Good Afternoon Everyone J
It’s been a while since we’ve connected. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and Happy New Year! Looking forward to all our wonderful adventures in 2018. Takeaways from each day are listed below: Monday: Back to routines! We shared some of our Winter break festivities and tackled a TED Puzzle. We learned that with probability math problems, we need our first attempt to go across large intervals and for our second attempt to narrow down the range. This will allow us to find the solution in the least number of steps needed. We also started Dicey Situation! Ask your child to explain the story and process with this task. Tuesday: Microscopes! We have begun using our observational skills to examine some slides for the microscope. Working on expanding our scientific vocabulary and analyzing skills, we have made predictions as what organisms or objects are in the six slides. We are looking forward to learning how to use a microscope and discovering what each slide is! Green Screen! Mr. Hawken came into our classroom to teach us about an app called Octopus. We learned how to create unique pictures where we crop two pictures together to make it look like one. We are going to apply these skills in our future inquiry project Rebranding Alberta/Canada! Stay posted J Wednesday: We have begun Exploration centers. At each station, students are exposed to different areas and fields in STEM. Currently we have a Maker Space, a Microbiology station, an Atoms & Molecule station, a Renewable Energy station and two Lego Robotics stations. Students are learning how to use the materials at each station and in the future will be given the opportunity to freely explore and discover whichever station they choose. Eventually towards the end of the year, the goal is for students to dive into their passions and to spend a big chunk of their time exploring and learning through self-discovery in the areas of their interest. Thursday: After being exposed to so many new concepts, we needed some time to reflect on our experiences. We wrote about our preferences, observations and feelings towards the stations we have attended and experimented with. After, we made sure to reflect on how each station connects to science and the natural world around us! Coke & Mentos experiment. In starting to learn more about Chemistry, we decided to tackle a popular experiment that involves a reaction between Coke and Mentos. We have discovered that regular Coke does not produce a strong reaction. It fizzles a bit but nothing explosive like the images of this experiment that we have seen. Further investigation will be conducted next week! (Don’t worry, none of us have gotten a sugary shower yet!) Friday: We looked at a math problem that involved multiplication! See if you can figure it out! Ben’s grandparents are at his birthday party. Ben’s grandfather is 6 times as old as Ben, and he is twice as old as Ben’s mom. Together, their ages total 110 years. How old is Ben? How old is Ben’s mother? How old is his grandfather? Please encourage students to explain their reasoning using mathematical terms and logic. Good luck! In Art, we have been focusing on lines and how different lines showcases different emotions and meanings. We will be applying these skills in our scientific sketches and drawings for our visit at the Glenbow Museum. Our next field study to Glenbow Museum is on Wednesday January 24th! The fees and forms are due back on Monday, January 22nd, no exceptions. For confirmed volunteers, we currently have Arnav’s Mom. Please make sure you get your Security & Police Clearance forms filled out at the office! Field Studies Completed: Telus Spark Science Center Ralph Klein Park Upcoming: January: 24th - Glenbow Museum: Mrs. Kear & Miss Miao February: 1st - National Music Center: All 3 Classes 20th - Calgary Humane Society (In School): All 3 classes 27th - TREC Education in Room 30 all day (In School) March: 5th – National Geographic Live: Mrs. Kear & Miss Miao 6th - Nose Hill Park with Elder Randy Bottle: All 3 Classes 20th - TREC Education in school all day for Grade 5's April: 12th - Aggie Days: All 3 Classes 16th - Ralph Klein Park: Mrs. Kear & Miss Miao 23rd - National Geographic Live: Miss Miao May: 8th - 11th - Outdoor School (Grade 5’s Only) 14th - Calgary Zoo: All 3 Classes 23rd - Moh'Koh'sis (Fort Calgary) with NLC support: All 3 Classes 29th - Fort Calgary: Miss Miao June: 5th - Grow Calgary: All 3 Classes 13th - Jumpingpound Forest: All 3 Classes 19th - Fish Creek Park: All 3 Classes Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Enjoy the beautiful weather outside!!
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Good Afternoon Everyone :)
Happy Holidays! Wishing everyone lots of laughter, relaxation and of course chocolates. Please make sure to continue to read and journal during your vacation! Be curious, explore the outdoors, visit the library and design something unique. School will start again on Monday January 15th. See you all then! Congratulations! You have accomplished such a feat in completing your arcade games. From blueprinting to building, to implementing and to explaining your learning process, you gave it your 150% and I’m so proud of you. Thank you for all the hard work and dedication you put into your work. Your perseverance shone through!! I also want to say thank you to those parents who came to support their child’s learning. It really meant a lot to them to see you be a part of their learning journey :) (PS: Pictures will be uploaded at a later time)
This upcoming week is a jam packed one! On Monday, we have our field study trip with Miss Paddon’s class. We are heading to Ralph Klein Park to learn about Wetlands and Ecosystems. Thank you to Isaac’s Mom, Samuel’s Mom & Roba’s Mom for volunteering this time around. If you have not filled out your Police Security Clearance forms, please do so. The letter you have received is just a reminder to make sure you do make time to come support the learning of your child. With the shift in programming, we have only gone on 2 field trips so far. So there are many opportunities for the New Year :) We do need volunteers to come at least 3x throughout this school year. Please ensure you make arrangements for this. On Tuesday, students’ will be bringing home a math problem solving assessment they attempted. This is just one piece of assessment to show how your child is doing in this particular area. This is not a true reflection of them as a mathematician but rather a quick view of where they are at with this particular task. There will be teacher notes on it to show you the student’s strength, an area to work on and what the teacher is going to do to help the student move forward. Wednesday is the last day for students! Happy Holidays!! Enjoy the well deserved winter break and see everyone on Monday January the 15th. Also big thank you to Mrs. Brown for her efforts for the Winter Celebration. The kids were able to display their true musical talents and it was truly heartwarming to see! Thank you those families who came to make this show what it was! Enjoy the festive time with family and friends. May joy and peace be with you all xoxo It’s almost Arcade Afternoon!
We have all been working away with our Arcade games and there is still so much to do! We are hoping to be ready for Arcade Opening Day on Tuesday December 12th from 1-2pm in the Learning Commons. Invitations will be handed out this upcoming Monday. Please come support your child in their learning of Simple Machines, Electricity & Circuits as well as Design Thinking J For Mathematics, we have covered topics around Perimeter & Area and we have begun discussing Money and Decimals for our Arcade Business Proposal plans. We will work on adding and subtracting decimal numbers to the hundredths. Our Winter Celebration for Grades 3, 4 & 5 is on Wednesday December 13th from 6-7pm. There are many students involved with leadership roles so please ensure they come to school a bit earlier to help out with these tasks. Ralph Klein Park is on Monday December the 18th. Forms and $23 dollars need to be handed in no later than this Thursday December the 14th. Our volunteers this time around will be Isaac’s Mom, Samuelle’s Mom & Milo’s Mom. If you have not volunteered yet, please ensure that your Police Clearance Check is filed out at the office so you can join us on one of our learning adventures! Enjoy this beautiful December weather and have a wonderful weekend everyone! Good Afternoon :)
Monday: We focused our day around learning about Circuits & Electricity to prepare ourselves for our special presentation on Wednesday. We learned how batteries work and how electrons flow out from the negative side to the positive. The intensity of an electrical current is measured in amperes and electrical tension is measured in volts. We discovered what conductors are and how water may or may not be a conductor. After viewing this interesting youtube video, we found that the power of electrical current has a big impact on how electricity travels! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvbvMT-ieTw Tuesday: The big takeaway from today was how to be persuasive. We examined how are we going to connect with our parents and people in our learning community to persuade them in coming to view our arcade games. Through the teaching of Aristole in Rhetoric, we discovered the 3 means of persuasion: Logos, Ethos & Pathos. We are working on persuasive invitation letters to invite parents and community members to become more aware of other people in our community! https://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-aristotle-and-joshua-bell-can-teach-us-about-persuasion-conor-neill Wednesday: TREC workshop was in today! We started the day with a quick presentation on electricity and alternate ways of creating it. We then started building our own series versus parallel circuits. Students discovered that series circuits require all parts to be connected and parallel circuits can access the electrical energy source even if a part of the circuit is disconnected. After we looked at wind turbines and how the blade size and length affects how much energy is produced. Surface area is key here. We also discovered that there is a fine balance needed between the size of blades and the number of blades used. We measured the voltage produced from our wind turbines and used this knowledge to create our own. We designed and tested these models and began thinking of different ways to implement and better our designs. Thursday: The majority of the day was focused around measurement and scale for our blueprints. We also looked at perimeter and area in a Key Challenge. Ask your child to share this puzzle with you :) Friday: Through Beakerhead, we are working on an Ingenuity Challenge. We have been gifted with a box of cardboard tiles and we are currently ideating and voting to see what to build! Check out the link below for previous winners. https://beakerhead.com/media-archives/stories/2016-ingenuity-challenge-winners Updates: -Our Winter Concert will be on Wednesday December the 13th. Please come support your child's performance. -We have a field trip coming up on Monday December 18th. We need volunteers. Please let me know if you are able to come! Enjoy the lovely weather and don't forget to bring in more cardboard for our arcades :) Good Afternoon :)
Another whirlwind of a week! Literacy: We have continued to master our great beginnings. We have introduced some more strategies to start our stories: -shocking statements (something surprising or out of the ordinary) -list (complex list about the main character or the setting) Please encourage students to continue practicing these strategies when writing their beginnings in their creative stories. Science: We are tying up loose end for Simple Machines and moving onto Circuits & Electricity. We will be using this knowledge and applying it to our Caine's Arcade blueprints. Mathematics: This week, we continued to master our skills around perimeter and have began exploring area. Area is a space that a shape occupies. The area will equal the length multiplied by the width. Using this knowledge, students will begin calculating the perimeter and area needed for their arcade games. Updates: -Thank you for supporting your child's learning and coming to Parent Teacher Conferences! If you still have not yet met with me, please find an alternative time to meet. -We have an in class presentation on Wednesday on Wind Energy & Electricity. -We are going to start our building phase for our arcade games, please continue to encourage students to bring in recycled cardboard as well as any other recycled materials for our Maker Space. -Please ensure you have filled out your police clearance forms at the office so you can volunteer when we go on our next field trip! Parent(s) are responsible to volunteer at least three times this year. Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Good Afternoon Everyone :)
As the weather gets colder, cold and flu viruses are spreading around. Please ensure students are washing their hands and coughing into their elbows. Also make sure your child is coming to school dressed for the weather. Literacy: We've been continuing to work on adding suspense to our writing. This week in particular, we are looking at creating great beginnings in our stories. We practiced using some of these effective strategies to start our stories: -using an action (a main character doing something) -using dialogue (a character or characters speaking) -using a reaction (a character thinking) -using onomatopoeias (sound associated with an action) Please encourage students to continue practicing these strategies when writing their beginnings in their creative stories. Science: We have been focusing our attention around simple machines. We have visited concepts around levers, wheels and levers, pulleys and inclined planes. We are hoping to use this information to better prepare ourselves in blueprinting for our arcade designs. We will be tapping into electricity and how circuits work in this upcoming week. Mathematics: Asides from practicing NCTM problems and TED puzzles, we have begun looking at measurement. We talked about standard versus non-standard measurement and the importance of units. We also started looking at perimeter and what that means. We are developing accurate measuring skills to determine the perimeter around our classroom. As review, we have been practicing 3-digits by 2-digits multiplication using box strategy, lattice strategy and traditional arithmetic strategy. Technology: We have discovered a new program called “Bloxels”. This program allows students to create their own video games using colored blocks on a 13 by 13 grid. Connections to Mathematics and Science will be made to ensure this isn’t solely a technology activity. Updates: -There is school on Monday November the 13th. -There are Parent Teacher Conferences happening on Thursday November the 16th and Friday November the 17th. Please head to the school website and click on my CBE account to sign up. -Please encourage students to bring in recycled cardboard for the building of our arcade games as well as any other recycled materials for our Maker Space. -Please ensure you have filled out your police clearance forms at the office so you can volunteer when we go on our next field trip! Parent(s) are responsible to volunteer at least three times this year. All the best. Take care everyone :) Good Afternoon Everyone :)
Hope everyone stays warm over this snowy weekend. Please remember to dress for the weather! MIttens, toques, scarves, snowpants and jackets - the whole deal. Literacy: We've been working on adding suspense to our writing. We looked at initiating mini problems, stretching our reader's interest and slowly sharing the solution. Next week, we will be examining great beginnings and hooking our reader's attention! Mathematics: Over the week, we have been practicing 3 digit by 3 digit multiplication using both the box strategy mentioned last week as well as the traditional arithmetic strategy. We have also touched on measurement as this is assisting us in our blueprint designs for our arcade games. Science: Asides from observations on vermicomposting, we have discovered pumpkin plant growth in our worms' homes! Some students have come to the conclusion that the moist worm bed mixture mixed with the light exposure from the breathing holes is a great environment for seed growth. We will continue to observe this over the next few weeks. Caine's Arcade: Students have decided it would be helpful to look at some exemplars of blueprints. We came to the conclusion that blueprints are plans that assist the builders or constructors in building the object to scale. It is important to label accurately and have proper measurements. We created a blueprint checklist to remind us of the key items we need to include. We are also learning about levers, wheels and axels, other simple machines and electrical circuits to ensure we have all the skills to needed in creating our arcade games! Here is an updated list of our upcoming field studies: Field studies completed in Aug/Sept/Oct: Valley View Park Science Center December: 18th - Ralph Klein Park: Miss Paddon & Miss Miao January: 24th - Glenbow Museum: Mrs. Kear & Miss Miao February: 1st - National Music Center: All 3 Classes 20th - Calgary Humane Society (In School): All 3 classes March: TBA (awaiting confirmation from NLC) - Nose Hill Park with NLC: All 3 Classes April: 12th - Aggie Days: All 3 Classes 16th - Ralph Klein Park: Miss Miao & Mrs Kear 23rd - National Geographic Live: All 3 classes May: 8th - 11th - Outdoor School (Grade 5’s Only): Teachers TBA 14th - Calgary Zoo: All 3 Classes 29th - Fort Calgary: Miss Miao June: 5th - Grow Calgary: All 3 Classes 13th - Jumpingpound Forest: All 3 Classes 19th - Fish Creek Park: All 3 Classes Stay warm all. Good Afternoon Parents!
Hope everyone is adjusting well to the temperature changes and staying warm. Happy Diwali to those who celebrated it :) This week was another busy one! We started each morning with a NCTM problem or a TED puzzle. It was definitely a challenge to understand the rich math vocabulary. Some words to review are: every other, sum, odd, even, pattern, quarter, dime, nickel, etc. Please encourage students to review some of these terms. We have also dove a bit deeper into the computation of multiplication. We have learned a strategy in assisting us in solving difficult equations. Below is a link to review this strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUvOyz2Ysq0&t=8s With Vermicomposting, we have also gathered a few more observations about how the worms are breaking down our organic snacks. We discovered that they are avoiding the seeds or organic wastes with harder skins. We noticed that they are growing larger and are predicting that they may reproduce and have eggs soon. We will be going back and forth into Miss Paddon's room to check up on our decomposing buddies. We started looking more deeply at research. We made up a checklist in guiding us when we are browsing the web for information. We decided these are some important things to have on our checklist: -make a list of what you want to find out -choose the best research tool for doing the research (books, internet, educational clip, etc.) -search for the answer for your question -decide what information is important and what isn't -take jot notes and summarize information We will be using this checklist in keeping us in check for our future research :) As for Caine's Arcade, we started with some empathizing. We put ourselves in the shoes of what it feels like to be a gamer designer as well as a gamer. We shared ideas with partner and classmates about what each group's needs are. We defined our problem and are currently working on our blueprints for our arcade game design. We have also started writing a business proposal letter to ensure this task becomes an action! On Friday, we were lucky enough to learn more about Sphero! Sphero is our classroom robot. We are learning to control and handle him/her (we haven't quite decided on a name yet...). As for future endeavours with our dear robot, we hope to learn the basics of coding and to set up an obstacle course for our Sphero to travel through! Just a reminder that a Halloween Safety Assembly will happen at 1:30pm on October 31st, 2017. Students are welcome to bring their costumes to slip on in the afternoon. Please ensure their costumes are appropriate and no weapons or masks are allowed. Parents are welcome to come attend if they would like. Happy Friday! |