February 15 - 19

Language Arts

This week we started our Novel Study of Freckle Juice by Judy Blume.  Freckle Juice is a story about a boy who wanted freckles so his mom wouldn't notice that his neck was dirty.  If she doesn't know it's dirty, he won't have to wash it.  Sounds about right.  Some boys will do whatever it takes not have to a bath!  

For each chapter we will complete various "reading responses" to apply specific vocabulary and comprehension skills to the book.  This week while reading chapter one we discussed genre as well as made predictions and connections to the text.

During writer's workshop the students put together a class book about "Varied Sentence Starters."  The purpose of this activity was to practice writing varied sentence starters while staying focused on a topic. The students chose a picture to use as the inspiration for their paragraph. The sentences in each paragraph answer the questions: what, when, how, where and who. In writing their paragraphs, they were asked not to use the same sentence starter twice.  

Math

We continued to work on our multiplication skills during math this week.  The following goals were covered: 

Multiplying by Skip Counting - I demonstrated skip counting on the number line and then related this representation of repeated addition to multiplication for the students.

Multiplying by Adding On - The students were taught how to turn products into smaller products and sums.

For example, we discussed what the difference is between 5 x 2 and 6 x 2.  The students discovered that if you know that 5 x 2 is 10, then 6 x 2 is just one more group of 2.  This can be represented in the equation 5 x 2 + 2 = 6 x 2

Science

The students completed challenge #3 of our "Survivor" Testing and Building Unit.  Here is a summary of the challenge:

Hooray! The beams for the foot bridge are strong enough for us to cross the fast moving river. We are finally able to enjoy a few bananas. Now that we have full bellies, we can concentrate on building some shelter. The fierce storm is still heading our way and we need somewhere to keep dry and get some rest for the night. Kiera has a brilliant idea and takes us back to our aircraft. We see that a few pieces of tin have come off the side of the plane during our emergency landing. Torretto and Mackenzie decide to haul the tin to a small clearing in the trees. Carter decides to bend the tin to make an arch for our shelter. The clouds look dark and heavy with rain. We need to make sure our arch is strong enough to hold the downpour. Does a wider gap cause the arched shelter to be stronger or weaker than a shorter gap? We need to test this so that we can stay dry for the night!

Discovery:  Through this challenge, the students learned that a wider gap causes an arch to be weaker than one with a shorter gap.

Phys Ed

The students had a lot of fun participating in various skill based centres during Phys Ed this week.

 Student of the Week

Congratulations to Miss K for being chosen as our Student of the Week during assembly!