Category: General Update

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know again that our District mail has been having issues. The blog works fine, though, so if you need to reach me, commenting here will work. Thank you for your patience, as mail has been down in the evenings.

Look forward to hearing some of the debates tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed making begleris with Mr. McKay today! Hopefully you had a good work period on debate writing, mysteries, inventions, and playground prep.

Oh, and I think I figured out what to do with the song we used for PE the other day, which may involve doing something for our Celebration of Learning on Tuesday (shhh, don’t tell anyone at school other than our class). We will see what you think……!?

See you tomorrow!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone,

Our District e-mail has been having some issues since last night. If anyone has not been receiving my e-mails (I sent a few recently) it may be because of these technical difficulties! 

Quick Update:

• Debates Thursday afternoon (more time to write/practice on Wed.)
• Mystery stories are due Friday EOD (more time in class W, Th, F)
• Applied Math Quiz (very short) on Friday
• LIBRARY ON WEDNESDAY not THURSDAY due to YPC
• PINK DAY tomorrow, so wear pink for house points!
• SOCIALS: If you haven’t turned in your socials questions, make sure they get in ASAP. Today we had a discussion about apologies that have been made for discrimination and when/how apologies should be made. Does apologizing make a difference? What can an apology look like? Finish the handout and turn in tomorrow if you didn’t finish today.
• FRENCH: Fill out and review handout 3 & 4 for Thursday
• PLAYGROUND: You will draft a layout and equipment design tomorrow
• ART: If you need to see an image while doing art, please print one so you can have it while continuing on our stacking cards sculpture.
• PE: Great job on our Katy Perry aerobic routine today!
• MUSIC: Ms. Hetrick assigned some research to do for next Monday.

Hello Everyone!

No SCHOOL TOMORROW! We are in full-on project mode right now as we end our unit. Here is a quick update:

• CSI Science quizzes were marked and sent home. Please return signed as soon as possible.
• Please finish at least two unit tests for independent math before end of term two in two weeks time. Thank you!
• Applied Math Packet 2/3 Quiz will be next Friday, February 24th. We will review during the week.
• Debates Tuesday, February 21st. Everyone should be done with at least paragraph two (out of five) of their one-minute speech. Please finish at least paragraph 3 this weekend. On Monday you will finish paragraph 4 & 5 and practice out loud.
• Playground research — Continue to work on finding ideas for your equipment. Most of you have your ideas already. Next week we measure the space, make a detailed drawing, and begin construction of our models.
• Mysteries — Everyone worked at least 1.5 hours today on their stories. The goal was to write the hook to the story and try to get one page done, where you introduce the characters and setting for your story. If you do not have at least the HOOK written, you may need to catch up at home. More time to write all next week, with the stories due on Friday, Feb. 24th.
• Brain Breaks — Don’t forget to take brain breaks while you are working on writing, okay? Work on writing in small chunks rather than all at once. Here is a link to the Top Ten Ted Animation Videos, so you can take a brain break! Or, better yet, go outside!!!
• SLEEP! — Here is a TED Ed talk on What Would Happen Without Sleep! Please always prioritize your sleep. You all worked hard today. If you are keeping up with the way Ms. D is chunking the assignments in class, then you shouldn’t have more than one hour of thinking or writing work to do before Monday. Make sure you get sleep and relax, too, as it is important.

Tonight:

• CSI Quiz Tomorrow: Please review your handouts from Crime Scene, Bones, Fingerprints, Burn Baby Burn, Handwriting, Glass Fracture, and Cake Caper. For Bones you do not need to know the formulas, but you do need to know how to change centimetres to inches.  (divide by 2.54, then divide by 12, make sure you do the remainder rather than a decimal)
• Math Quiz: Get it signed or do the upgrade per Ms. D’s instructions in class. Those doing upgrade resubmit before Friday.
• French Quiz: Tell Mom and Dad your mark, as it was all done online
• Library Tomorrow: Bring YOUR books!
• Movie Night on Friday February 24th.
• PE Tomorrow: We have a special PE tomorrow, so switched with Friday, because of our Rocks and Rings Curling program. Please bring runners for being inside the gym.

Hello Everyone!

1. Give notices about PAC movie event to Mom and Dad
2. Create a brainstorm (to show Ms. D tomorrow) about the CRIME for your mystery story.
3. Comment on the playground ideas blog with an idea about a game or activity you think we should do during our outside time. This was due Monday but some people have not done it yet. It counts as a homework assignment.
4. Think about ideas for the playground equipment you may be interested in.
5. Sorry, French Quiz tomorrow. 🙂
6. Applied Math Quiz #2 will not be until next week. CSI Quiz on Thursday Feb. 9th. We went over in class what items would be on the quiz. I will recap again tomorrow.

Have a good night!

 

Hello Everyone,

One of the things we need to work on as a MACC group is how we choose to spend our playground time at recess and lunch. Ms. D has noticed that when we all have activities to do, we have less conflicts; however, when we aren’t occupied with something to do, issues can come up.

Our class had a discussion today about playground time. People indicated things come up when waiting for the zipline, which is one of our favourite playground equipment options, because there are just too many people waiting for a turn. Others said that conflicts come up during group games, because some people are being excluded. Again, we all could agree that more is needed TO DO on the playground, so that our time is organized and fun.

So, everyone brainstormed some ideas of things to do. Ms. D asked everyone to take ACTION on this CONUNDRUM by doing some research and finding games or activities that would be fun to do. If equipment is needed, we can look at that. If something is needed from the school, then maybe we can make a school proposal. So, here are some of the ideas presented (game names and/or activities):

• Eagle Tag
• Sausage
• Mother May I
• Blob Tag
• Foosball Tournament
• Thumb ball (using the thumb ball from Ms. D)
• Skittles
• YEET
• Four Square
• Continuity Ball
• Shadow Tag It
• Kick Ball
• Spud
• Kick the Can
• Sidewalk Chalk
• Skipping Ropes
• Scavenger Hunt
• Red Rover
• Nature Crafts

For your thinking this weekend, please add games we can play. Add a name of a game and explanation and/or an internet link that explains the game or activity to the discussion comments below.

Hello Everyone!

CSI Forensics: This week, we had exciting labs about fingerprinting, fibre identification, and bone identification.

Thank you to Laura, our guest from the B.C. Coroner’s Office that services the province out of the SFU campus, for coming to the classroom and sharing details about her work and a recent case! We talked about DNA, how people are located, Missing Person’s reports, and more. Everyone asked great questions!

Also, we completed our fibre identification lab, which involved testing six different types of fabric (cotton, polyester, rayon, acrylic, spandex, and nylon) using flame, looking for smoke colour, burning behaviour, and smell. Each fabric has unique characteristics that allow forensic scientists to identify fibres found at a crime scene. It was great to see everyone learning scientific skills related to lab safety, careful observation, and the use of specific tools to handle items you are investigating (tongs, safety gloves, etc.)

Today, we used math to calculate whether or not a found set of bones belonged a specific male or female suspect! Next week, we will continue by dusting for fingerprints and looking at how tool impressions are used in the lab, as well. We will have a quiz on what we have learned from our labs during the week of February 6th. Students should have turned in and received back their labs so they can review them, unless they turned them in today. Please check your binders to ensure all labs have marks and have been submitted.

LA, Mysteries, Debate: 

Next Friday, we will have a quiz on the editing work we have been doing around the book Phunny Enuf, looking at quotations, dialogue, verb tenses, and more. Students will receive an example for editing similar to the practice ones we do every day. 

We have continued our discussion of ethics, and our most recent book to analyze was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. We had an interesting conversation about what the true meaning of love is and whether or not the main characters in the book truly care about one another. 

Our next step is to do an ETHICAL DEBATE! We will talk about persuasive language and arguments to help us, and then we will debate in teams of 3 people. Our debates will be over three different fairy tales that have some big, essential questions to ponder. Use the following links to review the stories. First, we have Jack and the Beanstalk, which asks whether stealing is ever okay. Should Jack have stolen from the Giant? Was that right? Then, we have The Master Cat (Puss in Boots) in which the key question is, is trickery (lying) ever justified? Finally, we have a Tibetan story called From the Elephant Pit which asks whether or not compassion or caring for others is practical (a good idea.) Students have told me which story they prefer to debate, and I will give teams next week. Teams will need to research further to find evidence to support a particular position around those questions. These will be shorter debates, and then we can do more if the class would like to do other topics!

We have identified the parts of an engaging mystery and analyzed Scooby Doo for these mystery elements. Ms. D will be reading short mysteries to you, but I also encourage you to find any of your own to read as examples. We will start our writing process for these mysteries next week.

ART: We are working on a special 3D sculpture with the dual themes of nature and games (by class vote) over the next three weeks. Be aware we will be using paint in class when you are choosing what to wear every day!

MATH: Everyone should be done with Applied Math Packet 1. We have been delayed on some of our math due to FSA testing, but we should be done by Tuesday afternoon. In the meantime, keep working on independent math goals. Make sure to ask Ms. D if anything is not clear on independent math homework. Next week we will mark applied math and discuss.

SOCIALS: We have talked about discrimination, Japanese Internment, and some of the history of immigration into Canada. Our next step is to discuss words like Canada Mosaic, pluralism, and multiculturalism. We will also learn about the Komagata Maru Incident. If you are interested in the Short History of Immigration Video we watched, here is the link. If you continue from that video to the second link that says part 2, you will be able to view the whole video. 

SIX WEEKS until break and end of term two. Time is truly flying! No homework this weekend at all. Have a great weekend and get outside to enjoy the milder weather!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone! 

Consensus! We used the consensus flow chart today to explore one tool that can be used for group decision making and/or problem solving. Everyone was given $1,000 (not for real, sorry!) and they had to come to consensus about how to spend all of it for our class. Tonight, everyone was asked to go over the consensus flow chart with someone at home and get it signed. If it is possible, try to use consensus in some way for family decision making. Talk about what it means to block, stand aside, have reservations, or come to an agreement. Here is a copy of the chart from Seeds of Consensus that we used today:

Analyzing a Mystery! We started talking about mystery stories and their structure today. To better understand them, we took some time to analyze a quick Scooby Doo episode, looking for story structure, setting, characters and their alibis, clues, distractions, red herrings, suspects, and other elements that make a story specifically a mystery. We will finish this in class tomorrow.

Fingerprinting! Today we talked about how fingerprints can be used for identification, looking at whether the prints have arches, loops, or whorls. By putting an ink fingerprint of our own on a partially-filled, white balloon, and then blowing it up to full size, we were able to look at our fingerprints as if they were under a microscope. Everyone was asked to analyze their fingerprint for specific characteristics and to solve the case provided in the handout.

Math: While grade four students took the Online Language Arts FSA, the rest of us worked on math. Students are working on a combination of independent and applied math. Almost everyone has taken a first unit test, and some people have even moved on to number three or four. If you have taken two unit tests already, then you did not have homework tonight; otherwise, please do 15-30 minutes of math to keep on track.

French: We have made flashcards for our body words, and there will be a quiz on Friday that has MATCHING and FILL IN THE BLANK questions. The matching part will be all the vocabulary in English matched with the vocabulary in French. The fill in the blank will allow students to put the correct French possessive in the blank with each word. We will practice as a group again tomorrow.

Tomorrow! More fingerprinting, more mystery writing discussion, and a guest from UBC Math will be coming in to do a short workshop in the afternoon! This is a free workshop provided by the UBC Math Department as well as the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences. They will present a set of interesting and challenging problems to students in groups, of varying difficulty, to students in groups of 3-4 people each. Along with the workshop leader they will work collaboratively to find solutions. 

Have a great night!