Month: March 2016

Hello Everyone,

Today, we looked to finish our math scale models, had our next Literature Circle meeting, worked on narrative stories, continued creating our ZINES, and had a great PE lesson from Michael and Peter on football!

Report cards were distributed today, and please get your parents to sign the envelope and return it to class by Friday,  March 11th.

Tonight, choose whether you would like to work on developing the draft of your narrative for 15-30 minutes OR work on your math scale drawing. By Friday end of day, we would like to have drawings done and a rough, rough draft of our narrative done. We will continue working on making a final draft when we return from Spring Break.

On Friday, we will have our next Literature Circle meeting, and I will give you time in class tomorrow to do the assignment. It is a good idea to do your reading for the next meeting tonight.

On Friday, we will have free choice PLUS SNACKS! Each person in the class is committing to bring something so we can enjoy it during free choice and celebrate us going to Spring Break! Please let Ms. D know what you are bringing before end of day Thursday. Only bring a small amount! Last time we had too much. No pop/soda allowed.

Thank you and have a great night! I will be posting about an event at KidsBooks later about our Lemoncello book we read, because you can meet Chris Grabenstein who is coming for an author visit at the store on Broadway!

Hello everyone, my name is Jay and I will be writing the blog post today.

Math: In the morning we worked on our scale drawings. It is expected for you to have straight lines, proper 90 degree angles, and a key that shows your scale factor on the drawing. It is a good idea to circle or put a square around your key so Ms. D can find it when you turn it in. Use fine liner to go over pencil lines. If you think you are way behind then homework is to work on it.

Library: Today we returned our library books and checked out new ones. There were 6 overdue slips handed out so we should work on returning our books back every week. The next book exchange is three weeks later on Tuesday March 29th. If you forgot your books you could go to the library at lunch tomorrow and on Thursday. PLEASE do not forget your library books when we come back.

Literature circle: Today Ms. D gave us time to work on lit circle. Make sure you are putting enough detail into your answers for lit circle, as Ms. D had to hand back a number of papers today for re-dos. If you have the question role for the next meeting, you will lead the conversation with questions. The next lit circle meeting is tomorrow.

Art: In the first part of art Ms. D taught us how to draw 3-D shapes. (like cubes, cylinders, etc.)  Then we made ZINES! We used this website to see how zines were made. Zines are miny magazines (aka fanzines) which you give out to people and use them as trading cards. Many zines also communicate a theme, message, and/or belief that you want to share with others. We will make one copy and then Ms. D will help us photocopy them so they can be shared.

Genetics: We will be going to the genetics lab of the BC Cancer Agency on April 22nd. Notice will be distributed March 29th after break. Today in Science/Genetics we had a sheet of paper which had the genetic traits of a dog. We talked about how DNA is made up of chromosomes, which have many genes on them in a certain order. These genes and their order give us our traits (hair colour, left handedness, etc.) Then we were given a envelope where you were supposed to choose a chromosome strip (which were symbols in different orders) and match that them with series of genes for each dog trait (body shape, hair colour, legs, etc.). We are going to see how many different kinds of dogs we can breed. Homework is to draw the dog on a full page (on the back of the handout.)

Extra notes:

• Pizza Day is tomorrow.
• Do two paragraphs on your Narrative.

Have a great evening!!

Hi everyone, I’m Peter and I am doing the blog entry today. Ms. DeTerra was not here today because she was sick. Thanks to Mr. Lucarello for subbing in for her.

Here’s our day:

We started of our day by reading until the music from the speaker was over, remember, when you come in everyday, read the instructions on the board and take out a book to read.

Then we did MATH, which is our scale drawings. NOTE: Scale drawings are due on Wednesday. We worked on them until recess, if you need help doing them, check here, and go to the math section of our Articles of Interest.

It was inside recess because of rain. After that we had SILENT reading.

Later, we had our Lit Circle Meeting. When meeting, make sure everyone is participating and doing the right role. Make sure everyone contributes something to the discussion that shows they have read the book, and try to ask one another deeper questions that keep the conversation going. When we finished we started working on our activity for our next meeting, which is on Wednesday.

After that we had lunch, this time it was outside. After lunch, we had buddies, when we did math flashcards to help them with basic math facts. Our buddies were at Primary Days of Music until lunch.

Right after that we had P.E. where Vlad and Daniel did a lesson for the class on soccer. Thanks a lot for that fun lesson! Next lesson on Wednesday will be presented by Me(Peter) and Michael. What are we doing? Well, that’s a mystery.

At the end of the day we worked on drafting our narratives on an immigrant or explorer experience. They should be finished by the end of this week.

Try to answer these questions! If you can try do it for the whole week on the blog (responding to each update blog entry) that would be good:

• Write your favorite part of the class
• Write something you learned in the class
• (optional) Share an article you saw that you liked
• When will you do your P.E. lesson (Mondays and Wednesdays)? Pick a next date that has not been taken yet!

Have a good day, but bad news, it will probably rain tomorrow:(.

 

Hello Everyone!

Class Meeting:

We had some great discussion today as a whole class about the following:

• Safety and appropriate behaviour when using google hangouts (Ms. D does not monitor any of those conversations, as this is not something we use as a classroom tool; however, please do come to me if you have any concerns.)
• Zones of Regulation — Learning how to monitor our emotions as they change from Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green, and adding words to our vocabulary to describe our emotions to others
• Field Trips — Please get parents to respond to the field trip survey
• Easter Plans — Everyone is interested in doing some egg dying, crafts, and a pizza day for the class

Language Arts:

We finished Lemoncello!! There is a book two called Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics, and we voted to check this one out from the library and do a read aloud during term three. Our new books to read for Literature Circles have been passed out, groups have been formed, and assignments have been given for our first Lit Circle Meeting on Thursday, March 3rd. Please take good care of your books, as you are responsible for replacement, just as with any library book.

Unit Work:

We continued our work on making a personal narrative related to immigration and/or explorers. Today, students brainstormed details for their story under Character and Setting. They had to answer these questions:

• Who is your character based on? (historical fiction)
• What is his/her name (if renamed)? (remember YOU are the character)
• Where did he/she live?
• Where did they go or where will they go?
• What are the push/pull factors involved?
• What is their description? (appearance, age, occupation, likes/dislikes, personality, etc.)
• What was their homeland like? (Biome? City/Village? City vs rural? Water nearby? Farms?)
• What is it about their homeland they will miss (on their journey or by leaving)?
• What is it about their homeland they want to leave?
• What is the place like where they will go?
• What is their home (living place — house, town home, shack, etc.) like?
• What is their transportation to the new place like? (airport, ship, train, etc.)
• What is the first place they go when they arrive in the new place? (airport, Pier 21, a new city, border checkpoint, etc.)

Math:

Everyone received their white scroll paper to begin working on the floorplan/rendering of the building they have designed. Each group needs to use one side of the paper and fit both a footprint and a rendering on that one side. The footprint is the outline of the base of the building, and it marks entryways, elevator shafts, stairs, outside outline, etc. The rendering is a picture of the actual building in colour. The drawings need to be to scale. Typically, imperial is used, but you can also use metric if it is easier to do the conversions. Start with the size of the building in real life and then look for how you will represent that distance with a smaller measurement amount on the paper, just like we did for the classroom. For example, how much distance will 1cm equal on paper? There are example boards to view in class and articles about scale models under Math in Articles of Interest.

Have a good evening!!!