Bridge Challenge

Today we learned about 5 different types of bridges:
- tress bridge
- beam bridge
- arch bridge
- cantilever bridge
- suspension bridge

We looked at real life examples of each bridge, sketched a picture and wrote down some features. Here are the bridges:

Students were given a sheet today outlining our bridge challenge. Each student is expected to plan and construct their own bridge that spans 20 cm. Bridges should be portable so that they can be brought to school. A list of materials and the tests that will be performed are on the sheets. Bridges need to be completed and at the school by Monday May 8. Parents may help with construction however, should not be building for students. If you have any questions or require materials please contact Ms. Binks.

Thank you to all the families who came to our Math Night. The games and problems that we had out were focused on multiplication and long division. We will be having a review on long division next week so this would be an excellent skill to practice over the weekend!!

Reminders:
- May calendars sent home today
- Bridges due May 8

Questioning

This morning we started a new rotation of Daily 5 activities all around editing and revising. The different stations we will be working through include:
a) punctuation games - we work with a partner to correctly include ending punctuation and capitalization in either a dice game or a game similar to go fish
b) Capitalization - we have to answer questions and fix a paragraph to reflect proper capitalization. When we are finished we will make a flip book with examples of when you need to capitalize something
c) Spelling corrections - we were given a list of words from our spelling group that are all spelled incorrectly. We need to use our dictionary to fix the spelling and then edit some journal entries for spelling
d) Grammar corrections - Ms. Binks wrote out 3 different paragraphs that all need corrections based on spelling, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure or correct grammar. We have to copy out the paragraphs correctly in our books
e) Adjectives - we have been given sentences that include boring adjectives. We need to identify the adjectives and then write down juicy words we can use to replace the adjectives to make the writing  more interesting.

We will work through each station this week.

We continued to work on long division today. This would be a great skill to practice at home. Ms. Binks has some practice sheets she can send home if you would like. Please let her know with a note or email if you would like the practice sheets.

This afternoon we revisited the image collection of "Where Children Sleep"
We talked about the Bloom's Taxonomy of questions that has different types of questions ranked based on how much they get you thinking. Ms. Binks created a scale from 1-4 using specific questioning words. Level 1 being the simplest and level 4 being the most complex. We looked at images from the website and created questions that would fit in each level. Here are the 2 images we looked at:

Some questions from each level included:
Level 1:
- Where does he sleep?
- Find the shoes in the picture
- What is used as a pillow?

Level 2:
- Compare these bedrooms to your own
- Organize the bedroom in another way
- Identify 3 things that are different in the pictures then where you sleep

Level 3:
- Justify how it is a safe place to sleep
- How would you recommend to change the bedroom?
- In your opinion who has the better place to sleep?

Level 4:
- How would you adapt to these places if they were your bedrooms?
- Create a new place to sleep for each child
- Predict what daily life is like for each child

We will continue to work on our questioning skills this week.

Reminders:
- Math night is Thursday. You can sign up for one of two slots on the school website through your myCBE account
- Fun lunch orders are due Wednesday
- We have library tomorrow. Please bring back your library books

Mathletics

Today Ms. Binks showed us a new website that can help us practice our math skills. The entire school has a subscription so if you have siblings, they will have access too! It is called Mathletics. On the website we can challenge other students to see who can answer leveled questions the fastest, answer questions targeting specific math skills, play games and earn points and certificates. Ms. Binks can also track our progress and assign specific tasks for us to complete. If we are given assignments, we will not be able to do anything on the website until it is finished. We were given our login and password today so we can try the website at home. The website is: Mathletics 

We continued to work on long division today. Most students are still having difficulty remembering and following the steps. We worked through numerous examples. Here is a helpful video we watched that explains the steps...
Math Antics

Reminders:
- Early dismissal tomorrow
- Pillars of Care Assembly tomorrow at 8:15
- Fun lunch due on Wednesday

Lockdown Practice

Today in social studies we learned about 2 communities of people that live in the Andes Mountains. They are the Quechua Indians and the Uros. The Quechua live in high in the mountains and are farmers. They build terraces to make use of the limited land space for farming. They use animals like llamas and yaks to help in their communities. The women are known for their weaving skills and teach these skills to their daughters. The Uros are people who live on man-made islands on Lake Titicaca. The islands are made out of reeds. The reeds on the top layer of the land have to be constantly replaced because of how soggy and moldy they can get. It can be dangerous if the reeds are not replaced because people can fall through. The Uros use the reeds to make their homes, furniture and sleeping mats.

This afternoon we had a lockdown practice. Everyone did a great job but it is important to remember how serious lockdowns are and how quiet we need to remain.

Reminders:
- Our movie and popcorn day is tomorrow. Students need to return their green permission sheets for popcorn
- Fun lunch orders are due next Wednesday
- Bottle drive info sent home today
- Pillars of Care assembly is on Friday at 8:15
- Early dismissal on Friday

Long Division

This morning we continued working on our bunny art from last week. Today we cut out the parts of the head and the ears and glued them onto our backgrounds. We left a bit of space between each section. We then used stencils and created fun, bright glasses on our bunny. Here are a few of the finished products:

Ms. Binks loves our bunnies so much that she has hung them up in the classroom. They will end up at home at some point though!

Today we started to learn about long division. This is a way to solve division questions involving large numbers. It is important that students have a good sense of division, multiplication and subtraction to be able to work through long division problems. Ms. Binks will post a video link and some examples later in the week.

Reminders:
- Fun lunch orders due
- Parent council forms sent home
- Popcorn letter sent home

Hoppy Easter!

We started an art project today where we sketched a rabbit head. We then added details to our rabbit by using sharpie and drawing small lines to make it look like fur. Next week we will finish up by cutting out parts of our rabbit and gluing it onto a background.

Today we learned about the upcoming Easter holiday. We listened to a non-fiction book and then had to share some interesting facts about what we learned. Here are some of our facts:

1)  In some cities they do Easter parades

2)  Easter is usually on a Sunday in March or April

3)  Easter eggs can be a work of art

4)  Easter has many symbols that are about new life including rabbits and chicks

5)  Christians believe that Easter is about Jesus Christ coming back to life

6) Churches are decorated with flowers like Easter lilies

7) On Easter parades people wear decorated bonnets

8) The Easter bunny hides eggs for people to find or can give you a basket of candy

There is no school on Friday or Monday for students! Have a safe and fun Easter weekend!

Reminders:

- Fun lunch orders are due on April 26

- Flower fundraisers are due on Tuesday

- Spelling review test is on Tuesday

- Library is on Tuesday

Fact Families

This morning we were given a challenge for science. We had to build the tallest structure we could using only a sheet of tin foil. We were given some time to plan by sketching out what our tower would look like. Some of us found the actual construction of the tower difficult because of the tin foil. The towers ended up to be all shapes and sizes, however the tallest one was 54 cm tall. Ms. Binks was hoping that we would use our knowledge on secure and sturdy bases to help with the construction.

In math today we learned 2 more strategies to help with division. The first is fact families. Fact families are sets of numbers that can be used to create questions using only the numbers in the sets. If you know one of the questions, you should be able to create more questions. Today we used fact families to create 2 multiplication questions and 2 division questions. For example for the fact family: 3, 4, 12 I could create the questions:
3 x 4 = 12
4 x 3 = 12
12 / 4 = 3
12 / 3 = 4
Fact families help build off of our multiplication skills.
The second strategy we used was using our multiplication charts. For example for the question 80 / 8 we would go down the side of the chart to the 8, go across until we find 80 and then go up to find the answer which would be 10. Use the multiplication chart below to find the answers for:
a) 36 /6
b) 42 / 7
c) 60 / 12

In social today, we learned about the climate of Peru. We learned that there are 2 seasons: wet and dry. We learned that depending on the region, the weather can change. This is mainly due to the fact that the Andes Mountains block certain weather patterns. The coast region is very dry and cool. The rainforest stays warm and wet. Tomorrow we will be completing roadblocks based on the information we learned.

Today we were given a list of spelling review words. Students should have brought this list home. They will be tested next Tuesday. Ninja cats will be tested on 25 words, Blue Berry Bananas will be tested on 30 words, Fluffy Bunnies will be tested on 30 words. If you need another list please ask Ms. Binks.

Jump Rope for Heart prizes were sent home today. If you have any questions please contact Mr. Sadowsky

Reminders:
- Book orders are due on Thursday
- Flower fundraiser forms due next week
- No school on Friday and Monday
- Spelling review test on Tuesday

Seed Survivor

We have finally filled our marble jar!! We decided to have another movie afternoon as a reward. We will be voting on movies to watch tomorrow.

This morning we had a special presentation from Seed Survivor. Some of us were familiar with it since it was also at Aggie Days. We were split into groups and were taught about the components of soil that are very important for plants to grow or we were able to play games all about healthy plants, crops and the water cycle. At the end of the presentation each of us were given a sunflower seed that we planted. Here is the Seed Survivor website if you would like to play the games online at home or get some growing tips for your sunflower: Seed Survivor

We continued to read Mission Mumbai today. The chapter was a little hectic and scary because the movie theatre that Dylan, Rohit and the Lals were in caught on fire during a blackout. Dylan was almost trampled in the crowd, but Rohit came back to save him. In doing so, they became separated from Rohit's parents. We are all hoping that they can become reunited in the upcoming chapters.

In science this afternoon we were given a task of trying to build a study and tall wall using dominos. We were put into groups and had to come up with a way to stack our dominos like bricks to build the tallest wall. Only 2 groups were able to build a wall that was higher than 50 blocks. The next task we had to do, was build the wall using the same design until it was stable. Then Ms. Binks came around and knocked the desks we built on to see which design remained standing. We discovered that the walls that used flat dominos were the most stable because the base was the widest. We talked about how when a structure has a stable and wide base, it makes the structure stronger and more stable.

Reminders:
- Book orders are due Thursday
- Library tomorrow. Please return your books
- Flower fundraiser forms due next week
- Book drive forms sent home today

Building joints

Today we continued to work on our division skills. We learned the strategy of turning a division question into a multiplication question to help us. We decided this would be a great strategy to use since multiplication is much easier for most of us to use and figure out. Here is an example of how to do this strategy:
If I have the division question: 18 / 2 = ?
I can turn it into a multiplication question by changing the = into a x and the / into a =. Then I would have the question: ? x 2 = 18. Using this method I then know my multiplication facts and can figure out the 9 x 2 = 18 so 18 /2 = 9
We did a few examples where the ? were throughout the questions. We will continue to practice this skill next week.

In science today we did an experiment where we were testing the strength of different materials for the joints or connections of the sides of cubes. In groups, we were given straws and either plasticine, paper clips or pipe cleaners. We used these materials to connect the straws together to make cubes. We then tried to balance weight on top of the cube by placing a folder then blocks. We soon discovered that some of the cubes couldn't hold shape or any weight. The plasticine joints were the strongest and the paperclip joints were the weakest. We discussed how builders would need to think of the purpose of their building because having more flexible materials can be helpful in things like bridges, swings or even buildings in earthquake areas.

In social today we reviewed the 3 geographical regions of Peru:
- Costa (coast)
- Sierra (mountains)
- Selva (rainforests)
Ask me to tell you at least 2 interesting facts about each region.

Reminders:
- Please return your orange forms about your plans for next year
- Flower fundraiser forms are due April 18
- Book orders were sent home today. They are due next Thursday
- No school for students next Friday

Division

This week we have continued our study on Peru through the Amazing Race. We watched a video about the Amazon Rainforest. During the video, we had discussions about interesting facts we heard. We were able to write down facts or draw pictures from the video. Working in our teams, we then had to answer 36 true and false questions using the information we wrote down. If one team gets 100% they can earn a fast forward in the race!

In science today, we had a new client who was looking for strong pillars in the construction of a portico for his house. A portico is a roof over a porch or step that is supported by at least 2 pillars. The client wanted to know if he should use cylindrical pillars, rectangular pillars or triangular pillars. In groups, we were given one of the kinds of pillars to build out of paper and asked to put a whiteboard on top of the pillar and stack different weights on it. We quickly discovered that certain types of pillars were much stronger than others. The triangular pillar held 220g, 250g and 260g. The rectangular pillar held 480g and the cylindrical pillar held 1351g and 2374g. Here are some pictures of the weights the pillars held:

 

Today we started to learn about division. Division is when you take a number and split or divide it into equal groups of smaller numbers. It is very important that you remember that each group needs be equal. We practiced today by using blocks and dividing the blocks into equal groups to determine how many blocks would be in each group. The first number in a division question is the total number of blocks you have, the second number is how many equal groups you are splitting the blocks into and your answer is how many blocks are in each group. We will continue to learn different strategies to help us with division before we move onto long division.

Thank you again to all parents who volunteered for our field trip yesterday! Everyone had a wonderful time! If you took any pictures of your group please email them to Ms. Binks.

Reminders:
- Flower fundraiser forms were sent home earlier this week
- Parent Council is looking for volunteers for the May carnival. A letter was sent home regarding this

Aggie Days Field Trip Tomorrow

Tomorrow we go to Aggie Days! A few students still have not returned their permission forms. Please make sure you bring your forms tomorrow...otherwise you will be staying at the school.

Students need to make sure they bring:
- a backpack
- a water bottle
- a packed lunch
- a sweatshirt or light jacket
- comfy running shoes

The bus will pick us up at the school around 8:45 to take us to Aggie Days. We will then be picked up to come back to the school around 1:30 so we should be back well before the bell.

Please make sure that you do not send money with students. They will not be purchasing any food, drinks etc

If you are volunteering, please be at the school by 8:30 tomorrow morning!