Day: January 7, 2016

Today we had another session of hip hop, worked on our debates and presentations, had our first music class of 2016, and then worked on geometry related to measurement and skyscrapers.

As a reminder to everyone about homework and managing work time at home:

• We often have bigger projects we are working on, and I give as much time as I can to work on these during class. It is important to use the class time well so you are not left with too much homework.
• If you are working at home, be realistic about how much you can do in a night. If you have lots of activities on a night, then maybe you won’t be able to do as much on a project that night.
• If you have lots of activities after school, make sure you talk together about being balanced and ensuring there is enough time for everything. Activities are fun! If you know you have them, though, plan ahead and use your down time, as well as the time in class, wisely.
• Make sure you are getting enough sleep so you can be well rested and then use the time in class well, when your brain is fresh.
• And if it is too much, or you are having difficulty of any kind, please use your skills as a good communicator. Come and talk to Ms. D about what you could do to manage things better. Maybe you misunderstood the assignment. Maybe there are easier ways to do what you are doing. Maybe if you communicate about needing more time, Ms. D can adjust the schedule and work with you so the work can be completed.

It is always my intention that projects are fun. Some of us like to put A LOT of time into our projects! While typically I would say 60 minutes is enough for homework in a night, with MACC students this could be limiting, depending on how passionate you are about a topic. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, though, and are regularly spending more than 60 minutes a night (not including reading or homework from other activities), then let’s talk about it together.

Our goal for Monday: Be able to start debating (meaning positive and negative speeches would need to be done) and present our machines slideshows. No more class time on these items after our session tomorrow.

Math Homework: Many of you have done it already, but page 6 and 7 in the Skyscrapers booklet I gave you can be done on the same piece of lined paper. We had a great discussion today about shapes, edges, vertices, and more. Does a cone have a vertex? If it isn’t a vertex, then what is the part at the top called? How many faces does a cylinder actually have? As we continue working on our skyscraper math, I invite you to look at pictures of buildings around the world for ideas and/or share any wonderings and findings you make online about the math, architecture, and engineering involved.

Check out the 21 tallest buildings in the world according to Popular Science Magazine

FSA Notice went home for grade fours today. Parents, please read and let us know if you have any questions. We will be doing this testing in class over the next two weeks.

Hip Hop Clothing: Students need black and white clothing for their outfits during the performance on Monday.

Thank you and have a great night!

Today we started talking geometry by playing a Battleship game! Why Battleship? Because this game involves the use of coordinates, which allowed us to talk about the x axis, y axis, how to write coordinates (x,y), quadrants, and number lines. While having fun, we used some math skills that can be helpful for other geometry activities.

Our geometry unit will involve a lot of measurement! To this end, we started today by reviewing measurement of time, as well as finding all the different ways someone can express the time of day. How do we express time in words, fractions, in analog form, in digital form, using military 2400 clocks, etc.? A great question came up — Why do we use the abbreviations A.M. and P.M. after the times? Also, why does Europe use a different way to tell time than we do in Canada? I challenged students to look up these times at home and bring in the answers tomorrow.

Finally, I gave everyone the first handout on Skyscrapers, and the homework is to read the first page and then do page 2 using lined paper. If you want to work ahead, you can, but I will give time in class to do the exercises in this packet, as well.

Debate speeches, positive and negative, are hopefully done by EOD on Thursday. More time for these in the morning, but some on the negative speech has been assigned for homework.

The machines PPT/Prezi hopefully will be complete by EOD Friday. More time for these tomorrow, but you may want to look it over at home.

Have a great evening! More hip hop tomorrow morning, so try to be on time and ready to roll to the gym.

Hello Everyone,

Sometimes in class, we diverge from our normal subject matter and talk about things that come up in conversation. These tangents are often great learning moments, and today was not an exception.

While Ms. D is not particularly political, students were talking about Donald Trump and laughing about some of the things he has been saying, as he is frequently in the news, and it brought forward an opportunity to talk about what it means to talk intelligently and with respect for other people. I read a portion of a magazine article that, while humorous and well written, also made it clear how politicians can use words incorrectly to gain attention.

I asked the class to reflect on and identify words they have heard being used incorrectly to refer to people and/or people’s faiths and backgrounds. Many of these words are not inappropriate and can be found in formal conversation or some of the articles they read online; however, when used incorrectly, words can be very hurtful.

In our future units, we will touch upon social studies topics that relate to our diversity as Canadians, to the many differences and similarities within our families, traditions, and backgrounds, and to the ways in which we create tolerance and acceptance for all types of people. In our class, we keep working toward a better understanding of how to be caring, open-minded, reflective, principled, and knowledgeable thinkers and communicators — because these characteristics allow us to function well as a community and lead to better success in our future lives, no matter what career or personal experiences we may pursue.

I encourage you to talk about these things as they come up, especially given students are going to be spending more time online as they get older, reading higher-level articles. They need these discussions to better understand what they are reading and the words they are using aloud in conversation.