Bits of June!

Thanks everyone for all of the wonderful gifts, hugs, emails and best wishes. It has been a great year. Enjoy the video.

Pay It Forward

Everyone will be bringing a "Pay It Forward" paper this weekend. Please read and discuss this with your child. We are doing this project to honour 21k's cousin Chase, who died recently in a farm accident. In class we will be discussing generosity and kindness and the whole concept of "pay it forward." On Monday or Tuesday each student will be expected to write about their plans to "pay it forward" over the next few days or weeks. I would like to make this a meaningful experience and have the students think about meaningful ways to pay it forward.

BITS OF MAY!

Here it is..... I know you have been waiting for it. This month I went with "old school" music. First of all, every suggestion from the students had inappropriate lyrics at some point in the song. When I watched all the jumping in the video, I knew I had to have the song "Jump" by Van Halen. No bad lyrics in this song!

Census Assignment

Your child should be bringing home their census assignment on Thursday. I was very impressed with the work they were able to do. Some of the students demonstrated very high level thinking skills, coming up with reasons I hadn't even thought of. They had to analyze data to make decisions and be able to come up with reasons for their decisions. When they had to narrow down their choices from three neighbourhoods to one, I didn't go with just one correct answer. I looked at the reasoning behind their answers. Some of the reasons made me laugh! As usual, please sign and return.

Weekly Blog and Grade 4 Math Test

We started a new post today during our computer time. Some students finished it in class but most didn't. This blog is due Thursday, May 5 by 3:00. I look forward to reading them.

The Grade Fours have a math test Friday, May 6 on the fractions and decimals unit. They should all have their texts and notebooks at home to study. We talked today about "how" to study for a math test. Yes it is different from studying for many other tests. I suggested they start with the unit summary called "Show What You Know." We usually do this in class. I have corrected everyone's work and they should work through the questions they have wrong-that is a good start. Students not sure about certain concepts can look back into the lesson about that concept. Students can also work their way through each of the lessons, trying a question here and there.

Giant Buddha!

The other day Mr. Hosie and I went to another town to see a giant Buddha! Since Jeff was working we had to make our way there ourselves. We use a guidebook that has the places we want to go written in Chinese. Then we just show the cab drivers or people at the train stations where we want to go. We also have Jeff's address written down in Chinese on a piece of paper in my purse to show the cab drivers! Cabs here are very cheap and we have used them everyday.

A lady at the info booth in the train station spoke English and helped us buy our tickets and showed us which platform to wait for the train on. Once we got to the platform we showed another person our ticket and she motioned where we should stand and which train we should get on. It is very weird not knowing any of the language. A few places have the "English" spelling of things which makes it much easier. Most street signs are written in Chinese. They are just starting to have the more major streets written in English.

When we got there we were amazed at the giant Buddha and the beautiful temple. We are getting used to seeing these beautiful temples everywhere.

Last night I ate Taiwanese ice cream. Yum, yum! It had a bit of ice cream on the bottom, then a bunch of stuff kind of like frozen ice milk then cut up fruit (I choose mango) then some sort of syrup. It was all in a huge bowl.

I haven't bought any souvenirs as I haven't real seen anything of interest. All I bought was one pair of shoes! They have beautiful shoes here for cheap but nothing in my size! People here are small and have small feet!

We leave tomorrow night. I am ready to go home but I don't want to leave Jeff!

See you soon!

More Taiwan Updates

We just got back from a 5 day little trip to Southern Taiwan. We took a taxi, train and high speed train to get there. We had to pack all of the things we wanted to take into our backpacks. Mine was very heavy and really stuffed. Once we got there it was so beautiful. Jeff and Mr. Hosie did lots of snorkelling there.

The picture of the mom and two little girls shows how many kids get to school. I have even seen a little baby in a high chair like thing balanced on the foot part of the scooter. Oh-and also dogs riding on the scooters!

The picture of me walking on the path shows what they have in many of their parks and walkways. These paths have bumpy stones or other things to walk on and massage your feet. I could hardly walk on them but I did see many old people just walking on them. The different colours and shapes are supposed to massage different parts of your feet. I find if I walk on them wearing my flip flops that is a good enough foot massage for me!

The picture of Mr. Hosie and I was taken at the harbour of a city called Kaohsiung (pronounced Gowshung). Mr. Duke taught English here!

I hope everyone had a happy Easter.

More Pictures of Taiwan

Here are some more pictures. The trees were in the mountains. We were on our way to see the monkeys. The baby monkeys were so cute. The huge gold statues were inside a temple. These temples are everywhere-people come and worship, pray and leave offerings. The temples are beautiful.

Taiwan Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Taiwan. I tried to put them on our blog but couldn't. Go to the blog to read all about the trip so far. The first picture is of the frogs we ate! The second shows a busy street corner. The last picture shows an afternoon market.

Science Test

There will be a science test next Tuesday, April 19. The unit we just finished is on light. In your science duotang there should be a bunch of write-ups about different experiments we did. Read these over to remind yourself of what we did and what we may have learned from it. Every student was also given a study sheet as well.

Eagle Cam!

Check out this live camera on an eagle's nest. You can see the babies and the parents. I am now addicted to watching them.

http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/

More Gym Routines....

22m8h24a Gym Routine

More Gym Routines-thro youtube

Video Info

I understand many pc users are not able to view some of the videos I have posted. My "tech advisors" tell me if you download Quicktime you will be able to view them. I know if I put the videos onto youtube then everyone can view them. I am not big on putting the videos on youtube but this is the only way I have been able to make sure all the families can see the Bits of ... movies.

Bits of March

This and That

Booktalks are almost over. We have had some creative ways of sharing our favourie books with eachother. Many of the kids have gone to the library to seek out a book or author they learned about in the booktalks. Check out the picture of 22k doing her booktalk.

Since our L.A. focus in April will be on poetry, our next speaking project will be to recite a poem (or two) that we will write ourselves. We will be having a poetry cafe together after Easter where we recite our poetry to eachother.

We also have a couple of pictures here of students making the candy bags for the movie lunch we put on. The kids had so much fun doing all their jobs for the lunch. At the end of the day I asked them what their favourite part of the day was and three quarters of them answered, "Doing my job."

Grade Four Math Test

The Grade Fours have a end of unit test on Monday. This unit involves multiplication and division. A few students are still not solid on their division but we need to move on. I will keep reviewing division throughout the rest of the year and this will help. Sometimes all they need is more time and practice. You can help at home by giving them a question or two once a week. Basically grade 4 division is divided into four main concepts.

1. Basic division facts- 56÷7=8

2. Estimating divsion 65÷8= about 8

3. Division with remainers 59÷6=9 R5

4. Short division- 83÷6=13R5 these could have remainders or be exact

Our text book uses only the ÷ symbol for division but I have taught them both symbols. Ideally they should be able to divide using either symbol but I am finding that for a few students that are having difficulty the other symbol is easier for them. If this is the case then I will encourage them to rewrite the question from 76÷5 to the other method.

Hope this helps.

More Gym Routines

Here is the next batch of gym routines. Enjoy!

Gym Routines

Well since it didn't go well putting on the structure presentations, let's try our gym routine videos.

21k's Presentation

Light, Light, Light!

We are starting a new science unit on light. If you are able to bring a flashlight for this unit, it would be handy. Don't forget to label it with your name. If you can't bring one, don't worry about it. If even half of the class brings one then we'll be set.

Structure Presentations

Here are some of the structure presentations. I'm not sure if I can get all of the videos on this blog due to privacy issues. It will take me a week or so to get all of the videos on.

Building Structures

Well we had a great time building our bridges, towers and domes. My group was building domes and we experimented with skeleton type domes, igloo type domes and geodesic domes. I found a good website that shows how to make an easy geodesic dome out of newspaper. The kids are excited and want to try it at home. We discussed how to change it, make it bigger and bigger and bigger! Good luck!

Remember the key is to roll up the newspaper very tightly and the rolls should be about the same length.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Geodesic-Dome/

Bits of February

French Test!

Friday everyone (except those at hockey) should have brought home a study sheet for the French test. The test will be on March 2. Bon chance!

Hockey players that were gone on Friday-it is your job to get that sheet from Mdm. Henson.

NEW SPEAKING ASSIGNMENT-BOOKTALKS!

Each student in the class will be giving a booktalk to the class. Choose a new book to read (not the one you did your book review on). Remember everyone has read the Wimpy Kid and BONE books so don't do those. Try to pick a book you think not many others have read or know about. Choose a book you really like. It could be a book you are in the middle of now. You don't even have to be finished your book in order to do a booktalk.

What is a booktalk?

A booktalk is like a movie trailer for books. The purpose of a booktalk is to "sell" the book. You want to give enough of the plot to interest the listeners but you are not giving a summary of the book. You don't want to give away the important parts of the book. You certainly never want to give away the ending. You want to highlight the interesting points. You may want to read certain passages to your listeners. The main purpose of a booktalk is to grab the audience's interest and make them want to read the book. It's always a good idea to end the booktalk with a cliffhanger.

How do booktalks differ from book reviews?

In a book review, the reviewer is judging the book. The book is recommended or not. Criticism is often given in book reviews. A summary of the plot may be included. In a booktalk, you assume that the person giving the booktalk recommends the book.

Taken from http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/faq.htm

We will have a sign up spot in the classroom for you to pick a time to do your booktalk. Think about this over the next few days.

File Card Bridges

Today we did an inquiry about bridges. We used file cards (the ones people use to write their notes for giving speeches on) to make the bridges. We had to experiment using one and then two file cards. We also had to change the second file card to see if there was any way to make the bridge stronger. Some of us found that we could make our bridge much stronger by folding the second card accordian style and putting it underneath the first card for strength. See the picture. We also experimented with an arch. We saw lot of arches in one of our background lessons on structures. Finally we tried to change the length of our bridge. By the way-we measured the strength of our bridges by how many pennies it would hold up.

Fabulous "Fake" Birchbark Biting

Check out these pictures of B.'s birchbark biting he made at the Art Gallery.

STRUCTURES!

So we have started our unit on structures. I have found a few websites on different kinds of structures. See the section on the right side for links. Some of them are about bridges, skyscrapers, natural structures and other ideas. You may have to search around some of the sites for different things. As I find more websites I will add them here. Have fun!

Art Gallery Trip

We had a good time at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. One activity we did there was to try making a version of "birchbark biting". One student in our class made an incredible one. The tour guides were amazed by it. We were not allowed to take pictures in the gallery so no pictures of it. Go to the following link to see some wonderful examples of Angelique Merasty's birchbark bitings.

The pictures below are just a few of the pictures from our trip. I will save the rest for Bits of February.

Comments

A few parents have mentioned that they would like to comment on our class blog. I have tried and tried to fix this issue but I don't seem to be able to do it. Sorry! I think it is a "known issue" with the blog.

Bits of January

Book Review/S.S. Test

Your book review is due on the blog on Feb. 8. So get reading and start writing. I have read some of the reviews posted so far and I can see a few books that I want to read.

This a reminder that your test on treaties is on Monday, February 7. The papers in your duotang are good to study from as well as the jeopardy game on the hptweet. Remember that we put a check mark on the pages/ideas that you need to know for the test.

Study

Here is the jeopardy game that you can study from:

http://jeopardylabs.com/play/treaties2

GET READING EVERYONE!

Our class will be doing book reviews on our blogs. A book review is your recommendation for a book-do you like it or not? Is it worth reading or not? You will need to read a book then write a little book review on it. A book review usually gives a bit of an idea of what the book is about as well as a recommendation for reading it. Don't give away the ending though! Be sure to include the full title and author's name. Most importantly make sure you choose a "good fit" book for Grade 3 or 4. So start reading now. I will give you a week to read and a week to get the review done.

New Blog Homework

Your new blog assignment will be some sort of a post on nature. Do with this want you want-just remember the main theme has to be nature. It could be wild weather, animals, personal experiences, things you know a lot about-whatever! Check out the blog because 1a already has one finished.

This post must be complete by January 28-8:00pm ( 20:00).

Skating Pictures

L. had a great time at skating-so did the rest of us. Thanks parents for all of your help!

Making Hamburger Collages

We had a great time making hamburger collages in art. Next week we will do a writing project describing these yummy burgers.

Blogging Homework

We have finished our first "blogging homework" and we're improving already with our writing. I see more use of capital letters, good punctuation and better spelling. Most of the blogs were very interesting to read. I was really entertained by some of them! Try to go on and read a few. I will give you some time during our next computer time to go on the blog and read some of your classmates' interesting blogs.

Blogging homework for this week-find out something interesting that happened in the news this week and blog about it. How will you find out something interesting about the news? Well you could try reading the paper (hint-just check out the headlines to see if it is interesting to you), ask your parents, watch the news on TV, or check the internet. Remember to put it in your own words-don't just copy don't what you have read or seen.

I will mark the blogs the same as last week- it is out of 10. You are marked on your title, capital letters, spelling, punctuation, at least five sentences and how interesting is it or how easy is it to understand.

This homework is due by Monday, January 17 by 8:00pm.

Blogging Homework

Don't forget to do your blogging homework. I am looking for at least five good sentences on a topic of your choice. Start with a title that will grab your readers' interest. When the kids in our class go on our blog, they will read the titles first to decide whose blog they will read. I am also looking for interesting sentences with capital letters, decent spelling and punctuation. I noticed 16t has a really interesting post about karate. Check it out.

By the way, I seem to be far too busy approving posts and comments to have any time to comment on your posts so everyone make sure they make at least one comment to someone else in the class.

See you Monday!

From Farm to Table Group 7