This week was especially busy for us as we worked on completing projects, starting new ones and meeting with guests in the school.
In Math this week students worked on taking the feedback from their clients to complete the final good copy of their design. Included with the design were the measurements of each structure or land plot, along with the areas and perimeter in square meters. They worked on this project every day for one hour. Most students were able to complete this during class time, but some students have taken it home to complete it over the weekend. I will post some of the final designs on next weeks blog. In Science, students are beginning to create a documentary on a specific animal from one of the four countries we have been exploring this year. They have conducted research, trying to locate information on the animals habitat, appearance, predators, food, environmental threats and other interesting facts about the animal. Most students have completed the research and are now working on creating a script for their documentary. This is the narrative they will use when they begin to insert pictures into Imovie. This movie will be uploaded to their IRIS portfolio for you to view. In writing, we have been working on their short stories which align with the owl research from earlier in the year. As a class, we have created a rubric to guide our work, as well as to provide feedback to one another. This will also be the rubric to which their stories will be marked at the end of the assignment. Categories of the rubric include, hook, characters, setting, events, and ending. In addition, students felt it was important to include mechanics, such as spelling, end punctuation, vocabulary, paragraphs and sentence structure. These stories can be found on the students google doc and accessible at home. Students just need to use their student email and password. Feel free to provide feedback and provide suggestions to help improve their stories. All i ask is you guide the students to find their own mistakes and support them in making the improvements. Lastly, I want to encourage the use of mathletics as a tool to support the work we are doing in class. A while back I assigned multiplication and division assignments as "extras" to go along with the work we are doing in class. If you are missing the log-in information, please email me and I can send the information with your child next week.
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Today in the morning, students had a guest speaker come in and speak to them about Albertas agriculture. Students explored the difference between animal rights and animal welfare. Ask your child what they learned this morning from the speaker.
In the afternoon we continued to work on our landscape designs. Students should have received feedback from a peer as well as their client. Now they are working on the final copy of the map, along with including the measurements of area and perimeter of each section. It is interesting to see the priorities clients have come up with compared to what the students originally created. We have been exploring the concepts of perimeter and area through landscape designing. Last week students came home and conducted an interview with a 'client' to see where certain features of a yard were most important to least important. They began their designs trying to implement as many features as possible in their designs. Today we specifically looked at feedback. With a partner, students explored each others designs and gave feedback on size of the features, locations of the features and accessibility of the features. Students gave suggestions such as the 'kitchen is too far away from the house. You may want to bring it closer" and questions such as "how is the client going to get to the vegetable garden through the trampoline without a path?" Using these suggestions and considerations, students then began making modifications to their designs.
Tonight they are to conduct a second interview with their client and show the design they have created. As a class we created guiding questions to help us with this interview. Please take about 10 -15 minutes of your time to answer some of the questions and provide some feedback to where improvements could be considered. Students understand that the client is RIGHT and should make the changes based on what he/she would like in their designs. Guiding questions: 1. First walk through the design with your client 2. Ask questions, such as . . .
3. Thank you for your time Tomorrow we will be brainstorming possible ideas for Heart to Heart. Have your child explain what heart to heart is and think of possibilities. I have challenged students in room 8 to think "scientifically" when creating a station/item to sell. Thank you to all the parents and friends and family who supported the students in room 8 in filling out their landscape survey. Students realized today, and were quite surprised on how much space a house actually takes up on a piece of land. Some students chose to maintain a larger house and others went smaller to have more yard space. Next week students will be brining them home to get feedback.
This is a small reminder that tomorrow is early dismissal. Students will be leaving the school at 1:20. Student led conferences begin at 3:30 - 7:30 tomorrow night and open again Friday morning from 8 - 10. I look forward to seeing all the parents and answer any questions you have. Please be aware that other families will be in the room with you so some information may not be shared due to confidentiality. Students have been working towards developing a deeper understanding of multiplication and division. As they progress I thought it was time to bring in area and perimeter as they tie nicely in with multiplication. Yesterday the following scenario was brought forward to the students. You are a landscape designer/architect. You are to create a plan for a client which reflects the elements and attributes they desire. Step 1: Determine what is a landscape design and list all the attributes your design could have. (This was last nights homework. Students has to think about what may be included in a yard). Step 2: Determine what your client wants in their design. (Conduct an interview to determine what your client would like to have). So today in class we created a list of items that may be included in a landscape design. Tonight they are to sit down with their "client" and interview them for a what they would like to have in their design. The client needs to determine what items are priorities for the design and what they may not want. Students will then take that information and design a preliminary plan and then get feedback. Thank you for your support in this mini project. I have attached the interview in case it gets lost.
I must apologize . . . I am sending your children home wet today. Due to the assembly taking up our gym time, I thought we could go for a walk around our property for gym. Climbing through the snow, rolling around, having fun would be a great way to get the heart beat up and get the student active while enjoying the sun and warmth. As we trucked through the field, times the snow was deep and other times a bit shallow. Needless to say, by the time we got back to class, most students socks were wet along with their pants. Luckily they only had 20 minutes of being wet before going home. We did learn that we should think about putting an extra set of socks in our backpacks just in case, especially as things get a bit more wet out there!
Aggie Days was an amazing field study for the students. The hands-on interactive stations and presentations engaged the students and got them asking some interesting questions. One idea that was brought forward by one student was "is it fair that these animals are here all day?" How is it a good thing to be locked up in a pen all day and not being able to walk about? Do they like being touched by all the kids? Ask you child if they felt the quality of life for these animals was a good quality of life or a bad quality of life. On Thursday April 12 students are encouraged join Canadians across the country in wearing a jersey to honour and remember the victims of the Humboldt Broncos. Students are welcome to wear a jersey of any type, regardless of sport. If they do not have a jersey they are also welcome to wear green or yellow, the team colours of the Humboldt Broncos.
This week is going to go by very fast for many of us. Two field studies, plus trying to keep up with regular routines and tasks. Yesterday students were able to participate in an art project along with learn the history of some Albertans and take part in a nature walk. The morning started out with looking at block printing. This is a form of print making where one creates a mould, applies ink and then prints onto a material of some form. After lunch we had the opportunity to play in the forest. Can you find anyone? Next students learned some new information about the history of Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, what kind of art they preferred to create, and why the Leighton Art Center was opened. Ask your child what they learned about their history. While we were there we had the opportunity to go for a small nature walk to the edge of the rolling hills. The view was breathtaking! Tomorrow we will be going to Aggie Days down at the Stampede grounds. Students have been asked to wear comfortable shoes, dress for the weather, but also be prepared to carry all extra clothing. It was suggested to dress in layers such as a shirt, hoodie and a spring coat that way students are warm when outside, but can take off layers when inside. Students are encouraged to wear appropriate shoes for lots of walking and the possibility of getting dirty and muddy. Please bring a lunch! On Thursday April 12 students are encouraged join Canadians across the country in wearing a jersey to honour and remember the victims of the Humboldt Broncos. Students are welcome to wear a jersey of any type, regardless of sport. If they do not have a jersey they are also welcome to wear green or yellow, the team colours of the Humboldt Broncos.
On Monday students will be going on a field trip to the Leighton Center. Students are expected to wear warm clothing such as snow pants, coats, hats and mitts as we will be going outside for a Nature Walk in the afternoon. Parents volunteering are encouraged to wear warm clothing as well.
Today students created an abstract painting to represent their learning this week. They were to choose a shape and think how that shape best represents the facts they learned. Some shapes included diamonds to represent kickball rules, rectangles to represent long division and triangles to represent the food chain web. Ask you child what they learned and why this shape best represents their learning. This week in class we worked on long division skills, story writing plans and the food chain. What can your child teach you about these topics? Welcome back to school! Students today were busy getting reaquainted with each other
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