Today's agenda notes:
-Read for 20 minutes
-Cultural artifact
-Start working on my speech
-Bring my shoes back
-Math worksheet (calendar)

Then we continued working on our New Years resolutions worksheet from yesterday.

After we went to PE with Ms. Yustin.


When we returned we started our new unit on measurement. Today we learned about measurement through reading a calendar.

We discussed how different months have a different number of days (31/30) or February which has 28 and every four years has a leap year which makes it have 29. We used our knuckles to help us remember the number of days.

What you have to do is:

Make a fist and point to the knuckle on your index finger. Say the months in order as you move along your hand, pointing alternately to your knuckles and to the spaces between your knuckles. When you get to July, start again with your index finger for August. Each month that lands on a knuckle has 31 days. Each month that lands on a space has 30 days, except for February, which has 28 days.

If you can tell I labelled starting left to right (Jan-Dec)

We discussed what the letters on top of the calendar mean: the days of the week.

We also looked at reading a calendar specifically certain events that fall on certain dates using this calendar.

We discussed how to determine the date for events that occur every one week, two weeks and three weeks. It was noted that the day of the week doesn't change and you have to travel down a row.

After students worked in partners to figure out the dates for certain programs we are interested in. Students used the chart from the textbook (also the chart beside the calendar) to choose an activity and determine the dates for it. After they had to choose another activity and answer.

How many times does the program occur?
Do any of the programs occur on the same day?

One of the things we identified that was trick was at the end or beginning of the month when there were blank spaces so we clarified that that means the month before or after (example January 1st falls on a Monday therefore December 31st was the Sunday and it is blank on the January calendar)

We then modeled how to count the days before or after a given date. For example what is the date 9 days after January 1st.

1) Circle January 1st
2) Count on 9 spaces
3) Stop at January 10th
4) We write the answer as: January 10th.

Afterwards we started to work on our homework sheet.

Then we went to lunch and recess.

After recess we worked on a Christmas around the world activity.

We investigated how Christmas is celebrated in different countries and created posters.
We learned that in Russia they have a festival of winter, the Christmas tree is called the Yelka and is decorated with flowers and coloured lights.

In Japan not many people believe in Christ and Santa is known as Mr. Santa and he has eyes on the back of his head and watches to see if children are behaving.

In Italy, Christmas goes on 3 weeks and is known as the Novena. They call Santa 'Babbo Natale.'

In China, the children decorate their tree with colourful ornaments made from paper in the shapes of flowers, chains and lanterns. They call their tree the 'trees of light.'

In France, they call Santa 'Pere Noel' and they leave their shoes by the fireplace to be filled with gifts.

In England people called mummers put on masks and act out Christmas plays. After on boxing day boys go around collect money in clay boxes and when they are full they break them open.

After we went to French with Mme. Stella. 

After second recess we worked on some more shading to prepare us for our cultural artifact shading tomorrow. We choose one of three objects in the class and practiced shading darkness and lightness to show value.

Then we got ready for hometime!