Update April 17th, Tuesday

Hello Everyone!

Here are a few updates of what is going on in class!

Economics and Finances!

We are learning all about how to make a budget and live in the real world! Each student has been assigned a job with a salary. They learned very quickly that the government takes its share through taxes to pay for the many services we enjoy. Everyone recorded their debits and credits in a cheque register, to keep track of their personal budgets. Each day counts as another week’s salary! And each day, students draw from the situation box, as in real life financial situations come up by surprise, both good and bad.

Yesterday, we talked about inflation, and today we related it to the housing situation in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Everyone investigated places to live. We talked about mortgages and loans, and most students realized quickly the best idea, if you didn’t have a lot of money to make a down payment, was to rent. So, hopefully everyone chose a rental nearby, taking into mind its proximity to public transit, the monthly rent, furnished or unfurnished, etc. Then everyone recorded their first month’s rent.

In general, there has been a lot of complaining about having to spend so much money to live, and we haven’t even really looked at food, utilities, and transportation costs! Whew! Life is expensive! Tomorrow we will discuss buying a car or taking transit.

In connection with this discussion, we are learning mathematics related to percentages, decimals, multiplication, division, and ratios. 

EXCEL:

Ms. D shared with everyone a sample EXCEL budget she uses to keep track of her funds for teaching the program, and the class discussed how to merge cells, use formatting features, and put in a basic formula for either addition or subtraction. It is not required, but if anyone wants to spend 15-30 minutes maximum looking at excel tutorials, search on YouTube — “Excel beginning tutorials” or “Excel for Kids.” We will continue this work on Thursday.

MACC MALL:

The hope is to use our financial information, budget skills, critical thinking, and EXCEL to create a produce and sell it at the MACC MALL! So far, students have been asked to think of a small product they could make.

  • Each person will receive $100 in start up funds.
  • To make the product, they will need to pay for supplies, with prices being set by the MS. D BANK.
  • NO SUPPLIES CAN OR SHOULD BE PURCHASED FOR THIS PROJECT.
  • The only type of supply that is free is CARDBOARD and RECYCLABLES, which have to be approved by Ms. D and can be brought from home.
  • All labour on the product must be done at school. If anything comes from home already made, a labour fee will be charged.
  • A $5 patent fee will be charged. Each student needs to fill out a patent application. One way to save money and have more funds is to combine efforts with another student!
  • A business license will be required for $2.
  • A safety inspection of products is required for $4. 
  • A rental fee will be charged for the space at MACC MALL (which will be given a better name soon).
  • The use of scissors, markers, rulers, pencils, fine liners, coloured pencils, pencil sharpeners, hole punch, and regular glue sticks is free.
  • The use of paper, hot glue sticks, popsicle sticks, yarn, specialty tubes, masking tape, duct tape, safety pins, thread, felt, sequins, rubber bands, clips, and the many other materials that Ms. D will have available in class all have a per item use fee, which will be posted clearly.
  • Advertising posters are $2 each, or $5 for one large one.
  • All expenses need to be documented carefully in an EXCEL document which will be turned in to show if you made a profit or not.
  • Drawings showing your applied design process and the patent application also need to be turned in.
  • A rubric for performance will be provided in class and discussed.

WALKING!

Great job so far walking! We have 90 minutes and we will keep going on this tomorrow! Remember the wrap up day is May 12th.

DRAGON BOATING!

Thank you to everyone who volunteered to drive for dragon boating. It looks like we have enough drivers. If you are driving the school needs a driver form on file, so I have sent one home with students. If you are participating as an adult, please just fill out another copy of the student waiver form, as that will be fine. I will be in touch with everyone who volunteered to drive or participate later this week.

LANGUAGE ARTS, SOCIALS & SCIENCE:

Skills in these three areas will be intertwined into our MACC MALL project, but we also have a few other things we are working on.

Everyone designed a superhero related to the periodic table of elements. These are now overdue, so please finish them up and bring them in! We will be writing a short description of each superhero and its powers related to our research. Thank you for your great creativity!

We will be doing some discussion about government and resources, hopefully talking a little about what is going on with the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

We are also prepped to do our crystal experiment and all the jars are ready to be filled up with solution tomorrow! I look forward to seeing the Borax crystals.

A question for everyone: Why is it important to know the qualities of rocks and minerals? How does this scientific knowledge help us?

CARING COMPETITION and STAMPS:

As a reminder, we are doing daily stamps on the agenda (unless Ms. D is not here). The students choose which stamp to put on, not Ms. D. This is about self-reflection on our day, and I encourage everyone to discuss how the day went according to the stamp. What could you do to get the next level stamp? How do you know when you had a good day? 

We are going to be having a bit of a CARING competition in class, which will be conducted weekly. Ms. D will explain tomorrow in class, but I hope it will be a fun way to notice how we are being caring to one another!

Have a good night!

Ms. D