Week 30

We had a fabulous, wonderful and warm week!

In Math, we learned how to use the Area Model strategy. First you write down the equation. Then you draw a rectangle and divide into how place values your bigger number has. Next you write the 1 digit number on the length side. Then you decompose (break up) the 2 or 3 digit into ones, tens and/or hundreds on the width side. To find the area of each section you need to multiply the length and width. After you have found the areas of each section you will need to add them all to together to find the total area and the final answer to your equation. 

Next week we will be learning about the Distributive Property. Please practice creating your own math questions and finding the solutions. 

How to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM0cZ8PltD4

In Science, we been working on our plans. After receiving teacher feedback we revised our plan. Then we received peer feedback which needs to be helpful and specific. We used the peer feedback to revise our plan. Next we did a self-assessment based on our Design Rubric. Next we made copy of the Google slides where were will be documenting our learning process. We uploaded our plan to the Design Plan slide.

We have been continuing to read Ticket to Curlew. In Chapter 3 Sam went on a walk and found a buffalo skull which he brought it home. His dad said it was a good find. He kept finding more buffalo skulls and began to lay them around the boundary of their house outline. 

We had a Weaselhead presentation and learned about plants in Alberta. By using a microscope we were able to spot the empty shell of a snail. 

Passion Projects  

In Ali's Passion Project he taught us about how astronauts make their food in space. We saw video of how one of astronauts made a meal for themselves. Astronauts put water on their food to make it stick together and stay in place. There is not gravity in space, therefore food is mostly in liquid or paste form.

During Ethan's Passion Project he talked about Christmas and how it was created. For example, no one made Christmas but it is a celebration for Christians and Catholics of Jesus' birth. 

Vacation Presentation

In Alex's presentation he shared some facts about his trip to Palm Springs. He shared what he did while was down in Palm Springs. 

Our spelling pattern next week: 

Focus: Most words ending in f/fe change f/fe to v and add es to make plurals (calf  - calves).

A few words ending in f just add s. (chief - chiefs)

Words ending in o ad s or es. (buffalo – buffaloes).

Irregular plurals change their spelling or stay the same (bison)

Examples include:

tooth ---> teeth

mouse ---> mice

woman ---> women

knife ---> knives

leaf ---> leaves

half ---> halves

loaf ---> loaves

life ---> lives

calf ---> calves

moose ---> moose

sheep ---> sheep

ox ---> oxen

yourself ---> yourselves

goose ---> geese

chief ---> chiefs

buffalo ---> buffaloes

handkerchiefs ---> handkerchiefs

scarf ---> scarves

hoof ---> hooves
bison ---> bison

Reminders:

• Continue collecting materials for building our complex machine cars. Look at your materials list to determine what you will need for building.
• Please return your library books on Tuesday.
• Frisbee Rob's Challenge begins next Monday, April 29th until Friday, May 3rd. Students are challenged to do 1, 2 or all 3 of the challenges below. Instead students can participate in activities, such as going outside and being active (play hockey, playing catch, play frisbee, go on a bike ride, go the park), reading, doing homework, creating a time limit on technology, swimming, play a board game, or arts and crafts.
• No screens in bedroom
• No screens at dinner
• No screens 1 hour before bed
• Continue practicing your basic math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will be having our mad minutes every Thursday. 

Week 29

We had a wonderful, busy and exciting week.

We had a special presentation on Monday. Frisbee Rob came and him and his sponsors donated 30 special Frisbees for us to use at school. He also challenged us to put away digital screens (ex: cellphones, TVs, iPads), when you are eating with your family and friends, one hour before bed and at all times in the bedroom.

In Science, we started planning our moving devices. First, we made a rubric to understand what our design needed. We determined what a 2 Needs Tweaking, 3 Standard and 4 A-class designs. Based on the criteria for our design we sketched our moving device, next we labeled the different materials we will needs for the different parts, and we wrote a description about how the device is powered and how the different parts move. 

We have read Chapter 2 in the book Ticket to Curlew. In this chapter we learned about that word “deed”. A dead is a contract for ownerships for something, such land. 

We had our 2nd Mad Minute this week! We recorded our progress. We will continue working our practicing and trying to beat our previous record. This will help us get better at our mental math. 
  

In Math, we have been doing arrays. We use arrays to group objects in rows and columns. We created arrays using beans by grouping them in rows and columns, then created repeated addition sentences and then turned our repeated addition sentences into multiplication sentences. We tried to make as many different arrays with the beans and drew them in our math booklets.  

How to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrvGXGYj_7o

Next week we will be starting to learn different multiplication strategies. We are starting with the Area Model. Please take the time to practice the the strategy. There are practice questions as well as the solutions below.

How to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdYV6i-kXcA

Practice Questions: 
3x16=
4x36=
9x42=
2x215=
3x326=
7x873=

Solutions:
3x16=48
4x36=144
9x42=378
2x215=430
3x326=978
7x873=6 111

Given that next week is shorter than usual, we will not be having daily 5, and there will be no spelling pattern to practice. 

Reminders:

• Continue collecting materials for building our complex machine cars. You can bring: wooden sticks, bottle caps, straws, duct tape, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, sting, CDs, tape, plastic bottles, rubber bands, balloons, hot glue sticks, pipe cleaner and springs. 
• There is no school on Monday, April 22nd next week.
• Please return your library books on Tuesday, April 23rd 

• During the week of April 23rd - April 26, the theme for the school will be"Keeping our School Green and Clean."  Panorama Hills School will be partaking in the following:

Tuesday, April 23

Beautiful Bathrooms

- Only use one paper towel after washing your hands

- Keep the bathrooms clean

Wednesday, April 24

Litterless Snack

- Use reusable packaging, less waste and a water bottle  

- Bring garbage home however, composting is available in the classroom

Thursday, April 25

Fabulous Classroom

- Pick up any toys, game pieces, paper etc. used during green tubs and centres

- Pick up after yourself (E.g., backpacks, jackets, hats, mittens, shoes, etc.)

Friday, April 26

Classy Classrooms

- Tidy up and organize your classroom before the weekend

Week 28

In our novel study Ticket to Curlew, we read Chapter 1. In Chapter 1 a boy named Sam moved from Jericho, Iowa to Curlew, Alberta. They moved to Alberta because they wanted to build a farm. Advertisements promised that Alberta's soil was rich and ready for farming. We learned some interesting words, for example an adze is for cutting and shaping wood. 

In Science we researched websites about wedges, pulleys and screws. We chose a car to build after watching videos of how to make a balloon powered vehicle, gravity powered vehicle, spring powered vehicle, mousetrap powered vehicle and elastic/rubberband powered vehicle.

In Social Studies we had to put ourselves in a settlers perspective. We created a mind map about what we might bring in our trunk. We chose items that were important to us and that we would use in our daily lives in our new home in Alberta. 

In Math we learned about arrays. Arrays are when objects are in grouped. You can group items based on what you see. For example, if you have 30 items in total you may have 10 groups of 3 items, 3 groups of 10 items, 2 groups of 15 items, 15 groups of 2 items or 6 groups of 5 items. To help us with our division facts, we also played Divide and Conquer.  

During Sophie's passion project, we learned about the most popular baby names in 2016. We also learned about the most popular names in the world. Amelia and Mohammad are the most popular names in the world.

During Lucy's passion project, we learned about coding. We learned about coding vs hacking and that you need to code before you hack. Hacking is illegal. Coding uses symbols, letters and numbers. Coding is needed for making games, such as Fortnite and Apex.

During Mekhi's passion project, we learned about live streaming. We learned about a youtuber, named Ninja who made $500,000 from his live streaming. You can stream by playing games.

Our spelling pattern next week: 

Focus: If a word ends in y preceded by a vowel, add s to make the plural.

holiday + s = holidays

If a word ends in y preceded by a consonant, change y to i and add es.

copy + es = copies 

Some examples include:

holidays

parties

stories

flies

birthdays

copies

duties

ladies

counties

valleys

groceries

hobbies

libraries

highways

batteries

injuries

cherries

melodies

surveys

communities 

Reminders:

• Start collecting materials for building our complex machine cars. You can bring: wooden sticks, bottle caps, straws, duct tape, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, sting, CDs, tape, plastic bottles, rubber bands, balloons, hot glue sticks, pipe cleaner and springs. 
• There is no School Friday, April 19th next week.

Have a marvelous, spectacular, supercalafrajalisticexpialadocious, relaxing, warm, magical and amazing weekend!

Mad Minutes: Practice Reminder

Please take the time this week to practice for our Mad Minutes this Friday. Students be given 1 minute for each section to answer as many addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts which is a total of 4 minutes. We will continue to use the same facts below for every Mad Minute. We will be challenged to beat our previous record. 

Please see the links below to help you practice your Division Facts. We will be watching is video and playing this game in class on Thursday.

What is Division?
https://www.youtube.com/user/mathantics/search?query=division  

Division Practice Game:
Divide and Conquer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti58wdHJ8pA 

Week 27

We had a joyful, warm and delightful week!

In Read to Self we had to make a reading goal based on teacher feedback and choose an area of fluency to work on. We will be working on this goal during Read to Self and Silent Reading for the next 2 weeks and will document progress at the end of 2 weeks.

We started analyzing paragraphs using the THIEVES strategy. First we had to read through the paragraph. Then we had to find the main idea and build off the main idea to find the supporting ideas. When determining our main idea we had to choose a sentence that had specific details. When finding our supporting details we had to relate the sentences to the main idea. This will become an option during Work on Writing and an activity we can practice when we are finished our work. 

In Science we explored the website Ed Heads and learned about simple machines. On the website, we have been scanning a virtual home for simple machines. For example in the bedroom we discovered a secret compartment which contained a ship. We learned that the ship's bow is a wedge and the propellor is an inclined plane. 

We had the chance to use a weigh scale to measure the force need to pick up items vs. the force needed to drag items across an inclined plane. 

In Social Studies we have been working on our Settler advertisements. First we researched the pros and cons of coming to Alberta. Then we planned a rough copy of our advertisements which needed at least 6 reasons to come to Alberta, a title and an eye-catching slogan. Lastly we plotted this information onto our final copy. 

In math we started two new games called Jeopardy and Bingo. During our games many students got pretty competitive and used their brains to calculate multiplication facts.

Passion Project!

This week, Gurpreet presented her Passion Project on Red Tailed Foxes. We learned that they can live in dens or old trees. Thank you for sharing!

Our spelling pattern next week: 

Focus: If a singular word ends in x, ss, sh or ch, you usually add es to make it mean more than one.  

fox + es = foxes 

axes 

bosses 

shoes 

kisses 

waxes 

foxes 

splashes 

ashes 

crashes 

matches 

sandwiches 

toothbrushes 

eyelashes 

sashes 

ditches 

flashes 

churches 

clashes 

Have a great weekend!

Reminders: 

• Mad Minutes: Next week we will be having our first Mad Minutes. Please take the time this weekend and next week to practice for our Mad Minutes next Friday. Students be given 1 minute for each section to answer as many addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. We will continue to use the same facts below for every Mad Minute. We will be challenged to beat our previous record.