February 19 - 23

This week the students enjoyed working on a variety of fun and engaging literacy activities focusing on the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Curricular Update

Writing Workshop

We always start our week by writing personal narratives in our journals.

The students loved our first Olympic writing project. They were asked to research Olympic mascots and choose with one they liked the best. The students were to write a paragraph describing their favourite mascot and explain why they chose that particular character.

The students typed their paragraphs into a Google Slide presentation and added an image of their favourite mascot.

The paragraphs are now on display in our classroom.

We also made a class book of our favourite mascots.

Reading Workshop

During Reading Workshop the students independently read nonfiction passages about the Winter Games and answered questions to test their comprehension. 

The students were excited have to opportunity to "buddy read" with 3B this week.

Congratulations to our Amazing Race flyers!

The students had an opportunity to work on their dictionary skills by looking up two Olympic words and putting them into complete sentences.

They really enjoyed doing a directed drawing of a downhill skier from Art Hub for Kids.

Math

This week the following goals were covered in math:

- round two-digit numbers to the nearest ten

- estimate sums and differences by rounding numbers to the nearest ten 

Science

Survivor Challenge: What a success! We haven't been on the island for very long but have already found a bit of food and now we have some shelter. We do have one problem though! The rain has started to come down quickly and it is beginning to make small puddles around our sleeping area. We are also worried that with the amount of rain falling, the river not far from us may begin to flood. We need to raise the area where we are going to sleep so that it is not on the ground. We head back to the plane and grab another large piece of tin for the floor of our shelter. It won't be the softest place to sleep but at least we will be out of the puddles and safe if the river floods. We drag the tin back to our shelter and start thinking about how we are going to raise it above the ground. James decides that we should use some tree stumps near by to make a pillar to hold up the floor.

Testable Question: Which design will hold the most weight? Should we use one larger pillar in the center or four smaller pillars in each of the corners of our tin floor?

Conclusion: Four smaller pillars hold more mass than one large pillar in the middle.

Survivor Challenge: Thanks to your great work, our sleeping area is off the ground and safe from the rain! Now we all can get some much needed rest and go to sleep. Serenity and Jack wake up before the rest of us and surprise us with breakfast. They have picked some ripe berries that they found growing nearby. We soon realize that we don't have a proper table to eat on. Layne, Mylee, Nathan and Stuart go in search of materials to build a table.  Luckily they discover some useful things from the plane. Stuart brings back a rectangular piece of metal for the table top.  The others bring back different materials that could be used as the centre pillar to support the table top.  Mylee returns with part of the jet engine, which is a cylinder shape. Layne finds a triangular pillar which was part of the plane's rudder. Nathan brings back a rectangular crate that must been part of the plane's cargo.   We can't decide who's pillar we should use for our table.  The table should be strong enough to support our food or anything that we put on it.  We need to decide which shape of pillar use.  Which will hold more mass - a cylinderical, rectangular or and triangular shaped pillar?

Testable Question: Which shape of pillar is the most stable?

Conclusion: The cylindrical pillar is the strongest because it does not have any corners and the weight is distributed evenly.

PE

The students had fun working through various Olympic themed centres in PE this week.

Art

As an introduction to "Building Bridges," the students started working on a silhouette art project. After learning about the different bridge types, the students drew their favourite bridge and then went over it with a sharpie. Next week the students will be finishing the background using watercolour paints.

Suspension Bridge

Cable-Stay Bridge

Beam Bridge

Truss Bridge

Congratulations to our Student of the Week!