Thursday, June 23, 2016

Symmetry Superstars

Today we spent our numeracy block investigating the idea is symmetry. We used a variety of manipulatives from around the room and created our 'line of symmetry' with our rulers. I was very impressed by the class' precision and creativity. Everyone wanted a picture!













Bricks4KIDZ Bonanza!

The LEGO Bricks4Kidz was awesome. The kids built and invented for 3 hours and seemed to love every minute of it! Many of the projects had 'built-in' flaws that the students had to problem solve through. It was great to witness their perseverance! 






Monday, June 13, 2016

Afternoon of Invention - LEGO Bricks4KIDZ

On Thursday afternoon, students will participate in a HANDS-ON LEGO BRICKS4KIDZ presentation. Please view the video below and visit the site to see what an amazing experience this will be for your child!

**Please note, on Thursday we will be eating lunch early to accommodate the presentation**



Bricks4KIDZ

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Safety Village Field Trip!

This afternoon our class had the pleasure of visiting the Children's Safety Village for a seminar on Bike Safety. Each student received a BRAND NEW HELMET that was sized to fit them perfectly. Ask your child about the 2-V-1 rule for making sure their helmets are adjusted perfectly. You can also ask them what A, B, C means when getting a bike ready to ride. (Hint: A-Air for tires, B-Brakes & Bar, C- Chain)

Below are some pictures that I was able to take while the kids were out riding & ticketing one another for bike safety violations.  There were 2 other groups so please stay tuned for additional photo's.






Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Can there be a Bigger Half?

As a class yesterday we discussed the following question:

Shaun said he wanted the bigger half of the sandwich. Is it possible to have a bigger half? Show your work and support your thinking.

The kids went right to work using their wipe boards and markers to see if it was possible. Lots of sandwiches were drawn and many discussions were had. After some small group discussion we had 2 lines of thinking.

Kingston and about 12 other agreed that "Yes, Shaun could have the bigger half, because you can split the sandwich into 2 pieces and there will be one large piece and one small piece."


Emma and about 6 other students disagreed. Emma said "No, Shaun could not have the bigger half because when you make halves you need to use 2 equal pieces."

In the end, we reviewed our ideas around what exactly is one half? We looked at pictures of halves, we reviewed our anchor charts and we thought about what we've learned in the past. It was finally agreed upon by all that 1/2 of any whole must consist of two EQUAL PIECES.


Monday, June 6, 2016

Lilly Purple Plastic Purse

This post will give you some insight as to how we progress through a Literacy learning goal. It will also show you why it's important to be at school every day as you will see that the lesson actually extends over several days. Don't forget to ask your child about reading this book. Perhaps you can both share a time when you felt just like Lilly afterwards.

We always aim to start with a learning goal that comes from the Ontario Curriculum Guidelines. For this particular lesson our goal was: to use stated and implied information and ideas in texts to make simple inferences and reasonable predictions about Lilly (our main character).

Our first step was to have a read aloud. Everyone enjoyed listening to Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.



Next, as a large group we discussed what type of words we could use to describe Lilly as the main character. We recorded them on an anchor chart.

The next day, we read the text for a second time, and then looked at the words that we used to describe Lilly. From that large list we focused on a few key words and we started to hunt for evidence through the text. Here is an example of one of the words we chose to describe Lilly.



A few days later, We re-visited the story for a third time and then it was time for the small group work to start. Each group of 3-4 students were given 2 words that had been used to describe Lilly in previous conversations. We created an anchor chart which modelled the expectation. Together they had to read through the story and find evidence to support the words at the top of each sheet.

Our final activity was an independent task. Each student had to answer the following question:
Q: Choose a word to describe Lilly. Use evidence from the book "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" to support your thinking.  Below are some responses that I collected.





13 WAYS

Today in class we talked a lot about halves. We learned that halves are always shown as 2 equal pieces of 1 whole item.

The link below will lead you to a brain teasing activity that asks students to think of 13 different ways to represent 1/2. We were able to discover 6 different ways together as a class and everyone is encouraged to see if they can figure out the other solutions.

13 DIFFERENT WAYS TO SHOW 1/2 - BRAINTEASER