Looking Ahead
Wednesday, Feb 21: EXPO Swimming at Southland Leisure Center Tuesday, Feb 27: EXPO Military Museum and MRU MakerSpace (we still need 6 parent volunteers) Friday, March 2: No School Math We spent time this week working on Olympic themed double bar graphs so that students could connect math to a current event. We started off by collecting data from the 2018 Olympics website and from there we created and shared what we learned using double bar graphs. Students are including an art element by creating custom stamps for their graphs based on the sport or country they are analyzing. Students also created mathematical criteria for sorting quadrilaterals by using terms such as “right angles”, “parallel lines” and “lines of symmetry”. Looking ahead: We will be working on more graphing related to the Olympics, and continue our exploration of shape and space. Science Students were tasked with constructing series and parallel circuits in groups, this time using motors instead of lightbulbs. We also continued our discussion on the differences between series and parallel circuits. They are in the midst of completing a short check-in on circuits, see Fresh Grade for more information on that. It should be completed early this week, some students may have taken it home over the weekend to do their recording in a quiet space. Looking ahead: Students are to design and construct something electrical that can/will help them do their jobs in the City of Ember. Planning for this project will begin next week. Humanities This short week was filled with hard work. We wrapped up our projects about regional issues, found out who won the Caldecott Medal, read some “City of Ember,” and started some projects about the 2018 Winter Olympic games. Next week we will work on Olympic mini projects, read “The City of Ember,” and work with the “Metis Roadcase” from the National Music Centre. As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns
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Looking Ahead
Feb. 15&16 No School - Connect Teacher’s Retreat Feb 21: EXPO Swimming Feb 27: EXPO Military Museum and MRU MakerSpace (will need 6 parent volunteers) Math On Monday we had a guest speaker, come and talk to students about the wonderful and interesting math behind snowflakes. Students constructed their own snowflakes with their knowledge of fractals, fractions, angles, proportions, etc. Look for these on display in the grade 5 hallway over the next few weeks. In addition to this, students completed another division check-in. Feedback will be posted to FreshGrade early this week. Both classes also began a geometry exploration by creating ways of classifying/sorting the many types of quadrilaterals. Looking ahead: Students will create graphs to represent data coming out of the Winter Olympics results and…. more quadrilaterals! Science Students constructed more series and parallel circuits, adding different loads such as motors. Next week they will add switches to their circuits and continue to analyze the differences between circuits and how the electrons flow. Students also drew jobs for their City of Ember interdisciplinary project. Looking ahead: With these jobs, students are to design and construct something that is electrical (using their growing knowledge of circuits and electricity) and that can/will help them do their jobs in the City of Ember. Humanities This was an emotional week in Humanities, as we had to eliminate so many books from our Caldecott contenders. In the end, there can be only one winner. When we looked at each book, alongside the criteria, some of the favourites were not the best match. We had to vote with our heads and not our hearts. I think the top favourites were probably, “After the Fall,” or “The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse,” but the medal was awarded to “Blue Sky, White Stars.” On Monday, we will watch the results of the real Caldecott medal. We have no way of knowing what books the committee looks at, so the winner is always a surprise. When we weren’t talking about books, we were talking about issues. This project is taking longer to wrap up than initially planned. Finished or not, students will be assessed on the work completed on Wednesday. Many of them will only be able to submit a completed planning document. This will allow me to assess their ability to inquire into a topic. We will work on this on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in class, but some students may need to spend some time at home if they wish to complete it by Feb.14th. Students that are finished will work on a self directed Olympics project. We also drew our jobs for the “City of Ember” project. We are looking forward reading more of this book next week. Looking Ahead:
Feb. 5 - Fractal Snowflake Workshop (in school EXPO, could use a few parent volunteers as helpers. 5.3 in AM, 5.4 in PM). Feb 7&8: Urban Jungle Book production, 7pm. This is a free event, but reserve your seat(s) here: (https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/connect-charter-school-presents-the-urban-jungle-book-by-joe-slabe-tickets-42321774567) Feb. 15&16 No School - Connect Teacher’s Retreat Feb 21: EXPO Swimming Feb 27: EXPO Military Museum and MRU MakerSpace (will need parent volunteers) Looking waaaaay ahead (contact us if you are interested in volunteering): May 9-12: 5.3 Fort Steele May 12-15: 5.4 Fort Steele Humanities - We spent this week finishing the research phase for our regions issues and began planning our pecha kucha presentations. We hope to finish up and present these by Thursday. Our Caldecott books were narrowed down to a field of 11. We will choose our winner this week. Our top titles are going head to head, and students will be very sad to see some favourites eliminated. Students began crafting a persuasive letter to Mrs. Veteikis. They are making a case for, and requesting that their favourite Caldecott eligible title be added to our school library collection. We also began reading, “The City of Ember”, which is our next novel study and has strong science connections. Math - This week we spent time reviewing how to pull out important information from word problems, additionally we analyzed and created a criteria of what “counts” in a math notebook (ie: math communication, organization, units, labels). Ms. Kwong also introduced Long Division and students were given the opportunity to practice that skill. On Thursday, students tackled a problem called “Quotient 42” where they created as many division equations as they could that had a quotient of 42. Many students pulled in their understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division for this problem. There will be a division check-in early next week and then Ms. Kwong will be moving into the math strand, “Shape and Space” for the next month or so. Science - This week students got their hands on light bulbs, batteries and wires as they constructed an understanding of series and parallel circuits as well as learning vocabulary as it relates to electricity (ie: load, conductor, power source). They continued to practice safely using the equipment and reflecting on their understanding at the end of each lesson. We also introduced an exciting interdisciplinary inquiry using the novel, “The City of Ember” - more details to come on that! Other interesting things: If you have ever been asked what a charter school is, here is a great video created by the TAAPCS (The Association of Alberta Public Charter Schools) that explains it in a fun way. Feel free to spread it around on social media if you would like! It pops right up if you go to www.connectcharter.ca Looking Ahead:
Monday, Jan. 29 - Electives Report Cards emailed to parents Feb. 2 - No School-PD day Feb. 5 - Fractal Snowflake Workshop (in school EXPO, could use a few parent volunteers as helpers. 5.3 in AM, 5.4 in PM). Feb. 15&16 No School - Teacher’s Convention Feb 21: 5.3 and 5.4 Swimming Humanities: We spent this week dividing our time between our collection of Caldecott eligible picture books and researching regions issues. Students critically examined the 20 books they chose for this round. We will continue narrowing down the books until Feb. 6th, when we will choose a winning selection. Students also chose an issue to research and present for their final project on Canadian regions. They will finish up the research phase early in the week and begin working on their pecha kucha presentation, which they will share the first week in February. Math: Students learned how to divide using the box method. This method is just an extension of the array method, which the students used to practice their multiplication skills. Here is a video of the method if you are interested: http://shelleygrayteaching.com/box-area-method-alternative-traditional-long-division/ Students wrote a check-in on Thursday to gauge their familiarity with the box method. Feedback will be uploaded on FreshGrade early this week. Looking ahead: Long division algorithm (traditional method) Parent Math Corner: I came across this article the other day and thought I’d pass it along to you for a read. It highlights the importance of a growth mindset for long-term success in mathematics http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/positive-attitude-toward-math-predicts-math-achievement-in-kids.html Science: Students created and signed a safety contract for the electricity unit. They then did a scavenger hunt around the school for unsafe and safe electrical practices. Lastly, we started hypothesizing on an experiment that students will be doing this week. These hypotheses were drawn using standard circuit diagrams. Looking ahead: experimenting/building circuits to light a bulb. |
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