Testing Stable Structures -- TIMBER!

On Monday we put on our scientist hats and did an experiment to test whether taller structures were more stable than shorter ones. Based on what they knew about structures already most students hypothesized shorter structures would be more stable. Using three heights of cardboard tubes, we conducted an experiment where the students placed three cardboard tubes (short, medium and tall) in a shoebox lid. We then gently tipped one end of the lid up and observed what happened. As hypothesized by most students, the tallest tube fell over first, followed by the medium tube, then the shortest one. Some enterprising scientists even went further and tried rearranging the order of the tubes to see if that made a difference, and in most cases, it did not. The only time the shortest tube fell over first was when it was placed directly in front of the taller tubes, and they knocked over the short tube on their way down.

We learned that this is important for construction workers to know when they are building, but then that led to the question: "Why then are there so many tall buildings if they're not as stable?" Until next science class...

Poppy Art

In honour of Remembrance Day, we created poppies by using red crepe paper that was cut out into the shapes of petals. We then lay the paper petals onto white paper and wet the crepe paper. After we peeled the wet crepe off, the red ink had bled onto the white paper, leaving a watery effect. The designs turned out to be quite striking and the kids commented on how "cool" the art project was.

The Boy Who Loved Words

On Friday, we read the book "The Boy Who Loved Words" by Roni Schotter. It's a story about a boy named Selig who is passionate about words-their sounds (tintinnabulating!), their taste (tantalizing!), and the way they moved his heart. An avid word-hoarder, he delights in discovering new terms, recording them on paper scraps, and stowing them in pockets. Unable to comprehend their son's strange predilection, his practical-minded parents worry about his future, and his classmates cruelly add oddball to his collection. After dreaming about a Yiddish Genie who advises him to embrace his passion and seek his life's purpose, Selig embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Feeling weighted down by his vocabulary slips, he climbs a tree and carefully attaches them to the branches. Fantastically and fittingly, several of them blow into the hands of a poet who is struggling for the right adjectives to finish his verse. Selig realizes that his mission is to bestow his word wealth upon others. He tosses out luscious to accentuate a baker's wares, halts an argument with harmony, and invigorates an elderly man with spry. He grows up to find personal fulfillment and even true love. (http://www.amazon.ca/)

After reading the story together and inspired by the "ransom note" look to the words , I pulled some of the new vocabulary words out of the text and the kids spent time sifting through magazines to reproduce some of the words with different fonts and letters. The effect was quite striking. I also challenged some of the kids to go home, share the words with their parents, and inform the class of the definitions. Thanks to Matia, we learned that voracious means excessively greedy, and luscious means delicious to taste and smell.

Visiting Reader - Constable Linda Nethercott

Linda has been my best friend for the last 30 years and she is a police officer with the Ottawa Police Service (if you had known the two of us as kids and teenagers, police officer and teacher were probably not at the top of the list of our chosen professions!). On Monday, she and her recruit, Constable Katie Ste. Marie came to visit us. Constable Katie read us Fancy Nancy, then Linda took some time to talk about safety and what to do in an emergency. She was very impressed with how much the kids knew about safety precautions, and we got a good laugh at how many of them were quick to try and turn their parents in for their lead foot!

Afterwards, Constables Linda and Katie took us for a tour of their police cruiser. The kids got to sit in the back, "ride" shotgun and even sit in the driver's seat. They even put the siren on as they left, much to the delight of the neighbours, I'm sure! It was a great event and the kids really enjoyed meeting some of our uniformed helpers up close!

I'M BACK!

After a few weeks of family craziness and then a few weeks of not being able to remember the password to get in to the site, I'm finally back and will be updating the blog ASAP! Thanks for your interest and patience!

~Mrs. Paynter

Getting Artsy

We have been studying the element of colour in art, beginning with a review of the primary and secondary colours. In this photo, local artist Sarah sits back to contemplate her design. The students were invited to create a crayon resist piece and use watercolours in the primary and secondary colours. The effect was quite eye-catching. Students really enjoyed exploring and playing with their imagination to create unique pieces.

Visiting Reader - Mrs. Inman

Mrs. Caroline Inman (Joseph's mom) visited us on Friday to read her favourite picture book: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Mrs. Inman also shared with us her passion for literacy as she worked as a journalist in England before moving to Canada.

As you can see from the photo, the kids really enjoyed the story!

Running!

Whew! Are we ever hard at work running towards our goal of 42 kms! We figured out that it would take the equivalent of 126 laps around the school to match Terry Fox's daily run. Some of us are already over a quarter of the way there! Even if we don't meet our goal, I'm confident we've gained at least a small appreciation of what it must have been like for Terry when he ran every day for over 140 days!

Here's a picture of Rylee doing her thing, with Olivia close behind her. Moyra and Matia are cooling down.

Read Aloud: Jin Woo by Eve Bunting

Today we read the book "Jin Woo" by author Eve Bunting. The story is about a young boy named David and his mixed feelings about his family adopting a baby boy from Korea. Bunting does an excellent job of delicately expressing David's anxieties about how his parents will have enough love for both children. However, on the drive home from the airport, David and Jin Woo share a tender moment and from then on, David's heart is hooked. The story ends with David passing on his favourite toy to his new brother.

"Good readers have busy brains when they read." This is a class slogan. I modeled the type of thinking readers do through making connections between the text and the reader's own life; in this case, my experiences as an adopted child and how I navigated becoming an older sister to my younger brother and sister. Furthermore, I connected to how David's family were facing the exciting challenge of keeping Jin Woo's Korean traditions alive as he grows. My brother is a member of the First Nations and he has always had a deep appreciation of his culture thanks to my parents.

We will spend the next several periods of Reader's Workshop reading and documenting our connections to the texts we read.

Bansho Math

Our math program is heavily based on the problem-solving approach, rather than an over-reliance on the rote recall "kill-and-drill" approach to math. One of the ways we consolidate what we've learned in math is to analyze and sort the different strategies of our classmates into a "Bansho". Bansho originates from Japanese mathematics lessons. In Ontario classrooms, the term “bansho” has been used to represent a process where teachers co-ordinate discussions of students’ mathematical thinking through a discussion that engages students in clarifying and justifying their solution methods. Teachers use visual aids (e.g., samples of student work on chart paper) to facilitate discussion that requires students to compare and synthesize different solution methods and identify relationships among them.

The photo is a (distant) sample of the bansho we did today after our math session on changing attributes in patterning. This is my first time using this method to help students communicate their learning, and I'm looking forward to using it again.

Terry Fox Run

Today we began learning the lyrics to the song "Run, Terry, Run" in honour of Terry Fox and in preparation for the Terry Fox Walk/Run. We hope to perform this song for the school.

One of the things we learned was Terry ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day! That's about 42 kilometers! And Terry did it with a prosthetic leg!

To give the students a very small taste of what it would mean to run that distance, I challenged the entire class to run and accumulate the equivalent of 42 kilometers between now and the day of A. Lorne Cassidy Terry Fox Walk/Run. Every day we will run in the yard, measure how far we ran as a class and keep a tally of our daily achievements. Hopefully we can reach our goal in time.

Learning Styles Activity

Today Ms. Zorad led the class in an activity where they got to explore their learning styles. It is important for the kids to know and accept the fact that not everyone learns in the same way, and that's okay! Some kids need to move their bodies to learn and are kinesthetic learners. Others learn best by talking it out with another person and are interpersonal and verbal learners.
In this photo, Matia is busy deciding which learning style best fits him while Emma has a discussion about her learning style with another student. The kids discovered and affirmed a lot about themselves!