"It’s not enough to shelve your own competitive streak. You have to try, consciously, to help others succeed."
Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth IMPORTANT INFORMATION Peruvian Artifacts WE ARE LOOKING FOR ANYONE THAT HAS TRAVELLED TO PERU THAT WOULD BE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE AND/OR ARTIFACTS WITH THE CLASS. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU CAN HELP. We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 26: Family Dance (evening). October 31: Halloween. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 28 days under our belt, 154 days to go! Happy Tuesday! I hope the students are rested and ready to go for the week. We wrote goals today. We tried this once before, however students were getting frustrated coming up with a goal for themselves. This is understandable, as it is challenging even for us adults. Today, I wrote 5 different goals to select from. These goals are based on my observations on the class, and where I have been supporting them. Ask your child the goal they selected. The goals will be a weekly thing and part of the Monday Morning Blah Blah, where students set goals, share and then write about their weekend or an artifact about themselves, The Estimation Jar, and the Ketchup Work. We began our Visual Journal Reader’s Response to The One and Only Ivan. This ties in with Quality of Life, our Zoo School visit, as well as literacy outcomes. One student made a strong text-to-text connection, stating that Ivan living in a shopping mall, was the same as the story Fly Away Home, where a boy and his dad live in an airport, because they cannot afford a place to live. The connection was that both places were not wanted and less than ideal. HUZZAH CONNECTIONS!! We played some more math games, and a running Tic Tac Toe game in gym. In the afternoon, we had Literacy Centres, where we are practicing the transition to centres and starting the work quickly and quietly. I will support them in getting them started and helping them figure out strategies when they get stuck. Once all students got to work, they were quiet and on-task. We finished the day with a more in-depth discussion about the Rights of a Child, looking at a short video about the right to be free from discrimination. We will continue looking at the rights for the rest of the week. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Good Morning!
The CBE is changing our server to a new server, so we will not have access to the internet all day. Blog will return on Tuesday. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 16: PD Day - no school for the students. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. Cheerios! Ms Lauf "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
- Albert Einstein IMPORTANT INFORMATION Scholastic Books Scholastic Book Orders are due TOMORROW!! HURRY! GET THE ORDERS IN BEFORE THEY ARE ALL GONE! Or at least until next month. If you need an extension, please let me know. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 13: Scholastic Book Orders are due. October 16: PD Day - no school for the students. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 26 days under our belt, 156 days to go! Another busy day in the class. We continued working on our introduction to the Literacy Centres. Today’s focus was Current Events and Poetry Pause. We looked at where we can find the websites for Current Events and the response sheet where they will answer the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the article. After that, students read the poem All My Great Excuses by Ken Nesbitt. Once they did that, they wrote their responses. We also took part in a Live Virtual Tour of the Emerald Coast, which is the geographically the west coast line of Canada along with Washington and Alaska. It was discussed how the environment has an impact on our quality of life, how First Nations lived and continue to live off the land, as well as stewardship. This is a good introduction in developing our understanding of what quality of life is, how it can impact us, and how we can work to improve it. Depending on where the class goes, this could also provide us with our Focus Question for our week at Zoo School. After lunch, students were off to their first PoWer Hour session. What a hoot! Everyone was excited about their placement and even more so after their first day. We finished off the day with a fast-paced game of Capture the Chicken (an overwhelming request from the students) and Ketchup in our Visual Journals. Cheerios! Ms Lauf "I'm watching you, Wazowski. Always watching. Always."
- Roz, Monsters Inc. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Scholastic Book Order Scholastic Book Orders are due on Friday. If you need an extension, please let me know. Blog Comments Comments are closed on The Blog until further notice. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 12: PoWer Hour begins. October 13: Scholastic Book Orders are due. October 16: PD Day - no school for the students. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 25 days under our belt, 155 days to go! I am testing out transition songs to use in the class, to help the students manage their time. As luck would have it, I have laryngitis, so I have a fabulous singing voice to do this. I speak truth! (Normally, I only sound really good in my car, with the speakers distorting.) As luck wouldn’t have it, I only have “Smelly Cat” and Lady Gaga Songs bouncing around in my head. Oi vey. The search continues… Today, we wrote the Actual Tally for our Estimation Jar work, for our Dojo Beads. As we explore numbers up to 1000, we will be figuring out the difference between our estimates and actual numbers. We talked today about how certain math words relate to operation words, i.e., difference means subtracting or counting on, but meaning you want to know how many numbers between two numbers. One student shared his strategy of counting on, from which we talked about making sure we use commas to separate the numbers; otherwise we have a number I’m not sure what those place values are called. Some guesses were “gazillion”, “ bajillion”, and “one billion less than infinity”. From there we talked about a number line, how a blank number line can start anywhere, and that we assign the value to the increments (ask your child what that means). We also discovered that you can’t include the number you are starting with as we already “have that number”. I love these incidental learnings, as they are the ones that stick, and also become a foundation to build on. Speaking of math, we continued with our Math - Increasing Pattern Bins. I showed the students how to create a chart using a ruler, and that the cells of the chart should be (mostly) even increments for organization and ease in conveying your thinking. Taking the time to measure this out helps them understand the visual distance of centimeters, as well as developing their fine motor control. Once the students had their charts, they tackled the bins. Some of them are tricky, and the instructions need to be read a few times to understand the task and outcome. As we work with these, the students are showing an increasing understanding what to look for and the language they need to use to describe the pattern. Increasing understanding. Increasing. (I know….) In writing, we looked at creating paragraphs today: topic sentence (using a hook), supporting statements, and a conclusion. I modeled this using information about our Quiet Critters (ask your child). I read them the rules of the Quiet Critters, and then the students gave me the Critical Piece about them, or the important thing about them. Once we had our list, we took one, made a topic sentence, and then looked at all our other ideas we wanted to include to support it. We soon discovered that our topic sentence was not good, as it more of a supporting statement. After a few go’s, we finally came up with a solid paragraph. Next couple paragraph sessions will be a whole class writing, where they lead by telling me what to write. Final step will be to write on their own, using their Best Part of Me information. As stated above, we have been working on transitions, the time between activities. Sometimes, it takes them 15 minutes to settle down. I believe the time is increasing, as friendships are developing. I encourage friendships, because we are a class-family. We need to like each other to work with each other, however we are discussing that there is a time and a place for it. It is getting CHILLY out there. Please stay warm, and remind your child to dress for the weather. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Please note:
Due to inappropriate remarks from unknown people, comments have been blocked completely until further notice. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 11: Fun Lunch (Subway - “Back off! Get your own sandwich!” or “Eat fresh!” Whichever comes first.) October 12: PoWer Hour begins. October 13: Scholastic Book Orders are due. October 16: PD Day - no school. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 24 days under our belt, 156 days to go! We started off the day writing about our weekend. I am excited to read what everyone was up to. Our focus in the writing was double spacing for editing, capitalization, and punctuation, with a reminder to always give the reasons why. We also continued with our Best Part of Me writing. Students are creating a rough copy based on the information in their organizer. We will continue to look at the book as exemplars, as peer and teacher feedback. In the afternoon, we looked at the different parts of a reader’s response, which will help students identify Critical Information. We also began one of our Literacy Centres stations, Read to Self. Students have been doing a Read to Self since the beginning of the year, and now they will be responding to what they are reading. This is to help reinforce the accountability of independent reading (not just turning pages), as well as helping them articulate their learning from the books. In gym, we played Crab Walk Soccer, a slower-paced game, but challenging nonetheless. The day ended with students logging onto the computer and finding the school website. Tomorrow, we will explore the news websites on the Literacy Centres Blog Page. Cheerios! Ms Lauf "You're not supposed to name it. Once you name it, you start getting attached to it."
- Mike Wazowski, Monsters Inc. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 9: NO SCHOOL, on account of Thanksgiving. October 11: Fun Lunch (Subway - “Back off! Get your own sandwich!” or “Eat fresh!” Whichever comes first.) October 12: PoWer Hour begins. October 13: Scholastic Book Orders November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 23 days under our belt, 157 days to go! Today was our Terry Fox Run day. We began with an assembly, where some courageous students partook in the head shave and pony tail chop. Huzzah to them! We also learned that as of the head shave, we surpassed our goal of $5373.00, which was the total kilometers Terry ran before he had to stop. A final total will come to us next week. After we stopped off at the class to get our water bottles and jackets, we headed out to the ridge for our run and walk; and run and walk they did! Students pushed through, to get in an extra lap or two before our call back to the school came tolling through the crisp autumn air. We returned back to the class, where students ate their snack, while I read them a story, titled Mr. Mah and Me, written by Andrea Spalding. This is an endearing story of how a boy befriends his elderly neighbour, and the influence they have on each other. Key points from the story are how personal artifacts help identify who we are, and that we have more in common with each other than we think. In true Ms-Lauf-is-still-getting-used-to-the-new-bell-times fashion, the students were ready for home a full 15 minutes early. Always looking to turn lemons into lemonade, the students played a lively game of Heads Up, Seven Up. Then they went home. A reminder that there is no school on Monday. I wish everyone a warm and loving Thanksgiving, full of games, laughter, and post turkey naps. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Dot: Pretend it's a seed, okay?
Flick: Thanks, Dot. Francis: What's with the rock? Slim: Must be an ant thing. Dot, Flick, Francis, Slim, A Bug's Life The Terry Fox is tomorrow! Students from the Grade 6 classes will be collecting money for Toonies for Terry. Our school’s fundraising goal is $5373.00 – one dollar for every kilometer Terry Fox ran during the Marathon of Hope. Our assembly will begin at 8:45 am on Friday with the Terry Fox Run itself happening along the ridge from 10:00-11:00 am. PLEASE REMIND YOUR KIDLET TO WEAR RED AND WHITE!! I mean... PLEASE REMIND YOUR KIDLET TO WEAR RED AND WHITE!! IMPORTANT INFORMATION Classroom Coordinator Information Our classroom email coordinator this year is Jodi Rasmussen. Please be in touch with her at [email protected] if you did not fill out a volunteer form but would like to be added to our classroom email list to stay informed of class and school-related events and activities as well as volunteer opportunities at POW. Scholastic Book Orders Scholastic Book Orders are due tomorrow for guarantee for Halloween and next week, October 13th, for possibly not before Halloween. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. October 6: Last day for Toonies for Terry. October 6: Scholastic Book Orders (for sure before Halloween) are due. October 9: NO SCHOOL, on account of Thanksgiving. October 11: Fun Lunch (Subway - “Back off! Get your own sandwich!” or “Eat fresh!” Whichever comes first.) October 13: Scholastic Book Orders (Channelling the Pirates of the Caribbean “they are more guidelines” before Halloween) are due. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 22 days under our belt, 158 days to go! Today was a Slam Ketchup Day! See, it works this way: I go to McDonald’s and collect hundreds of of ketchup packages. Then we lay them out, and SLAM THEM WITH OUR FISTS. Boy, was the ketchup flying today. It’s true. Really. Okay. Maybe, we caught up on some of our projects today. But, boy, that flying ketchup sounds fun. The agenda board said: “By the end of day, we will have:” and then I listed off all the things we should get done, and boy did they work hard! We finished up the guided math - pattern lesson, tackled some pattern bins, and documented the learning in the math journals. For Social Studies, we identified things that we loved that made our lives better (i.e., nachos, sleeping in, running, …), added them to already identified wants and needs, and then sorted them into an organizer in the Visual Journals. We also added wee drawings beside each item; this is reinforcing the ideas of how drawings can become symbols of an idea. We added 3-5 words that we feel show who we are onto our Visual Journal covers, which are now ready to be “laminated”, and by “laminating”, I mean covering with packing tape. We worked on our “Ten Things I Am” hand tracing Zentangle drawing. We learned a spelling game called “Bam!”, which will become part of literacy centres. The word focus are sight words. I have an idea I have not talked about yet with the kids, but let’s just say they will be able to bring this game home. We also put our names on our handmade thank-you cards. And peppered in-between was recess, lunch, and gym outside. Tomorrow is the Terry Fox Run. Twoonies (or any amount) are still being collected in the office. Please remember to wear read and white, and shoes you can run/walk in. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Mike: Hey! Good morning, Monstropolis. It’s now five after the hour of 6:00 A.M. in the big monster city. Temperature’s a balmy 65 degrees - which is good news for you reptiles - and it looks like it’s gonna be a perfect day to maybe, hey, just lie in bed, sleep in, or simply… work out that flab that’s hanging over the bed! Get up, Sulley!
Sulley: I don’t believe I ordered a wake-up call, Mikey. Mike & Sulley, Monsters Inc. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Classroom Coordinator Information Our classroom email coordinator this year is Jodi Rasmussen. Please be in touch with her at [email protected] if you did not fill out a volunteer form but would like to be added to our classroom email list to stay informed of class and school-related events and activities as well as volunteer opportunities at POW. Scholastic Book Orders Scholastic Book Orders came home today. They have two due dates (but only one on them): October 6th (Friday): If you would like something guaranteed BEFORE Halloween. October 13th (Friday): If you are loose with the Halloween deadline. Terry Fox Run The Terry Fox will be held this Friday on October 6, 2017. Students from the Grade 6 classes will be collecting money for Toonies for Terry. Our school’s fundraising goal is $5373.00 – one dollar for every kilometer Terry Fox ran during the Marathon of Hope. Our assembly will begin at 8:45 am on Friday with the Terry Fox Run itself happening along the ridge from 10:00-11:00 am. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. October 6: Last day for Toonies for Terry. October 6: Scholastic Book Orders (for sure before Halloween) are due. October 9: NO SCHOOL, on account of Thanksgiving. October 11: Fun Lunch (Subway - “Back off! Get your own sandwich!” or “Eat fresh!” Whichever comes first.) October 13: Scholastic Book Orders (Channelling the Pirates of the Caribbean “they are more guidelines” before Halloween) are due. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 21 days under our belt, 159 days to go! Well, we started off the day exploring dirt. George, Gabriel’s dad, was in to finish off his presentation about Rocks and Minerals. We learned how soil is formed, hat helps create the soil, and how we can identify the different minerals in the soil. All important information for growing things, building things, and making delicious mudpies. We finished off with looking at the dirt though a super powered microscope. While students were being called up to look at the dirt under the microscopic lens, they worked on finishing up their Visual Journal Collages, and their First Page Hand Zentangles. There is lots of gorgeous work happening in this class! In music, students continued to practice their song about chickens; although I have been informed by some in the class that it’s not “chickens”, but “singing”. Students tackled the math pattern bins, documenting their learning in their journals. We left off going over one of the bins, and doing a guided lesson on how to organize and document their information, so that another person could understand what they are communicating. In the afternoon, we continued working on our Terry Fox footprints, with many students nearing completion. We also had library today. A reminder that books are due back 2 weeks after check-out, and any lost books will need to be replaced. I will continue to support the students in making respectful choices about the books, and really, all possessions - personal, school, family, friends, or otherwise. Cheerios! Ms Lauf Dory: [about the humpback whale] Maybe he only speaks whale. [slowly and deeply, imitating the whale] Dory: Mooo... Weeee neeeed... Marlin: Dory? Dory: ...tooo fiiind hiiis sooon. Marlin: What are you doing? Are you sure you speak whale? Dory: Caaaan yoooou giive uuuus direeeeectioooons? Marlin: Dory! Heaven knows what you're saying! See, he's swimming away. Dory: Cooome baaaaack. Marlin: He's not coming back. You offended him. Dory: Maybe a different dialect. Mmmmoooooowaaaaah... - Dory and Marlin, Finding Nemo PLEASE NOTE: As per CBE recommendations for Digital Citizenship, Blog comments are subject to approval by me, the Big Kahuna. This is to make sure comments are not offensive, nonsensical, and appropriate. I will approve them when I can. PLEASE do not let this stop you from commenting. I love reading them. IMPORTANT INFORMATION School Pictures School picture order forms are due tomorrow! Scholastic Book Orders Scholastic Book Orders have come home, and they have two due dates (but only one date stamped on them): October 6th (Friday): If you would like something guaranteed BEFORE Halloween. October 13th (Friday): If you are loose with the Halloween deadline. Terry Fox Run The Terry Fox will be held this Friday on October 6, 2017. Students from the Grade 6 classes will be collecting money for Toonies for Terry. Our school’s fundraising goal is $5373.00 – one dollar for every kilometer Terry Fox ran during the Marathon of Hope. Our assembly will begin at 8:45 am on Friday with the Terry Fox Run itself happening along the ridge from 10:00-11:00 am. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 4: School Picture orders are due. October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. October 6: Scholastic Book Orders (for sure before Halloween) are due. October 9: NO SCHOOL, on account of Thanksgiving. October 11: Fun Lunch (Subway - “Back off! Get your own sandwich!”) October 13: Scholastic Book Orders (Pirates of the Caribbean “they are more guidelines” before Halloween) are due. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 20 days under our belt, 160 days to go! Expert Alert! Expert Alert! Today, we had a parent expert in our class! George (Gabriel’s dad) is a geologist, and loves what he does. He shared is knowledge and rocks with the class, as well as look at the school collection (which he went through for us and relabelled all the rocks). Tomorrow, we will be discussing dirt, AND looking at it under a microscope. Other notables from the day: Rock Museum, adding ideas to our Terry Fox project, Capture the Chicken Pt II, and Music with Mrs Dennill. Rock Museum started off with a discussion of what scientists look for when they are doing observations. For Rocks and Minerals, we look for the following: After we discussed the meaning of unfamiliar words, students observed a rock for the seven different categories. They talked about their observations with their table mates. Finally they documented their findings in their Visual Journals, starting first with the drawing and colouring. Once they had done that, they added their labels.
The reasons for drawing first:
We also looked at the Terry Fox video, internally looking for iconic images o Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. We brainstormed ideas, and tomorrow, we will take those words and create our illustration on our shoe outline, using our knowledge about composition and the rule of thirds. Cheerios! Ms Lauf "Oh. So That's *puce*."
- Sully, Monsters Inc. IMPORTANT INFORMATION Scholastic Book Orders Scholastic Book Orders came home today. They have two due dates (but only one on them): October 6th (Friday): If you would like something guaranteed BEFORE Halloween. October 13th (Friday): If you are loose with the Halloween deadline. School Pictures School picture order forms are due October 4th. You can submit your order online, or send it to school and I will pass it on. Our Schedule Music is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Library is on Wednesdays. 2 books can be taken out (2 at any given time), and they are due 2 weeks after checkout. We do not give due date slips, as to save our beautiful trees. Peruvian Artifacts We are currently studying the country of Peru. If you have any artifacts related to this unit of study that you would be willing to lend to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. Artifacts could include pictures, dishes, art, paintings, sculptures, toys, books, clothing, tools, jewelry, etc… Students will sketch these artifacts, try to determine what they were used for, as well as how they are similar/different from artifacts here in Canada. Please send items to school with your child with a brief written explanation. It would be helpful if you did not explain details of the artifact to your child, as they will be taking part in the sketching, observation, and inquiry process of the artifact with their classmates. We promise to take extra special care of your personal items! Jacket Racket Coat Drive Grade 6 Students are collecting warm winter coats, toques, snow pants (why that is not a compound word is beyond me), and mittens for children in the K-Gr 12 age range. Please make sure the items are in gently used condition at most before donating. They are collecting items until November 1st. IMPORTANT DATES October 4: School Picture orders are due. October 6: Terry Fox Run, all morning. October 6: Scholastic Book Orders (for sure before Halloween) are due. October 13: Scholastic Book Orders (Pirates of the Caribbean “they are more guidelines” before Halloween) are due. November 1: Last day to donate to Jacket Racket. OUR DAY 19 days under our belt, 161 days to go! Fret not! Ms Lauf has bought some new winter boots! (Hence the lateness of this Blog.) Winter is rearing its almighty head, although it seems Summer will be giving it a good effort by the end of the week. Please make sure your kidlets have got their woolies and fleecies, snow pants, mittens, jackets, toques (touques?), etc, etc, etc, … Today, we added more Dojo Beads to the Dojo Jar, and WE HAVE REACHED THE TOP!! I will talk with the students what this could mean for them. Possibly: Pajama Day, a bike trip through France, or winterizing Ms Lauf’s car. Exciting! As we added beads to the Dojo Jar, we counted by 4s. I stopped when we reached 40, and talked with them about, yes, you guessed it, MATH. (Confetti cannon and a mariachi band excited, right?) I wrote on a large paper the following: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40 I asked them what they noticed. The studied the numbers hard, and some hands went up. They noticed that the Ones Place Value has the same five numbers repeating, but the Tens Place Value increases. They were then able to predict if I added three more sets of 4 beads, how many would we have, reminding them they could not count, but look at the chart. They studied the chart for a VERY SHORT MOMENT when answers started being called out: 52! 52! Oh my gosh, THEY WERE RIGHT! Smart Cookies. Students were then able to extend the pattern up to 80. One boy noticed that the pattern, looking down the columns, had 20 more than the previous one. We talked about the merits of using a chart when figuring out patterns. I also told them the trick of when you multiply ANY whole number by 10, you just need to add a 0 onto the end, and you get the number. BLOWN AWAY. All this during Monday Morning Touching Base. Monday Morning Meeting. Monday Morning Ketchup. Monday Morning Housecleaning. (We are still looking for a catchy name.) After Monday Morning Blahblahblah, we watched two videos about Terry Fox. While we watched, we did a CSI - Colour, Symbol, Image activity. (This task is part of our Zoo School training.) Students recorded a colour they thought was appropriate for Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. Tomorrow, we will discuss symbols and images, and how we will plan out our piece for our show tracings, that have been initiated by the Grade 6s. We also continued on with our math. First, we talked about estimation, and drew a wee Dojo Jar in our Vsual Journals, as well as recording our estimation of how many Dojo Beads are in there. Tomorrow, two students will count how many, which we will also record in our Visual Journals. This is all part of learning visual estimation of things (and measurement); an important skill for sure when driving on the roads, and not following too close to cars in front. Next, we wrote everything we know about patterns in our math journals, which we will look at when we change our focus to Numeracy (but always keeping an eye on patterns). We played Capture the Chicken in Gym, and we also fixed our Visual Journal covers collage. Fun Stuff Podge should be renamed to Fun Times Peeling the Podge Off BECAUSE IT DOESN’T STICK Podge. Cheerios! Ms Lauf |
AuthorMs Lauf Archives
June 2018
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