Posts in category Collaboration

Welcome to our Grade 3 Class!

Sep12
2012 3 Comments

Written by lcameron

Hello! Welcome to the start of another exciting school year at Forest Green! We are Mrs. Lesley Cameron (left in above photo) and Ms. Sheena Hobbins (right) and we’re so pleased to be team-teaching a great group of Grade 3′s this year!

We are excited to be working together and modeling for our students what collaboration truly looks like, as we will team-teach most subjects. While we have some other tidbits in our assignments, we will be together most of the time in the classroom. Our hope is that this will prove to be a very exciting and fun year, fueled by a love and passion for learning!

A quote that I enjoy and believe it aligns so closely with our goals as a division is “A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.” – Author Unknown

As we embark on this new year, we will continue to work hard and move forward, as “PSD will be guided by a vision that captures the importance of exploration, creativity and imagination for all learners in the Division. The future-focused mission speaks to the importance of preparing, engaging, and inspiring our students to be their best in a quickly changing global community.” (Parkland School Division website)

This is going to be a great year with our amazing grade 3 students and the great family we have at Forest Green School!

Thank you for visiting our classroom blog and we hope to use this as a strong communication tool with our parents and school community. Please feel free to leave a comment on any blog post and we will do our very best to reply!

~Mrs. Cameron

Posted in Classroom Information

Our Visit to Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta

Jun18
2012 2 Comments

Written by lcameron

With the support of Barb and Eric Livingstone and our local McDonald’s restaurant, the Grade 3′s at Forest Green School had the incredible opportunity to visit Ronald McDonald House Northern Alberta on Friday, June 15th. Ronald McDonald House provides a comfortable, warm, and welcoming home away from home for families when they have a sick child who is receiving treatments and are hospitalized in Edmonton hospitals. The House allows sick kids to have exactly what they need… their families.

In Grade 3 Social Studies, students learn about being good global citizens and helping others in any way we can. All year, the Grade 3′s have been demonstrating leadership through their Kids Helping Kids Program. Students, staff, families, and community members collected metal pull tabs in support of Ronald McDonald House. Maple Leaf Metals melts down the tabs and all of the proceeds from the metal goes directly to the House. It was absolutely astonishing how many pull tabs were collected over the past 8 months!

Our morning field trip began at 8:50 am, where we all hopped on a bus and headed to the House in Edmonton. Ronald McDonald was awaiting our arrival, where we weighed the pull tabs. Forest Green School collected an unbelievable 71.2 kg (156.4 lbs) of pull tabs!!! That’s A LOT of pull tabs I am SO proud of our school!

From there, we enjoyed a magic show from Ronald McDonald along with some families of the House! It was a lot of fun! Then, all students went on a tour and spent time baking and making a craft for the families of the House.

It was a very touching, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Many interacted with siblings of families currently living at the House. It was great to have conversations with staff members of the House, as well as a nice visit with a thankful Mom. Coming from Saskatchewan, RMHNA is their current home and she expressed to me how much both her and her son enjoyed the visit and thanked us for a fun morning. Some of the stories are very positive and encouraging, while others bring sadness and heartache.

I am so proud to be supporting an amazing facility in our city and look forward to the leadership of next year’s Grade 3′s in our Kids Helping Kids Program. Many thanks to Jen, Martin, Alan, Kyle, Kaitlyn, and all of the wonderful staff at the House for welcoming us into the House and accommodating our activities.

Check out the video below for some pictures of our morning:

We feel so fortunate to have had this experience! Grade 3′s, what was your favourite part of the morning at Ronald McDonald House? Why is this such an important cause that we are helping through our Kids Helping Kids Program?

~Mrs. Cameron

Posted in Connections, Social Studies

Grade 3 Musicians!

May02
2012 21 Comments

Written by lcameron

In our Hearing and Sound unit, students completed a home project with a parent where they needed to construct a musical instrument. The criteria were:

- My instrument is securely put together.
- I can make 2 or more different sounds with my instrument.
- I used materials found from home.
- I can demonstrate how my instrument works and show understanding of pitch.
- I completed my reflection with detail.

Check out our instruments below:

Making Musical Instruments! on PhotoPeach

I was very impressed with the instruments that were created and presented to our class! We had everything from guitars to panpipes to drums to maracas! Great job, Grade 3′s. What was the most difficult thing about constructing your instrument? Was anything really easy?

I’m very proud of you!
~Mrs. Cameron

Posted in Science

Story Sharing

Apr04
2012 Leave a Comment

Written by lcameron

Once again, we are diving into the exciting world of narrative writing in Language Arts. Today, I had the students work in small groups of three to create one story. Hmm, this could be quite the challenge with many different ideas, but only one story. The students had the following criteria for the activity:

- Each member contributes to the story
- Each member can only write 3 words at a time
- The person writing decides if the sentence is complete
- The person writing is responsible to add in required punctuation and capital letters

It worked out great!! Students were engaged and excited to participate equally with group members. Good job, Grade 3′s!

Grade 3′s, did you enjoy this writing activity? Why or why not? Was there anything you found challenging about it?

~Mrs. Cameron

Posted in Language Arts

Alphabetize Me!

Mar08
2012 3 Comments

Written by lcameron

Yesterday we learned about alphabetical order and have been working with an important tool in Social Studies… the dictionary! After some practice with a set of words, students worked in partners to alphabetize a set of our Word Wall Words. Check it out!

Our “Alphabetize Me!” activity has now become part of our Literacy Centers during Guided Reading time. It will be quite the task with one GIANT list of words when they’re all in alphabetical order! Cooperation will be key in center groups

Grade 3′s, how do you alphabetize words that have the same beginning letter?

~Mrs. Cameron

Posted in Language Arts

Mrs. Cameron’s Little Builders at Work

Mar08
2012 3 Comments

Written by lcameron

Our Science units, Testing a Variety of Materials and Designs and Building with a Variety of Materials have now come a to a close. Our building company, Mrs. Cameron’s Little Builders, were very busy constructing a variety of structures for various purposes. Students applied what they had learned from the Testing unit to several construction tasks using a wide variety of different materials. Some highlights were building the three houses of the Three Little Pigs, bridges, vases, stools. Our focus were structures that:

- contain objects

- support weight

- serve as a model

- span a gap

Some projects were individual, partner, or small-group, where collaboration and cooperation were key! I’m very proud of all of the builders in our company!

Check out some photos of a few building projects!
Mrs. Cameron’s Little Builders on PhotoPeach

Grade 3′s, which was your favourite building task(s)? Why? What did you observe and conclude for your learning from the task?

Posted in Science

Mrs. Cameron’s Little Testers

Jan19
2012 7 Comments

Written by lcameron

We have just finished up our Science unit “Testing Materials and Designs”. At the beginning of the unit, we devised a group name for our construction company who needed to complete a variety of challenges throughout the unit. We learned all about conducting a “fair test” and how to design experiments to test materials and designs of objects. An important part of our unit was collaborating and working well with others in groups to conduct these experiments safely. As always, my amazing Grade 3′s did a great job!

We learned a lot about properties of materials, how to conduct a fair test, best shapes of pillars to use, and materials to use as joiners when building a structure, just to name a few.

One of the things we learned about most recently was a truss and different designs of trusses as supports for carrying large masses. The concept we learned was that the triangle is a very strong shape and an object can be made stronger by adding more triangles. It was amazing how much mass they held!!

Here are a couple of pictures from our work over the past couple of months:

Grade 3′s, what was your favourite experiment, or test, that we conducted as one of our company’s jobs? Explain why and what you learned. Are you excited to move into our next unit of Building With a Variety of Materials? We will be applying everything we have learned in our Testing unit to our next Building unit!!

I look forward to reading your responses.
Mrs. Cameron
(aka Founder and CEO of the company “Mrs. Cameron’s Little Testers”)

Posted in Science

Blogger of the Week: “‘Twas the Night Before… Arrrgh”?!

Jan10
2012 7 Comments

Written by lcameron

In Language Arts before Christmas, Mrs. Cameron asked us to do a venn diagram(comparison organizer) on two books. One was called ‘Twas the night before Christmas” and the other one was called “A Pirates Night Before Christmas.” In partners, we did a Venn diagram about the two books. We had to write down things like how they were similar and different from each other. I worked in a group of three. I liked working in a group of three because there were more people to think and share thoughts. I liked it when Mrs. Cameron read the books to us.

By Emma

Posted in Blogger of the Week, Language Arts

“What Does Your Plate Say?”

Dec06
2011 8 Comments

Written by lcameron

In Health, we have begun working on Making Good Relationship Choices. This week, specifically, we have been looking at sharing positive feelings and the good effects of sharing these positive feelings. I created a paper plate for each student with his/her photo on it and a long piece of yarn around the top. Each student wrote his/her name around the picture. The task was to “wear” your plate around your neck so that we could all share positive feelings about you! So, in one word or a short phrase, students shared their feelings and how they felt about that person on their plate. Check out our display of plates!

After the activity was complete, I absolutely loved seeing the smiles of all of my students as they discovered what their classmates feel about them and think of them as an individual. I heard many “What does your plate say?” with enthusiasm and curiosity.

Well done, Grade 3′s. I’m proud of all of you and enjoyed sharing my positive feelings on all of your plates! Your plates are “full” of positive thoughts!

Posted in Health

Blogger of the Week – “Skip Counting on the Floor”

Nov29
2011 14 Comments

Written by lcameron

We have been working on skip counting numbers to 1000. We are skip counting by 3 4 5 10 25 and 100. We made a 100 chart using giant squares that were laminated. They had numbers to 100 on them. Then once Mrs. Cameron told us a pattern, we flipped them over and on the back, they were red. We counted back by 3′s starting at different numbers. We practiced all kinds of different ways to skip count.

It was pretty fun because different kids got to do different numbers on because they weren’t in order when we put them down. We had to figure out where they went on floor. It helped us skip count and then we had to try it on our own.