Monday, 30 January 2017

Presentations this week!

This morning we were given the story starter: One morning when I was walking to school, I tripped and fell into a bush. All of a sudden I was transported to...
We had to finish the story in our journals. Some ideas we had about where we were transported to were:
- the year 1988
- the future where we saw ourselves as adults
- a video game
- the desert
- the Order of the Phoenix in Harry Potter

In math we had a pop quiz on multiplying by 4s and 5s. It will be important to practice our multiplication skills so we know our basic facts as we move into more complex questions.

We will be starting our presentations in social studies this week. 7 groups will be presenting between Wednesday and Thursday. The rest of the groups will present next week. We have started practicing what we will say and do during our presentations to make sure they show our best work.

A notice was sent home with students today regarding the lockdown that will be happening on Wednesday. Please make sure you review the information with your child.

Reminders:
- Pillars of Care assembly is tomorrow at 1:45
- Spelling tests are tomorrow. Practice, practice, practice!
- We have library tomorrow. Please make sure you remember to bring back your books
- Please return your report card envelopes
- Please make sure you are bringing your blue folders back to school.
- Lockdown practice is Wednesday afternoon at 1pm

Friday, 27 January 2017

Gong Hey Fat Choy

Today we learned about Chinese New Year. Here are some interesting facts we learned:
- It lasts 2 weeks and happens every January or February
- You spend lots of time with friends and family
- On New Year's Eve you have a big dinner. Some families set an extra place for missing family whether it is because they are away or have passed away
- You can give gifts of oranges or tangerines
- Each year has a different animal. 2017 is the year of the rooster
- The last day is celebrated with a lantern festival
- People set off firecrackers and fireworks to celebrate
- There are large parades that can feature a lion or dragon

We watched the story Sam and the Lucky Money about a little boy named Sam who goes out with his mother to celebrate Chinese New Year. Sam has been given lucky money in red envelopes. While he is out at the parade with his mother he accidentally steps on a man's foot. When he looks closer he sees that the man's clothes are dirty, he is covering himself with a blanket and he is not wearing any shoes. Sam and his mother explore the community by going to a bakery and store. Sam becomes upset because he doesn't have enough money to buy sweets or a basketball. When he is about to go home, he sees the man again. His mother gives the man a quarter, and Sam sees how thankful the man is. Sam decides to give the man his lucky money so that the man can buy himself a pair of socks.

We began an art project where we had a picture of a rooster (for the year of the rooster) that was divided into sections. Using pastel, we had the challenge of coloring in each section without the same color touching. Many of us found it quite difficult! We will finish our art on Monday.

One student who celebrates Chinese New Year brought each of us Lucky Candy in a red envelope. We were asked not to eat the candy until we got home so parents could check over the ingredients. They are as follows:
Glucose syrup, sugar, milk paste (milk, sugar, coconut oil), vegetable shortening (palm oil), artificial flavoring (contains emulsifier propylene glycol), salt, soy lecithin, egg white powder, stabilizer, color

Today we worked on finishing up our research projects. We will be going over presentation expectations on Monday and hopefully begin presenting on Tuesday. There will be more details on the blog next week.

Report Cards went home today. Ms. Binks made sure that all the report card envelopes ended up in backpacks! Please make sure you sign and return the envelope (please keep the actual report card at home) as the envelopes will be used for the June reports.

Reminders:
- Bring back report card envelopes
- Pillars of Care assembly is on Tuesday
- Spelling tests on Tuesday
- Library is on Tuesday. Remember to bring back your books!

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Frayer Model

This morning we started talking about a new way that we can show our understandings across all subjects. It is called the Frayer model. We start off with an idea or a concept and then have to define it, write down it's characteristics, give examples and then give non-examples. Non-examples are things that do not meet the definition or criteria. We had lots of fun finding non-examples today. For example for the concept of water bottles we came up with the non-examples of:
- pencils
- bins
- sandwiches
- garbage cans
- a cat sitting on top of a cactus
- a cup
- a donkey
- a house
- my hand

We continued to work on multiplication by looking at multiplying by 4. We talked about the 2 rules for multiplying by 4:
1) The answer will always be an even number.
2) You double the number you are multiplying and then double that answer. For example for 4x9 you would do 9+9=18 and then 18+18=36

We also talked about 2 more strategies you can use when you are solving multiplication:
- turn around facts
- drawing pictures
For turn around facts we talked about how the order of the numbers in a multiplication question don't matter. So if I know the answer for 4 x 5 then I know what 5 x 4 is.
For drawing pictures we decided to use pizzas. The first number in the multiplication question is the amount of pizzas (groups) you should have. Once you have drawn your groups you then add your toppings (the amount each group has in it). Once you are finished your drawing you can count the toppings and find your answer. For example for the question 3 x 4, I would draw 3 pizzas with 4 toppings on each of the pizzas. When I counted up all the toppings I would find my answer of 12.

We continued to work on our projects for social studies. We are hoping to be finished by Friday.

Reminders:
- Report cards go home on Friday
- Pillars of Care assembly is on January 31 at 1:45

Tuesday, 24 January 2017

Spelling Review Lists

Green Ninja Cats (You will be tested on 40 words)

  1.  over
  2. new
  3. art
  4. take 
  5. only
  6. car
  7. park
  8. hard
  9. barn
  10. card
  11. shark
  12. dark
  13. oh
  14. eyes
  15. date
  16. hold
  17. little
  18. work
  19. know
  20. place
  21. years
  22. rain
  23. mail
  24. wait
  25. paint
  26. chant
  27. paid
  28. sail
  29. goods
  30. services
  31. city
  32. country
  33. live
  34. me
  35. cool
  36. give
  37. most
  38. saw
  39. law
  40. raw
  41. jar
  42. straw
  43. draw
  44. India
  45. ocean
  46. title
  47. skip
  48. change
  49. very
  50. after
  51. things
  52. our
  53. just
  54. girl
  55. dirt
  56. shirt
  57. third
  58. thirst
  59. birth
  60. yellow
  61. add
  62. got
  63. life
  64. cycle
  65. pole
  66. wire
  67. fight
  68. seen
  69. eat
  70. right
  71. might
  72. sight
  73. tight
  74. flight
  75. bright
  76. lost
  77. far
  78. push
  79. pull
  80. light


Blue Berry Bananas (You will be tested on 40 words)

  1. high
  2. every
  3. near
  4. west
  5. dress
  6. best
  7. next
  8. else
  9. checked
  10. grand
  11. stand
  12. am
  13. matter
  14. forms
  15. value
  16. area
  17. between
  18. own
  19. base
  20. country
  21. plant
  22. slip
  23. lunch
  24. pond
  25. front
  26. thump
  27. inches
  28. yard
  29. stored
  30. motion
  31. expand
  32. calculate
  33. save
  34. school
  35. father
  36. keep
  37. safe
  38. grade
  39. reached
  40. raise
  41. theme
  42. scream
  43. easy
  44. cycle
  45. changes
  46. rock
  47. solve
  48. science
  49. beautiful
  50. cheerful
  51. harmful
  52. playful
  53. useful
  54. colourful
  55. thankfully
  56. joyfully
  57. helpfully
  58. painfully
  59. stressful
  60. feature
  61. crops
  62. resources
  63. renewable
  64. history
  65. lonely
  66. suddenly
  67. actually
  68. personally
  69. especially
  70. formally
  71. rapidly
  72. dangerously
  73. tenderly
  74. lovely
  75. nicely
  76. identity
  77. culture
  78. society
  79. accurate
  80. precise
Pink Fluffy Bunnies (You will be tested on 50 words)

  1. rolled
  2. fingers
  3. except
  4. speed
  5. questions
  6. catch
  7. itself
  8. bargain
  9. certain
  10. orphan
  11. fountain
  12. latitude
  13. longitude
  14. compass
  15. absolute
  16. equator
  17. compensation
  18. continent
  19. country
  20. India
  21. yourself
  22. maybe
  23. problem
  24. complete
  25. rather
  26. crowd
  27. since
  28. fresh
  29. piece
  30. cotton
  31. children
  32. heaven
  33. penguin
  34. commutative
  35. associative
  36. ecosystem
  37. community
  38. geography
  39. Asia
  40. multiplication
  41. usually
  42. character
  43. friends
  44. heard
  45. order
  46. villain
  47. become
  48. poison
  49. landform
  50. desert
  51. plateau
  52. mountains
  53. plains
  54. population
  55. happened
  56. remember
  57. measure
  58. abundant
  59. tropical
  60. destroyed
  61. possibility
  62. grasp
  63. quiet
  64. feast
  65. betray
  66. defendant
  67. immigrant
  68. assistant
  69. brilliant
  70. compliant
  71. extravagant
  72. ignorant
  73. artifact
  74. migration
  75. decadent
  76. excellent
  77. frequent
  78. impatient
  79. accident
  80. agriculture
  81. Canada
  82. scowl
  83. encounter
  84. soldiers
  85. tremor
  86. silent
  87. strapping
  88. spinning
  89. stopping
  90. forgetting
  91. expelling
  92. transferring
  93. equipping
  94. regretting
  95. sophisticated
  96. indicate
  97. throughout
  98. exhausting
  99. impatiently
  100. expectation








Spelling Review Sent Home

We continued to learn about multiplication by talking about multiplying by 3. We talked about 2 strategies you can use. The first is to double the number you are multiplying by 3 and then add the original number to your answer. For example if I had 3 x 7 I would do 7 + 7 = 14 then add my original number (7) to my answer (14). So 7 + 14 = 21 meaning 3 x 7 = 21
The other strategy we talked about was to skip count by 3s. Then we can count up or "jump" the amount of times we are multiplying by. For example for 4 x 3 I would first skip count:
0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24....
Then, starting at zero I would count up or "jump" 4 times. The number I land on would be my answer. So I would do 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12. Since I landed on 12 my answer is 12.

Today we had a pop quiz to practice our skills for adding, subtracting and multiplying by 0, 1, 2 and 3. This week we will continue to build our facts and learn more strategies for multiplication.

We have started our next phase of our India and Alberta projects which is "organizing". This is where we are actually organizing the information we gathered about our topics. We had a choice to create either a poster, powerpoint, non-fiction book or play to present to the class. We first had to create a plan about what our presentation would have in it to help keep us focused and on track. After our plan we were able to start creating! We need to make sure that our presentations:
- Have all the answers to our research questions
- Include cool facts
- Include pictures, drawings, games etc to make it more interesting to listen to
- Have questions to ask the audience
- Include something to make it stand out
We will be working on our presentations for the rest of the week. Next week we will begin to show the class all of our hard work.

We continued to read Mission Mumbai. Dylan and Rohit were visiting Rohit's bua which means "father's sister" in Hindi. We found out that Rohit and his mother did not like bua because of how nervous they were on route to her flat. Dylan kept calling her boa and comparing her to a snake. At bus's flat Rohit was very rude and outspoken. We learned from a conversation Dylan overheard, that bua pays for Rohit's education in American and doesn't like the new attitude he has. She is threatening to stop paying for Rohit and forcing him to stay in India to go to school. Dylan and Rohit are very upset about this since Dylan would lose his best friend and Rohit would not be able to go back to New York (which he loves).

Today each of us received a review list for the spelling words we have learned so far. Ms. Binks is going to test us on half of the words from the list to see if we are transferring what we learn from practicing into our writing and memory. Please make sure you practice ALL of the words since you don't know which ones Ms. Binks is going to pick. Our tests will be next Tuesday. There is also a separate blog post with the words.

Reminders:
- Report Cards go home Friday
- Pillars of Care Assembly is on January 31 at 1:45pm
- Mission Impossible in phys ed until Friday. Please make sure you are dressing appropriately and remember a hair elastic!!