Starry Night

This week we started our Science unit on weather and were inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting Starry Night to learn how weather conditions can be reflected in art work. We took the opportunity to learn more about Van Gogh about an innovative Impressionist artist, who was misunderstood by the society of his times. Our Division 4 students enthusiastically created their interpretation of Starry Night and drew some beautiful oil pastel pictures. Here are three neat facts about Vincent Van Gogh:

He did over 2000 paintings and drawings in 10 years but he only ever sold one!

Most people think that he cut his whole ear off but it was just the lobe!

His famous painting The Starry Night has all the stars in the correct spot in the sky!

In Math, we started a unit on rounding large numbers (100s and 1000s) and estimating sums and differences. Mental math, guessing the solutions, is a very important skill that will help students to develop a strong number sense and quickly estimate answers. This learning outcome will be a focus of our Math Program this year. Our first math quiz is scheduled for the end of this week, probably Thursday or Friday, and students are reminded to review their notes at home. Practice sheets will be sent home one day prior to the quiz.

I am very impressed with the reading practices of most of our students. Keep it up and do not forget to submit the Home Reading sheets that have been sent home! In Language Arts, we read one of my favourite children's books Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. We started some research on our names and students have interviewed their parents about their names. I hope this sparked some fun conversations and I am looking forward to the kid's "name essays" next week. As always, new spelling words are sent home on Monday and we will have a quiz on Friday. Some kids are working on ten words, others are tested on twenty words.

Keep reading, keep running and keep smiling!