received a special invitation to the Sakura Medal voting party in the library. Woo hoo!!!

For further information about the event, please check out the Saint Maur library blog: http://blogs.stmaur.ac.jp/library/

3B Celebrates Books!

Posted on April 23, 2018 by rbanyard

This month the Elementary students have been celebrating their love for reading. All April the students have been submitting their individual and class photos for the Extreme Reading Challenge!

Check out our awesome submissions!

At the end of the Extreme Reading Challenge on April 23rd, we celebrated World Book Day by coming to school dressed as book characters. In 3B we had a wide variety of characters including characters from the Amulet series, the Cookie Monster, Harry Potter, The Big Bad Wolf, Mal from Descendants, and many more.

SWI: Investigating the <-ed> suffix.

Posted on April 5, 2018 by rbanyard

Grade 3 have done it again! Our amazing Word Detectives took a word inquiry case, sniffed out the clues, developed hypotheses and drew conclusions.

As we were reading from a class book some of the students noticed something interested about words that had the <-ed> suffix. They were not always pronounced the same way! This discovery led the students to create their investigation question:

When asked how they would begin their investigation, the students discussed their options and decided that the first step should be data collection. They determined the best way to study the <-ed> suffix would be to collect as many words as they knew with <-ed>.

They pooled their knowledge to create an extensive vocabulary list. Afterwards, they shared their words with their partners while paying close attentions to the phonemes (sounds) connected to each of their <-ed> words.

After writing and saying all of their words, the the Grade 3 Investigators created a hypothesis and presented many examples to back up their claim.

Growing a poetry garden

Posted on April 5, 2018 by rbanyard

The students in 3B have become gardeners…of poetry!

First, they planted their seed ideas and made planners to help them organise their ideas and to develop powerful words to put into their poems.

Next, they used the writing process to draft their poems. As Wonderful Word Wizards, they added alliteration, rhyme, and strong adjectives to their writing. They considered whether their written words would take a shape, or be given a supporting illustration.