Category: General Update

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for returning all of the many forms and notices. I know the beginning of the year we seem to have lots as we get settled. Thank you to the parents who volunteered to come with us on our field trip for October 6th.

Our week began with catch up, finishing work on the First Nations questions. Some people need more time, so please turn them in on Thursday. Tomorrow we will continue discussion about human rights, indigenous rights, and how these things affect quality of life in certain countries.

We also introduced the new WOW C Words, which included words such as combustion, which we talked about today during Unit Science!

During our class meeting, we heard ideas related to our ongoing committees, particularly for the upcoming Halloween Party the students would like to have. We also discussed that the upcoming main project for this unit will involve using stop motion. Student committees met during recess today and are asked to report back to the group again next Tuesday.

For science, we reviewed Energy and Matter using the handout Ms. D gave everyone last week, and then we discussed how rockets work! We discussed Newton’s Laws, thrust, friction, combustion, heat expansion, etc. Students drew pictures in their notes of what would make a great rocket design. We watched National Geographic’s video on How Rockets Work and had a discussion. Then we talked about how rocket engineers need to consider center of gravity and center of pressure when building a rocket.

To understand center of gravity, students built balancing sticks using coffee stir sticks, wire, and washers. Hopefully they brought theirs home to share with you! We also built paper rockets which we will launch tomorrow. If you want more information on rockets, check out this explanation on NASA’s website , or Math Fun’s explanation on center of gravity, the Physic’s Classroom explanation on Newton and forces and, if you really like advanced science, check out this explanation of how rockets work from Rockets in Schools. On the last one, check out the concept we discussed in class, that center of gravity has to be above the center of pressure on your rocket.

Due Dates/Reminders:

• Green Notice today
• Field Trip $ and Notice due Thursday
• First Nations Questions for Thursday
• WOW Letter B due already; WOW Letter C due Monday
• No School on Friday, Sept. 30th (Ms. D giving two workshops that day on the revised curriculum!)
• Celebration of Learning at 9:15 AM on Thursday, Parents Welcome
• Field Trip Thursday October 6th

Thank you!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a good weekend! With the rain and grey weather Ms. D spent quite a bit of time curled up reading. I hope you were able to find an interesting book to read, too!

No School on September 26th, Monday & September 30th, Friday.

If you did not receive it on Friday, when Ms. D was away, please see the following field trip notice for the Museum of Anthropology Field Trip on Thursday, October 6th. Parent volunteers are first come, first serve as I receive the notices on Tuesday. Please be sure to get all notices in as soon as possible, and do pay online whenever possible, as it is easier for accounting purposes at the office.

On Friday, students spent some time looking up information on First Nations groups in the Coastal areas of BC. If they would like to look at the website we used at home, please see the First Peoples of Canada Website. We are looking to become familiar with some of the First Nations groups, learn about potlatch, discuss indigenous rights in relation to our human rights discussion, and look at the Site C Dam situation in British Columbia.

On Thursday, we discussed energy by watching the video by Bill Nye on Energy Transfer, doing some experiments with marbles to discuss how energy is transferred through objects, and then watching Ms. D use a holiday toy windmill with a candle as we discussed how heat is transferred and creates kinetic energy. This coming week, we will continue talking about how energy transfers by looking at electrons, chemical bonds, batteries, and electricity.

Check your agendas and remember you have two things due on Tuesday!

And if you are trying to purchase some items through Scholastic, please know that the parent pay website was not showing my name, so if you want to send me your cheques you can. I have contacted Scholastic, so it should be fixed shortly. Thank you to the parents who brought this to my attention! If anyone does not feel comfortable using the parent pay option, you may give me cheques. Please don’t send cash for Scholastic, and make sure all cheques are made out directly to Scholastic, not to me.

Thank you and have a great week!

Hello Everyone!

Today everyone was introduced to two of Ms. D’s babies — baby gerbils, that is. 🙂 Little Grey and Squeak joined our classroom today and will be visiting on most weekdays, going home with Ms. D on the weekends. We had a long discussion about gerbils, how to care for them, what they eat, and many other great questions. I think the gerbils were a bit overwhelmed because they aren’t used to being here! But, they are now chewing away on cardboard and starting to settle in. I hope everyone enjoys them.

After the gerbil excitement, Michael and Peter led our first class meeting. Class meetings are great opportunities to introduce new ideas, talk about concerns, and take action on our learning. Today’s agenda included: Halloween Party (we formed a committee to plan it who will report next Tuesday), Games Club, Field Trip Suggestions and more. I let the class know that our first field trip is planned for October 6th to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology. A notice will go home on Friday.

We have been having great discussions about human rights this week. You may want to continue the conversation at home. What rights are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? How far does the right to express your opinions go? What does it mean to be tolerant of other peoples’ ideas? Do you have to be tolerant? Today, students compared the UN’s UDHR from previous discussions to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Does Canada’s document about rights protect all the universal rights mentioned by the UN?

We finished racing our rumblebot racers yesterday. Congrats to Michael’s car which placed 1st and Sylvia’s car which placed 2nd. Everyone did a great job! Today we watched some videos from the teacher who created the original idea for the rumblebot racer track, and here is one in which he explains the science behind a great rumblebot!

Great job running today during PE! We have worked up to 3 minutes of continuous running, increasing by one minute each time we meet in the gym. We also worked on games and activities to increase our reaction times and speed. Since it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day yesterday, we also played the game P-L-A-N-K. Everyone was well worked out by the end of class! We are all set for Terry Fox this Friday.

Please take time to read over the TUNING IN expectations for both students and parents at home! Using sources from my Articles of Interest page, students will be reading six articles of choice and reflecting on them in their yellow Tuning In booklets. Focus on the articles that are listed under our current unit Human Rights and Inventions, but you can choose some from the other categories listed, as well. Six reflections are due in two weeks on Tuesday, October 4th. Thank you to parents for reading along with your children and helping them learn how to reflect. We want to focus on thinking, reflecting, and questioning rather than just summarizing.

Last week, students provided input into what makes a successful learner, giving criteria for what great participation in MACC class looks like. I took the participation rubric from last year and adjusted it with their input. Take a look, and we can talk about this more during parent conferences Wednesday and Thursday. Participation and Work Habits Rubric 2016 MACC

Finally, since we are talking about human rights, and since we won’t just be focusing on BC and Canada but also looking internationally, a bit of geography and mapping practice can be a good thing! For fun, go to this site where you can practice your map skills across the world!

See you tomorrow at parent conferences! Don’t forget early dismissal at 2PM.

Thank you!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone,

Reminder to:

• Bring student forms in as soon as possible
• Bring the pink agenda form in saying you paid for the agenda
• Finish student goals sheet (was due today)
• WOW — Due Thursday
• Parent Conferences Wednesday and Thursday

Have a great night!

Hello Everyone!

I received a note in my inbox that let me know some students had questions about WOW and the use of textbooks for Math, so I thought I would answer it on the blog.

WOW:

Words of the Week is done once a week, unless we have short weeks. You receive words Monday and then it is due on Thursday. I noticed last year how much students really need to learn how to look up words, understand parts of speech, and use dictionary resources (paper or online.) To spice up our writing, we also need some interesting words. When reading current events articles and doing research, we need to know some larger words we are unfamiliar with from our daily reading. So, the purpose of WOW is to just expose us to new and interesting words.

There will not be spelling tests on these words. At the most, I will do a check in to see if you 1. Use the words during the week in your writing or discussion, and 2. Recognize the meaning of the words when I use them or when you see them in readings we do. I would just like to see you using new vocabulary!

In general, I am not a huge fan of spelling tests; however, I will cover spelling as needed if I see that students are struggling with certain words or language patterns.

Independent Math:

Assessments are done, and Ms. D is going through them to determine the best book for you to start in. We are only using the textbook because you will need to be familiar with what the textbooks cover when you get to high school. Many of you are working above grade level, but we need to make sure you haven’t missed any gaps. So, the textbook helps with having organized practice of certain subject matter and some quizzes to see if you have mastered concepts.

Each person will do this in a slightly different way, but everyone will work through some problems from the Math Makes Sense textbooks. If I assign you a unit, you will need to review the lessons, do some practice problems (not all), and then when ready, take the unit test to prove you are ready to move on.

Don’t worry, we will limit our time doing this, as we are going to do Applied Math in connection with our unit. Right now, we will focus on using math to determine how much power or work is produced (by you or a machine), as well as some math about flight. I think you will have fun. Stay tuned and be patient as we get started with our year!

If you have suggestions or questions, feel free to always send me an email or put a note in my inbox. Please put your name on it, though, so I know who to address. No anonymous notes, thanks. 🙂

Get your parents to check their email to ensure they received an email from me.

If you haven’t turned in your personal letter to Ms. D OR social media consent, please do so soon!

I hope you have a good evening!  — MS. D

Hello Everyone!

On agendas today:

• You have a confirmed parent conference time, so please see the agenda! If you do not have your time for any reason, please contact Ms. D.
• Please remember to pay for agendas online and to bring in the pink form saying it is paid
• Please bring in student verification forms as soon as possible
• Ticket Notice for PAC Carnival went home today
• Review the Human Rights Video we watched and discussed today
• Create some goals for the new year and fill out the worksheet MACC Goals for 2016 for Monday. Have Mom and Dad sign it and help, too!

On the MACC Goals, please use sentences to describe your goals. On the question that asks what your Learner Profile goal is, please talk about which attributes you would like to work on from the poster in our classroom.

• Do you want to be a better communicator (public speaking, working with others, writing, etc.)?
• Do you want to be more balanced (get enough sleep, balance between work and play, having down time)?
• Do you want to be more of an inquirer (asking deeper questions about your learning) or a thinker (joining in the discussion about deep questions in class)?
• Do you want to be more knowledgeable about a particular subject?
• Do you want to be more open-minded to others’ ideas, or be more of a risk-taker by trying new things?
• Or maybe you are working on being caring (reaching out to others, being a good friend, taking care of people) or principled (working on knowing right from wrong, making good decisions)?

Tell me about which one of these you are working on for this year and how you will do it!

Have a great weekend! Rumblebot race on Monday due to delay from Terry Fox run practice this afternoon, so work on those racers!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone!

We started today with W.O.W. (Words of the Week) which we will generally do every Monday or Tuesday. It involves looking in the dictionary and choosing 10 words students may be less familiar with, so we can broaden our vocabularies! One of the words will come from Ms. DeTerra’s new favourite book called The Disappearing Dictionary by David Crystal, which details words on the “endangered words species list.”

Due on Thursday: For each word, students need to find the part of speech (noun, adjective, adverb, verb, etc.), the definition (there may be more than one, so do up to 4), and the origin of the word (Old English, Latin, Foreign language). They must also use the word in a sentence. The purpose is to learn new words, practice using dictionaries effectively (we did it online today on the iPads using dictionary.com), discuss how languages have changed over time, and to practice using parts of speech. Also, we are often reading articles from current events, and understanding these words can help with comprehension! This week’s words are:

• alleviate
• altercation
• aphorism
• appease
• archipelago
• avaricious
• atypical
• augment
• axis
• attercop  (endangered word)

We are currently doing a read aloud in connection with our new unit, the book A Night Divided by Jennifer Nielsen. It is about a family who becomes divided when the Berlin Wall is put up in Germany.  Please do not read this book at home, as it will take away from our reading and discussion of the book together at school. Thanks!

Everyone shared out the 10 rights they thought our new planet should have (per yesterday’s blog entry), and we discussed the pros and cons of each new rule. Ms. D challenged everyone to be a THINKER by answering: Where do the rules we make come from? How do we know right from wrong? Why isn’t it easy to make one set of rules that applies to everyone?

Then, students reviewed the United Declaration of Human Rights and compared it to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to see how they are different. Students were given a set of world situations, and they will have to figure out which article from either one of these documents can protect the right being given or denied to the person described. We are keeping all of these items in our blue unit binder, under the divider for “handouts.” The blue binder should stay at school for now, as the papers in it act like our textbook! If something is homework, Ms. D will say it is homework and ask students to put the item in their folder that can go to and from home.

Finally, we had our first gym class. We started with general fitness exercises. Our goal is to work up to 10 minutes of continuous running. We started with 1 minute today. Then we played a racing game called Rock Paper Scissors Race that involves quick reaction time! Our next PE time is on Thursday after lunch, so if you have a PE shirt it is a good idea to bring it for then!

Thank you to those of you who came to my office hours! When you come, if you need to speak with me, just let me know you are here so I am aware someone is waiting. If your question is quick, you can pop in and get your question answered, even if I am with someone, especially if you need to leave right away. If you are looking for a private, longer conversation, please wait outside on the porch after you let me know you are here, and I will try to wrap things up as best as I can if I know someone is waiting. I am always available for special appointments, so just email! Students with specific questions are welcome, otherwise, students need to wait outside so I can have private meetings. Thank you so much!

We will be having our Terry Fox Run on September 23rd, Friday. Please bring in toonies for Terry!

Parent Intake Meetings are on September 21 and 22! Notice will go home tomorrow. On September 21 early dismissal at 2PM and conferences from 2-7 PM. On September 22 late start at 9:55 AM and conferences from 3-5 PM.

No School on September 26th Monday and September 30th Friday.

Thank you and have a great evening!

Ms. D

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for bringing in your supplies today. We spent some time organizing them, putting names on binders, and setting up the room. Thanks to everyone for your patience as we get the classroom organized for a great year!

Today we handed out Reading Around the World folders. Please read over the expectations with Mom and Dad at home! Folders should be going home so you can use it as a guide for the 20 minutes of reading nightly. If you have any questions about the program, please let me know!

Students also had music today, and we will have music twice a week. The permanent schedule for music, library and PE is still being worked out. Tomorrow, though, we will have our first PE session in the gym. Library will not start until next Monday.

Students also began our math assessments today, and we will continue them tomorrow to find out what the best level for each MACC student to work on for independent math time.

Ms. DeTerra introduced KAHOOT, which is similar to TimePlay in the movie theatres. It was a great opportunity to get out the iPads for the first time, go over guidelines for using them, and then to play an interactive game about colour theory in preparation for art! Students can make their own Kahoots online if they wish and have opportunities later to share them with friends in MACC.

We started our first big unit! It is called Action for Human Rights. We will combine socials, science, math, language arts, and the arts by looking at the following focus statement:

Open-mindedness and innovative thinking create change in the world.

We will look at the following areas as part of the unit:

• Human Rights (Personal, Children, Aboriginal, International)
• Energy, Forces, and Inventions
• Creative and Critical Thinking
• How Action Creates Change

If you happen to know anyone who works in a field related to these areas, particularly in human rights, please let Ms. D know, as we like to have visitors to the classroom that make the unit a richer experience! Today students were given a task to open the unit: A new planet has been discovered and a portion of the Earth’s population will move there. But, there are no laws. Come up with what you think would be the 10 most important laws, rules, rights, etc. on this new planet. We will finish our conversation tomorrow!

More as the week unfolds! Tonight please go over Reading Around the World, think about bringing in a toonie for Terry for our cancer research fund, and look at the yellow notice regarding the upcoming Suncrest carnival!!

Ms. D