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Hello Everyone,

For April 28th Student Led Conferences, your children have come up with some great ideas of how to share work with you!  In order for it to be successful, though, we need to have less people in one of the sessions — most of you have signed up for 2-4 PM, which at this point is now over full. If any of you who said you were coming in from 2-4 can volunteer to come in the 5-7 PM timeframe, that is helpful; just let me know via email. If you know you are coming at a specific time, please let your child know or tell me via email so I know if we are spaced out enough for attendance. Thank you for your help accommodating your children’s creative student-led ideas!

Also, we have had an item go missing from class and we are trying very hard to find it. A student brought in a precious rock to share — it is an egg-shaped and sized, polished shiny stone with a cracked center. I have asked all students to please help me look for the item. Thank you for your help!

Tonight, students are looking up cheap crafty ideas for items they can sell at our MACC MALL. We are still finishing activities from this unit, including rocks and minerals and government, but I have asked them to begin thinking about our end project, which will be to produce their own product. To make the product, they need to get a patent for their idea, have the product safety-tested by our government committee, make a budget for costs and set a price, do market research using a survey, and advertise the item using a poster, mini movie, or simple skit. We will be inviting other classes to come in and spend tickets to purchase the items when they are complete.

Please ensure all work is turned in — some people have not turned in the Fishing Log from last week, and others are missing Lit Circle assignments. Ms. D has returned a lot of work and will be giving more tomorrow. If you want to improve your mark, you are welcome to re-do the work or add to it to receive an upgrade — just please do it before we finish this unit so we can move on to our next set of activities.

Have a great night!

Ms. D

Please note change in times! Student Led conferences will be in an open house style, run by the students (not me!) You can come at any time between 2-4 PM, or from 5-7 PM.  Thank you!

Hello Everyone,

Today we talked about rocks and minerals, and we had an opportunity to look at several cool collections of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks. We will continue doing more work on this for science in coming days. Today we also spent time building our models, and boy, the classroom was quite the workshop of activity all morning! Tomorrow, we will talk mainly about government and have time for our next lit circle meeting, music, math budgeting, and finishing our resources work.

Upcoming project will be deciding on a product we could sell as part of our MACC Mall. Students will design and produce a product and then sell it to other students in the school during designated times, with the use of pretend currency/tickets. To create the item, a budget will have to be followed (thus, our work on excel), an advertisement of some sort must be done, and supplies/labour must be paid for as part of production costs. More on this soon! Also, another project will be when we finish the Lit Circle book, choosing one of several presentation methods to talk about the book and convince others to read it.

Upcoming dates:

April 22 — Field Trip to Genetics Lab

April 25 and 26 — no school for professional development days

April 28 and 29 — early dismissal at 2PM

April 28 — student led conferences; notice to come to you Monday about coming during our MACC 4/5 open house time, so your child can share with you work we have done

Homework:

Please bring a rock to share (backyard, from a collection, picture of favourite, etc.)

Prepare for Lit Circle Meeting

Find more materials for your scale model in math

 

Have a good night!

IMF: Trading Around the World Game

PBS: Don’t Buy It

PBS: Don’t Buy It Food Advertising Tricks

PBS:  Don’t Buy It Shopping Bag Tips

Social Studies for Kids:  Economics Terms and Articles

Article from Peter from Global TV about Canada’s Central Bank: Canada’s Sells Off Gold Reserves

Article from Peter from Star Online about Canada’s Federal Budget: Winners and Losers

 

Hello Everyone,

Homework/Reminders:

• MACC Letters and Field Trip Notices due April 11th
• Finish doing your budget for the cookie mining activity, find out how much money you made (profit), and begin to answer questions on worksheet.
• Prepare for Friday Lit Circle Meeting
• Did you finish and turn in your water flow chart today? Did you finish your water usage chart assigned Tuesday?

The last two days, we have been talking about resources as we continue our conversation about how we obtain our needs and wants. Each student is reading a packet on one of three resource types to become a specialist on forestry, mining, or fishing. Students are also doing a water chart to record how much water they are using. Today, we had a great discussion about the water cycle and where water goes after you use it. Students were asked to complete a water flow chart to show the journey of water and turn it in to Ms. D. If you didn’t turn it in, then you need to finish by end of day tomorrow.

We also discussed MINING and the finding of mineral resources. What is needed to get the mineral resources we rely heavily upon for the making of products we enjoy? Students brainstormed all the parts of the system of mining, including excavation, surveying, processing, reclamation, and more. We then participated in a COOKIE MINING activity, in which each student was given a pretend $20 to start a mine and had to choose a type of land to purchase (type of cookie), tools (for a fee), and pay for labour, time, and reclamation for the land. The goal was to try and make as much profit as possible by mining and selling your chocolate chips. As a bonus, we ate our mines at the end. Chocolate chip cookies are always delicious. Homework is to finish the budget and begin to answer questions from the activity sheet.

Yesterday, Ms. Larsen, one of the District’s LGBTQ teachers and consultants, came to lead us in a conversation about diversity, gender, and discrimination. Thank you to everyone for participating in this deeper conversation about how the words we say matter and do affect people.

Thank you to Max’s Dad Mr. Lee who came in today to share with us some information about the company he works for, Honeywell, as well as the special voice-activated Lyric thermostat his company makes. He talked about how the production of a single product involves factories and suppliers from all over the world in the global market. Mr. Lee also explained the thinking and many steps that go into creating and selling a product. Everyone in class will be creating and selling their own product, too, so hopefully this conversation helped us to begin thinking about this!

Have a great night! Tomorrow, we will talk a little more about mining and global trade. We also have our next Lit Circle meeting, music, finishing our excel budgets, and free choice!

Good evening!

Reminders:

• Please bring back MACC Returning letters and Field Trip Notices no later than Friday, April 11th.
• Track your water usage for 24 hours, either starting tonight or beginning tomorrow morning. Use the chart and key I provided today.
• Prepare for Lit Circle Meeting tomorrow
• Grade 4s: Give your FSA packets to parents
• Caribou Test tomorrow after recess

Today we spent the morning working on our nature drawing art, inspired from the book 20 Ways to Draw a Tree, and students also had a chance to try the daily puzzle (word/number puzzles that I am putting up on the board in the mornings.) We had a class meeting run by Michael, during which we discussed end of year plans, a possible potluck lunch, an iMovie project about the MACC program, our Twitter account, and more.

After some time exchanging books at the library we had a class and small group discussion about the math needed to keep a proper budget and to make plans with money. Students were given a pretend $100 and a book list with prices, with the task of spending the money on books of their choice for the school library. There were two options for documenting their math, either making a budget on paper showing their decimal work, or using Excel skills to make a budget worksheet with proper formatting and simple formulas.

In the afternoon, we focused on resources in connection with our unit. How many resources are used to make the products in our homes? What kind of natural resource is used the most? Students met in small groups, were assigned a room, and then created a list of items while organizing them into three categories: very important, quite important, and not very important. Then, using a points system, we assigned a value to each of the resources used to make these products. This allowed us to see that of all the resources listed (trees, plants, animals/fish, oil, water, minerals), minerals were used the most, closely followed by oil. We made conclusions about this data including:

• Mining is an important industry that must make a lot of money given how much it is used
• Even though we reduce our use of fossil fuels through the use of transit, biking, or carpooling, we also use these fuels in the making of many plastics we use
• Do people realize the impact of the many items they own in their houses?

Everyone has been given one of three articles to read on fishing, forestry, or mining. Rather than doing all three, students are choosing to become an expert in an area and then to share this expertise with all of us. We will continue reading tomorrow! Also, we talked about water as a resource, and everyone will be charting their water usage for 24 hours.

Have a great evening!

Hello Everyone!

For tonight:

• Please spend up to 45 minutes on either finishing your narrative, which is the first priority and is due at end of day tomorrow, or working on Lit Circle. If we need more time to be prepared for Lit Circle, we will talk about it tomorrow and postpone our next meeting.
• Finish listing resources from yesterday’s assignment – most of you are done.
• Field Trip Notice — the link should now be live online so you can use the School Pay Online option

Today we discussed SYSTEMS again, looking at the Universal Systems Model. Then, we broke into small groups to answer this question: How does your food get to you? Students brainstormed the various parts of the “system” that brings meals to our plates, and then they made a flow chart to represent the system. When we reflected afterwards about the activity and what was difficult about representing the system, a student said, “We don’t really see all the parts of the systems. So it makes it hard to think about it when you don’t see it.” This is very true! We eat the food, but we don’t get to see the farms where livestock are raised, the plants where food is processed, or the efforts that go into having workers at the grocery store where the food is available for purchase. This unit involves thinking about all the parts of these systems we take for granted.

We followed our inquiry activity with the movie The Story of Stuff, and we discussed how many parts of the consumer system we don’t really see when we are buying new shoes or purchasing electronics. We talked about how we are encouraged to buy things, too, through advertising, peer pressure, and the ever-changing nature of electronics. The video focuses on planned obsolescence, which is designing products so they intentionally do not last too long or will eventually need to be replaced. Not every company does this, but some products are designed that way. Do we always need the next best thing? Do we have too much stuff? What motivates you to purchase something, like your pair of shoes? Why do clothes for children sometimes cost way more than those for men and women? What are the parts of the system that bring us the clothes we wear? Thank you everyone for the great participation and discussion!

Great job Tove, Ella and Adrian, who read their Words Anthology entries at the Celebration of Learning today! Also, great job to Vlad, Sylvia and Emma who all participated in the Reading Club through the Suncrest Library and were recognized at assembly for their efforts!

Have a great evening!

Hello Everyone,

Today we had some open work time for our scale model plans, math work on scale factor, immigration narrative, and lit circle work. We also had an hour of music, some great discussion about our end of year project, and free choice time sharing games and activities with friends.

Homework:

• Next Lit Circle Meeting is on Monday, March 7th. Be ready with your pages read and your next assignment to discuss and turn in to Ms. D.
• Narrative: Think about your story and if you haven’t answered the questions from the last week, just take some time to catch up, as those should be done now. Next week we are drafting stories on the computer.
• End of Year Project Idea — Please give me these ideas before Spring Break

Science Games Teams:

• Please show up at Science World at 11:45 AM
• Please wear jacket and clothing for weather as we will be outside for part of the competition
• Bring your diorama in a plastic bag if possible and/or protect it from the elements with an umbrella.
• Bring your paper with bibliography
• Bring a snack/lunch that can be easily eaten
• Study the topics given to you for the competition
• Parents may stay if they like, but space is limited, may be crowded
• Parents need to come in with their child when they are dropping them off AND come in to pick up, too.
• Please come at 4:15 PM for pick up to get parking, and then pick up by 4:30 PM.
• GOOD LUCK!

Have a great weekend!  🙂

Hi Everyone! Ella here.

Today we did our skyscraper drawing, met with our Lit. Circle group, and worked on our Narrative story.

Math –  this morning, everyone got a chance to work on our skyscraper drawings, as well as some practice on scale factor problem solving sets.

Literature circle – After recess, we met for Literature circle. We discussed what we did for the last 2 days for our roles, the person with the role “questions” being the leader.

Narrative – After lunch, we had music, which led us to working on our Narrative on the explorer or immigrant we have done research on, and we talked about the conclusion and making a general outline.The final draft of the narrative should be done before Spring Break, and tomorrow we will start doing a rough draft of the story.

We ended our day with a delightful ball game!

Homework:

• Exploration (if you haven’t finished)
• Narrative~conclusion and outline questions
• Literature Circle Reading (next meeting/assignment due on March 7th)

Reminder-we need more parent drivers for our 3 dragon boating trips. Potential dates are May 20, May 25, and June 1. If you have time, please email Ms.D.

Have a good night everyone!!

Hello Everyone,

Today we had time to work on our scale model drawings, immigration/explorer narratives, and literature circle work. We also had some time to talk about upcoming field trips! And at the end of the day, we enjoyed a fantastic PE lesson on jumping rope activities from Emma and Sylvia. I look forward to seeing our next lesson on Friday!

Homework tonight:

Work on Plot and Problem for your Narrative! This means making a list of what will happen in the story and telling us all about the problem your main character will have and try to solve.

First Literature Circle meeting is tomorrow, so make sure you have read the pages assigned by your group AND that you have completed the first worksheet and Reading Power role for your meeting. We will have the meetings after recess tomorrow and Ms. D will listen in to the discussion!

That’s all for now, so have a great night!!