What another amazing week of learning in Grade 4/5! Here is a recap of our week:
We worked extremely hard to complete our Beakerhead Ingenuity Challenge before the deadline this week! Our theme was "there must be a better way" and students thought outside the box and collectively came up with the idea of building a cardboard model of planet earth. We used this model to show the devastating effects of garbage that is being produced each year. We learned that if this rate continues, in less than 80 years from now, there will be more than 4 billion tonnes of garbage produced every year on Earth! We need to reverse this trend! Students created a song to emphasize the importance of reducing waste, recycling, reusing, and composing. I am very proud of all of our hard efforts! Our Arcade games are in full swing and most groups will be ready to build starting next week! Our blueprints are now completed and students are beginning to write out instructions on how to play their games. We also did a mini lesson on persuasive writing as this will come in handy when attracting potential players to test out our games! Ask your child to share their experiences about persuasive writing and which very important person they wrote their persuasive letters too! Our completed Arcade games will be revealed on the afternoon of December 12th. Please stay tuned for an invitation to this special event! This week in Math, we focused on fractions and decimals. We are learning how to correctly read and record fractions as part of a whole or set. Grade 4/5's were then given time to explore how fractions and decimals are related. Students will continue working with fractions and decimals, leading up to our work with money next week. Important Updates and Reminders: 1) Food Bank Donations will be greatly appreciated--please send in any donations starting on Monday. 2) PD Day on Friday Dec. 8 - No School 3) Div II Winter Concert on Wednesday Dec. 13, from 6-7pm 4) Ralph Klein Park field study on Tuesday Dec. 19--I am still looking for parent volunteers, so please contact me asap if you are able to come! 5) Thank you to all the families who ordered cookie dough for our school fundraiser! Money collected from fundraising goes to help all students at our school in some way or another. Also, a big thank you to our wonderful Parent Council as these members work tirelessly to organize fundraisers like these! Have a lovely weekend everyone.
0 Comments
Food Drive:
December 4 – 8, 2017 It’s time again for Valley View’s annual food drive! From December 4th to 8th, students will be bringing non-perishable food to school to help address hunger on a local level. Supporting the Calgary Food Bank is the perfect way to participate in the spirit of the season. When making your donation please think about the non-perishable food in your own home. What do you usually buy and use? Those items often make the best donations. It’s helpful for donors to double check the expiry dates on items they bring in. See below for a list of non-perishable food needed: Cereal Peanut butter Pancake mix Syrup Canned meat (ham, turkey) Canned fish Canned fruit Canned vegetables (corn, peas, carrots, mixed vegetables) Stuffing mix Cranberry sauce (whole berry) Soup (tomato, cream of mushroom, chicken noodle, chunky-style soups & stews, dry packaged soups, canned chili) Pasta sauce (tomato based) Juice Brown Beans Dry Pasta Baby Food What another fun filled week of learning we have had in Grade 4/5! Here are some highlights from our week:
Buddies - Grade 4/5 are working hard to be excellent role models for our little buddies. This week, we worked on a collective Art piece to show how we can use our "helping hands" to support our little buddies. We are always excited when our little buddies come visit us each week and look forward to seeing them again soon! Grade 5's got to participate in a wonderful presentation from TREC education that focused on electricity, factors that can produce different amounts of electricity, and renewable vs. non-renewable energy sources. Students finished off the day by creating their own wind turbines! Beakerhead Ingenuity Challenge - Our class is one of a few that is taking part in the Ingenuity Challenge. Many schools throughout the province of Alberta participate in this creative Science challenge every year. This year's theme is "There must be a better way" and students were sent a box of cardboard to use for their creation. We have already generated some excellent "out of the box" ideas and I am looking forward to seeing what we come up with together as a class. Our completed creation will then be entered into the Beakerhead challenge in a few weeks time. Arcade games - We are heading full steam into our designing and planning stages of our games. Working in groups of 3 or 4, students were asked to brainstorm ideas for their game. Then then collectively chose one idea that they will work on together. From there, students were asked to sketch blueprints of their game, remembering to include details, draw items to scale and label our sketches. Ask your child to share some of their learnings from this week. Math coach - Our school is one of 25 CBE schools to have a Math coach working in our building! Our Math coach, Mrs. Thomas, will be working in our school 2 days a week to help support our students and staff on building mathematical reasoning skills and strengthening problem solving skills. Important reminders/updates: 1) We are still in need of materials for building. Some materials are: tape, hot glue guns, hot glue sticks, rubber bands, and plastic containers. 2) Ralph Klein Park field study on Tuesday Dec. 19, 2017. Parents, please let me know if you are available to join us and have valid CBE clearance. 3) Cookie Dough fundraising is due Dec. 1. 4) December book orders have been extended - they are now due back on Monday Nov. 27. 4) Div II Winter Celebration is Wednesday Dec.13 from 6pm-7pm. All family members are welcome to attend. 5) Last day of classes before Winter Break is Wednesday Dec. 20, 2017. Classes resume back on Monday January 15, 2018. 1) We have completed our research and have begun our initial planning for our Arcade games. If students wish to further their research into Electricity, Magnetism, Simple Machines, Wheels and Levers they are welcome to try this website at home: www.2learn.ca/kids/
2) December book orders went home today. Orders and payment are due Nov. 24 3) Thank you to all the wonderful families who sent in building materials for our Arcade games. We are still in need of tape, hot glue guns, hot glue sticks, and any other old materials that may not be in use at home! 4) Winter Concert dates have been announced. Div 2 students (Grade 3-Grade 5) will perform on Wednesday December 13, from 6:00-7:00pm. Div 1 students (K - Grade 2) will perform on Thursday December 14, 2017. 5) Upcoming field study on Tuesday December 19, 2017 to Ralph Klein Park. We are in need of 3 parent volunteers with valid CBE clearance. Please contact me as soon as possible if you are able to join us on this day! Thanks in advance! What a super busy week we had in Room 16! Here are some highlights from this week:
Field study to Fort Calgary: Students had an amazing time being little archaeologists at Fort Calgary! We learned the importance of carefully unearthing artifacts from our past, and how to properly handle, sketch and observe, and to document everything we discover! There is still so much we can learn today by studying artifacts from the past. Students then took their discoveries recorded on paper from Fort Calgary back to school to write a story about a group of people in the past (First Nations, Settlers, Missionaries or North West Mounted Police). Our completed stories will be shared with the class next week! Grade 4's and 5's completed their research and investigation into circuits, electricity and simple machines. Our plan for next week to use our knowledge and apply these skills into the designing and building of our arcade games. We also have a neat Beakerhead Ingenuity challenge that our class will take part in next week. Stay tuned for our exciting upcoming projects! Our mini pumpkin planting project has unexpectedly taken a downhill turn! Ask your child to explain what happened and how most of our hypotheses were incorrect. This was a great learning experience for all students to take part in, as often times, scientists conduct experiments and may not see the results they were hoping for or expecting. We will continue to explore what went wrong and how we can possibly change a few variables in our experiment to get the desired results. What a great learning opportunity it was for all! Thank you to all the wonderful parents who attended Parent Teacher conferences this week! I enjoyed engaging in thoughtful discussions and conversations with you all. Please note that if you have any other questions or concerns, the best way to reach me is through email at: [email protected] Have a wonderful weekend everyone and stay warm! What another super busy week we have had! Here are some highlights from our week:
Mini-pumpkin projects are completed! We recorded our observations, generated some high level thinking questions and formed some interesting hypotheses about whether or not our mini-pumpkins will be good vessels to plant pumpkin seeds in. Many came up with interesting hypotheses and estimated how long it would take in order for our seeds to sprout! We will continue to closely monitor our mini pumpkins and record our findings! Grade 5's continued to research and explore circuits this week. They also learned what materials are excellent conductors (substances which electric current can easily pass through) and which are not (insulators=substances through which electric current can not pass). We also learned that some materials can make electricity move with some difficulty (resistors). Grade 4's continued their research on simple machines and were asked to build their own unique simple machine using various materials. It was wonderful to see how creative some our their machines were! Our next steps will be to brainstorm some ideas for our Caine's arcade game and to sketch blueprints of our designs. We are beginning to think like mathematicians when presented with a math challenge. This week, students were introduced to 3-Act Math, where a story/challenge is presented to them (Act 1) and they will need to closely think about all the information given and what else is still needed in order to solve the challenge (Act 2). The final act (Act 3) is where students are asked to solve the challenge. Strategies used to solve the challenge and student "thinking" is recorded in their Math journals. Students had a lot of fun exploring our 3-Act Math challenges this week--many found them difficult and frustrating at first (which is a good thing!). Ask your child to share their experiences with 3-Act Math to you. We will continue to use this model to deepen our mathematical reasoning and understanding. Students reflected on their learning goals that they set from the start of the school year. Some students chose to set new goals that they wish to improve on. We also thought of strategies and actions that we would take in order to accomplish the goals we set out to do. Student goals will be shared during our upcoming Parent Teacher conferences next week. We met our new Grade 2 little buddies this week from Ms. D's classroom! Grade 4/5's will meet once a week with our little buddies to help support them with reading, literacy, math and much more! We look forward to working with our new little friends : ) Important updates and reminders: 1) Please remember to sign up for a Parent Teacher conference time. Conferences will take place on Thursday Nov. 16 from 4:00-7:30pm and on Friday Nov. 17 from 8:00-11:30am. *Please note Thursday Nov. 16 will be a half day of school for all students. 2) Thank you to all the wonderful families who donated cardboard to our building project! We still need more! Some other materials we are in need of are: masking tape, duct tape, aluminum foil, egg cartons, and empty plastic containers (yogurt containers, clam shell containers, etc.) 3) Field study to Fort Calgary on Monday Nov.13. Please remember to pack a few healthy snacks, lunch and water bottle for this trip. Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 1) Parent Teacher conferences will be held on Thursday November 16 (4:00-7:30pm) and Friday November 17 (8:00-11:30am). Please click on the following for more instructions:
2) Picture retakes are tomorrow!
3) We are still in dire need of cardboard for our building project. Please please bring in any unwanted cardboard and we will gladly make use of it! Thank you kindly! 4) Fort Calgary field study forms and payment are due this Friday. We now have enough parent volunteers for this trip. Thank you to the parents who kindly signed up for this trip--looking forward to another fun learning experience for all! This was an extremely busy week in Room 16! Here are some highlights from our week: Pumpkin project: Students measured the actual weight, circumference, and number of seeds of their group's pumpkin and compared these results with our prior estimates. We learned that our estimates for number of seeds were very different from the actual numbers (larger size of pumpkin often does not equal greater number of seeds). We took the actual results and created a bar graph and table to show our findings. Congratulations to our lucky winners of the pumpkins! We are all excited to begin our mini-pumpkin planting project some time next week! Vermicomposting: We can't believe how much our red wiggler worms have grown in such a short time! This week, we had a closer look at our worms and made observations in terms of length, width and size. There is even some unexpected new life growing in our worm habitat! Ask your child to tell you about what began to sprout and grow. We are conducting a few experiments using our worms and will focus on measuring the rate that they grow, how much food our worms consume, and how much waste (poop!) they will produce. Research: Grade 5's have continued their electricity research this week and will continue to further explore circuits (series and parallel circuits, insulators vs conductors, resistors and how we can control the flow of current in a circuit ). Grade 4's are continuing to research about the six different types of simple machines (levers, pulleys, wheels and axles, inclined planes, wedges and screws). Once our research is completed, we will begin our planning and design for our arcade games. Multiplication: Students have been working on reviewing our basic multiplication facts and also reviewed various strategies to use when multiplying (think repeated addition, equal groups, box method). We also spent some time discussing division and how multiplication and division are related (inverse operations). Remembrance Day: Students were asked to reflect on why this day is so important to us all. We spent some time discussing peace and war. After some thoughtful discussions, students came up with the conclusion that there really are no winners in a war. We read a beautiful book, titled "Bear In War" which is based on a true story of a Canadian family affected by war. Students completed their field of crosses poppy art and our beautiful art pieces are now being displayed by the school office. For more information on the field of crosses memorial display, click here: www.fieldofcrosses.com/ Parents, please remember that a requirement of your child being in the Science Program is that an adult volunteer from each family needs to volunteer a minimum of 3 times in the school year. We have had some wonderful volunteers so far, so many thanks for these people! To make it easier for working families, below is a tentative list of all the Field Studies that we have booked for the year. Next to each field study is the date and the names of the teacher who's classes are attending on that day. PLEASE NOTE: these dates and locations are subject to change and we will make you aware of any changes as we hear of them. This list is simply to keep you informed and to ensure you have ample time to book time off work in order to get your 3 volunteer days in! Please understand if and when changes occur -- we are trying our best to keep it the same! Thanks :) Field studies completed in Aug/Sept/Oct: Valley View Park Niitsitipi Learning Center (NLC) Science Center November: 6th - National Geographic Live: Miss Paddon & Mrs Kear 13th - Fort Calgary: Miss Paddon & Mrs Kear December: 18th - Ralph Klein Park: Miss Paddon & Miss Miao 19th - Ralph Klein Park: Mrs Kear January: 24th - Glenbow Museum: Mrs. Kear & Miss Miao 25th - Glenbow Museum: Miss Paddon February: 1st - National Music Center: All 3 Classes 20th - Calgary Humane Society (In School): All 3 classes March: TBA (Awaiting confirmation from NLC) - NLC: Mrs. Kear & Miss Paddon 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 17th- Ralph Klein Park: Miss Paddon 23rd - National Geographic Live: Miss Paddon & Mrs. Kear 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 Important Reminders: 1) National Geographic Live field study on Monday Nov.6 (morning only). We now have enough parent volunteers for this trip. Thank you to all of our parents who signed up! 2) Fort Calgary field study on Monday Nov. 13 (full day). If any parents wish to join us on this date, and have valid CBE clearance, please let me know asap. Thanks in advance! 3) We are still in dire need of more cardboard for our inquiry project. Any donations are appreciated! 4) Remembrance Day Assembly on Friday Nov. 10 at 10:3oam. All family members are welcome to attend. Have a lovely weekend everyone--stay warm! |