Day: October 30, 2015

Start Thinking About Machines and Technology

Our next unit is on machines and technology. Please think about the following in advance to help support the unit.

1. If anyone knows someone who belongs to the Association of Engineers in BC and could help me to gain contact with the organization, please let me know. Also, if anyone knows someone who works in electronics, technology, or anything to do with making machines of any kind, please let me know if they might be interested in coming in. Please consider if the person is able to talk with young children and is a good speaker, too. Thank you for your help!

 

2. If you have any packaging that comes into your home or things you might be looking to get rid of that are on the list below, please save it somewhere, as I will be asking for it at a later date for building projects:

  1. long tubes (cardboard, plastic, gift wrap, paper towel)
  2. lego, knex, blocks, marbles, any building supply
  3. milk jugs, cleaned out completely
  4. broom handles
  5. wood dowels of any kind
  6. bamboo sticks/skewers
  7. clothes pins
  8. circular cardboard pieces
  9. shoe boxes
  10. straws
  11. wood sticks (popsicle sticks)

 

3. In addition, we are short on the following types of supplies, and it would be helpful to have more in the classroom:

  1. rulers (using metric and inches)
  2. white erasers
  3. scissors (standard sharp scissors that actually cut, as the small kid scissors don’t do well when building — there are packs of three at Michael’s for $4.99)

 

Thank you for thinking about this now as we get into some exciting building and making projects. What we can do sometimes depends on what I can gather and find!

Happy Halloween! Friday October 30th

Happy Halloween everyone! We had a great day today, with pumpkin carving, a costume parade, watching the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, and having community-building time as a class. Many thanks to our Halloween Party Committee, including the help of Michael, Amy, Sophia and Cynthia who either organized the notice to go home, collected information about what people were bringing, helped decorate the classroom, or brought the movie to show today. Thank you to all of the parents who supported their efforts, and thank you to all students for bringing in food, goody bags and drinks to share. Many people dressed up today, and our costume contest prizes went to Michael and Daniel. I hope you all have a Happy Halloween!

We worked on our unit projects today, as well, and I let everyone know we will extend the deadline for the projects to Tuesday end of day. Homework is to continue working on these at home. Please do not get help from parents and also please do not plagiarize by using either web articles or someone else’s electronic work. Thank you for being principled during this project.

Today most of the students received their first body systems project back along with the rubric and notes from Ms. D. If you didn’t get it today, then I missed getting it to you before our Halloween festivities, as I was talking one-on-one with each student. I will give them to you first thing on Monday. If you did receive yours, please have Mom/Dad sign the rubric and bring it back, as that will be a homework mark and we want to include these projects in our portfolio.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Reminders on October 29th

Happy Birthday to Ella! Thank you for bringing in some great cupcakes for us. If anyone missed getting one at the end of the day, we have saved them for tomorrow’s party.

Today we continued to work away on unit projects using laptops and iPads, had a session of French online, played Deal or No Deal using mean and probability and Ms. DeTerra’s secret excel document that automatically plays the banker (ask your child tonight!), and had music class with Ms. H. It was a busy day and everyone is also excited for tomorrow.

Tomorrow students may come in their costumes, or if they feel more comfortable, change later in the day before the costume parade and party. We will be starting a movie before lunch and then having open activities after music class. Pumpkin Carving is first thing in the morning, so please bring your pumpkin cut on the top, scooped out, cleaned, and outlined with a face for the carving activity.

Tuning In Booklets are due tomorrow. Projects are due on November 2nd, EOD. Tonight everyone identified in their agenda a specific task to help with their project work at home. If students do not have a USB, they should get one, as it will allow them to better do work on the computers at school.

Have a lovely evening and I look forward to seeing the costumes tomorrow! There is a contest, so top two costumes will get a prize. 🙂 Ms. D promises not to vote for herself.

As a side note: If for any reason you don’t celebrate Halloween, that is okay, please join us anyway for snacks, as that is part of community building. During our movie there can be alternative activities such as iPad, quiet reading, project work, games, etc. See you tomorrow!