Heart to heart donations
Plastic cups Small round magnets Glass beads Cardboard (two larger boxes to be like vending machines) Small containers with lids (like you get at restaurants) Pipecleaner String **new** googly eyes (various sizes) **new** toilet paper and paper towel rolls **new** Zip lock bags (small snack size) **New** Brown paper lunch bags
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In Math this week, we began to look at how to read both digital and analog clocks. Students focused specifically on understanding o'clock, half past, quarter to, and quarter after. We discussed that there are multiple ways to say the same time. For example, 11:45 can also be stated, quarter to 12. Take time this weekend to practice telling time using an analog clock. We will be looking closer at the minutes next week.
This week students had time to work in their small groups for heart to heart and make a plan for their steps in creating their station for heart to heart. Supplies are starting to come in, but we still need quite a bit. Please review the supply list each for each blog as it will change depending on what has been brought in and what new has identified. Next week we start our lacrosse residency. An email was sent out to parents to fill out the acknowledgement and risk and send back with their child. Thank you to those who printed it off and sent it back today. If you did not get this done, that is okay, as I have sent home a hard copy with your child today. Please fill out and bring back to school Monday. Our residency will start Monday afternoon. Heart to heart donations Plastic cups Hot glue gun sticks Rope Small round magnets Glass beads Syran wrap Cardboard Small containers with lids (like you get at restaurants) Borax laundry detergent Pipecleaner Food colouring Straws String **new** googly eyes **new** toilet paper and paper towel rolls Wow . . . its only Tuesday and so much is happening in our class.
Students are working on completing two projects in class this week- their owl stories and their documentary. For the owl stories, students have used their research to create a short story about the life cycle of an owl, a predator of the owl or a prey of the owl, Students had to get feedback from peers and use a rubric to do a self assessment. The second project, the documentary, students researched facts about an animal from one of their four countries. Using this information, students created a script, found pictures, and recorded their voice. Once videos are completed, parents will be able to see the videos on IRIS. This week students have started to think of their ideas for HEART TO HEART. On Monday, students put themselves into groups and began to brainstorm ideas of what their station could be. As a class we decided that the station needs to be interactive and scientific. Some of the ideas include a building a marbles run, solving a puzzle of a marble run, growing crystals, and creating a fooseball soccer table. In order for students to complete these projects for heart to heart, we would really appreciate some supplies. Below you will find a list of the supplies different groups will need to complete their projects. Please note, we have a member within the school community who has a severe allergy to latex. No items can contain latex including balloons. I understand that some students have began to create some of the items for Heart to heart at home, but please note I discouraged this UNTIL I had approved of their station. I only approved of stations yesterday and today. Prior conversations were for students to think of their ideas. Today I handed out mathletics information. I want to give a final push for students to use this tool as a supplement to the activities we are doing in class. Please let me know through email if there is anything that does not work. I have been fiddling around with students accounts adding assignments and taking assignments off. Tomorrow is mental health day. This is a day students can wear a hat to school o show support of mental health awareness. We will e having a small discussion tomorrow morning about mental health and why we need to show support. This can be seen as a sensitive topic, so I may direct students to ask you for more information when they come home if I feel that the questions they ask are not appropriate for the rest of the class. My conversation will be more focused around what is mental health and why we need to support each other and create awareness for others. Heart to heart donations Plastic cups Hot glue gun sticks Rope Small round magnets Glass beads Syran wrap Cardboard Small containers with lids (like you get at restaurants) Borax laundry detergent Pipecleaner Food colouring Straws String I will add to the list as students ask 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. 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.
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