Week Eight

In math this week we had a time assessment and we started to review our skip counting skills this week! We got to start with some fun movement break videos and then we got to do some centers. We got to go on the computers to play a skip counting game, we used this website that has lots of fun math and literacy games: 

http://www.abcya.com/number_bubble_skip_counting.htm 

We also helped a couple spiders make their webs, we connected the dots using skip counting to make pictures, we built skip counting cup towers, we found the missing numbers around a circle using clothes pins, we also played catch and count where we stood in a circle and tossed a ball around to each other while saying out skip counting sequences, and we completed mazes using skip counting, we also had races using popsicle sticks to make skip counting sequences. 

You can watch the videos here:

We read the book "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore." This book inspired the short film below that won an Academy Award so we got to watch the short film during story and snack after we had read the book to compare the book and the film. 

In Science and Social we continued to research our natural disasters. Next week we will be making posters with our group and teaching the rest of our class about what we learned. Here are some of the things we learned:

- Before a hurricane strikes there is flooding and a lot of rain and high winds. 

- We learned about volcanic eruptions and that in Yellow Stone National Park there is a volcano that scientists say might erupt! Scientists are taking precautions to try and find a way to make the volcano not erupt. If it does erupt it could cause problems world wide and even some of the ash and dust would reach Calgary. 

- There was a huge landslide in Alberta in 1903 called Frank Slide. It is pretty close to Calgary and it is the largest landslide ever to happen in Alberta. 

- And did you know that lava can be lots of different colours sometimes? Lava is also very destructive and the effects it has on people can make them sad.

- There are some restaurants, shops and markets in Japan called Tsunami! 

We started to have soccer matches this week in gym. It was fun! 

In writing this week we started to learn about poetry. We learned about 7 different kinds of poems, we learned about acrostic poems, free verse poems, rhyming poems, emotion poems, tanka, bio poems and cinquains. We learned the different formats for these poems and that some of them, like cinquains, can have 3 different formats. We wrote our very own bio poems today! It was fun! 

Miss Klem and Miss Kolb were BOTH away on Tuesday! We read the book, "What Teachers Do After YOU Leave School!" and then we had to write about where we thought they were! There were lots of creative ideas and Miss Klem and Miss Kolb were very impressed and wished that they had been in fact spies, surfing in California, climbing volcanoes in Hawaii, being on a Disney Cruise or dining in fancy restaurants in Paris! They were actually moving Miss Klem in to her new home! 

We got to share our writing with each other:

We started to talk about what Peace means to us because we will be preparing something for the Remembrance Day assembly that is happening on Nov. 10 at 10:30 in the morning. Parents are welcome, and encouraged, to come if they can! We will be writing poems using the formats we learned about to write poems about peace that we will use to make a video. We are also going to be making a very beautiful art piece to go along with our poems. 

Mr. Robinson came in on Wednesday afternoon to respond to the letters we wrote him! We learned so much about him. He used to play soccer semi-professionally and he is twin. He has brothers that are twins too! 

This Friday we had free writing and most of us earned Free Choice this week! 

We wish you have a fantastic weekend!

Next week is Halloween, don't forget to prepare your costume to wear on Tuesday if you would like! 

Miss Kolb and Miss Klem have some very fun activities planned for next week... Stay tuned!

 

Until next week, 

Love, 

Room 7 & 8 

Week 7

This week we did a lot of cool things in Social and Science. We are even sometimes getting Social and Science confused which is actually awesome because it means that everything we are learning about it starting to connect to each other.

This week we got to do some research about natural disasters. We got to choose the natural disaster that we were most interested in and we researched using pictures, videos and articles on the computer. We looked up the causes of the natural disasters, where they happen, what happens to the land and if there were any organizations that helped. The natural disasters we are researching are volcanic eruptions, landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, wild fires and earthquakes. Ask me what I learned about the natural disaster I am researching!

Science was awesome this week! Mr. Robinson came in and he helped us with a science experiment! We have been learning about the properties of rocks and minerals and we tested whether or not rocks sink or float. We made hypothesis, using the scientific method, about whether or not we thought granite, conglomerate and pumice rocks would float or sink. A lot of us hypothesized that they would all sink. Some of us were in for a big surprise when we saw that pumice floated!! We learned that pumice floats because it is less dense than most other rocks and it has a lot more air bubbles in it than other rocks.

We also tested the properties of other rocks. We stunk up the classroom with vinegar to see if the rocks contained carbonates! Only two of the rocks we tested 'fizzed', it was marble and shale. We also looked at texture which means if the rock felt rough or smooth in our hands, lustre which means if the rock was shiny or dull, we looked at colour and the shape, and we had to figure out if the rocks we were testing were igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.

We also learned about the two different types of igneous rocks. Intrusive and extrusive. Intrusive igneous rocks are rocks that are formed underground and when the lava cools slowly, like granite. Extrusive are igneous rocks that cool quickly and on the earths surface, like pumice.

In math we continued working on how to understand and read an analog clock. For time we have been learning about how to tell time using analog clocks and digital clocks. Analog is the clock that we use for some watches and the ones you can hang on your walls and digital is like alarm clocks and phones. We are just about done with time and we are going to have some time assessments next week before we move on to skip counting.

  

We are starting to learn about the four countries that we will be comparing to Canada this year. The countries we will be looking at are Ukraine, India, Peru, and Tunisia. We used atlases to find the countries and to map them. Miss Kolb stressed that mappers do not use blue to colour land, this is very important because it would be confusing if water and countries were blue! So when we are mapping we NEVER colour the countries blue!

We unfortunately are going another week without free choice. We had a very good class meeting about how we can continue to get better at working together and respecting this place and each other.

Until next week,

Love,

Room 7 & 8