Sunday, November 30, 2008

Update from Ms. R

This week's homework is to write a story (in the homework writing journal) about the play we saw this week in the gym called "A Christmas Carol" OR write a story about a music conductor.

Important dates:

1. December 1 - Report Cards go home today.
2. December 3 (AM) - Trip to see the play "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown"
3. December 4 (evening) and December 5 (AM - no classes) - Parent/teacher interviews
4. December 16 (PM) - Scientists in the Schools visit
5. December 18 (evening) - Winter Concert
6. December 20 - January 5 - Winter Holidays

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

November 26 News







November 26 News by Angie and Razan


This week we looked for different shapes in the classroom. The most common shape is a rectangle. We learned how to use Venn diagrams to sort things. We used shapes to create a building. I designed a building for an electronics company (Razan) and I designed a Chinese restaurant called "The Bowl" (Angie).
We photocopied a picture of the Mona Lisa (by Leonardo da Vinci). We coloured it with yellow food colouring and cut it out and glued it on white cardboard. We each designed our own background and gave Mona Lisa something to make her smile. I put her in the countryside and gave her a bowl of cherries (Angie) and I put her in a park with a bowl of strawberries and having a picnic (Razan).
We watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon that used the music of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. It was called the Rabbit of Seville. It was funny.
We listened to more opera, this time by the Italian composer Verdi. We listened to Ms. R read a book called "How Pizza Came To Our Town". It was about a town where they didn't know what pizza was until Ms. Pelligrino from Italy came to visit.
We made an advent calendar. Advent means arrival in Latin. We are counting the days until the winter holidays. On each day one student gets a package that has Italian candies, a maze, a pencil and a bouncy ball. There are 17 more days now until the holidays.
We read a book about William "Snowflake" Bentley who lived 143 years ago. He was famous for studying and taking pictures of snowflakes. He found out that snowflakes are hexagons and that they are all different.
We learned how to do kirigami (Japanese for cutting paper). And we cut paper snowflakes. The best part was when you opened up the snowflake to see what it looked like.
Arrivederci (that's Italian for good bye) from Razan and Angie

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

November 19 News


November 19 News by Eric and Hodman

This week we wrote stories using "textless" (that means a book that has pictures but no words) books. My story was about a skipping mouse named Alex (Eric). My story was about some rabbits that took some balloons to a house and caused some trouble there (Hodman).
We had two visitors to our class this week, a person named Libby brought her dog named Bobby. She was here to talk about being kind to animals and how to take care of pets.
We recorded our song that we wrote new words to called Boom De Ya Da. If you want to listen to the song press the triangle play button and you can hear us singing.
In math we are looking at shapes and that's called geometry. The most common shape in the classroom is the rectangle. We also learned that the number of sides of a shape is equal to the number of vertices. The more sides a shape has the more it looks like a circle.
We made the last piece of fabric for our pillows. First we put our names on the fabric. Next we did an accordian fold and held the folds in place with elastic bands. Then we sprayed some water on the fabric so the colours would spread. Finally we painted the fabric with yellow, red and green-blue paint.
Ms. R filmed our magnet puppet plays and then we watched them on our TV. We worked with a partner and the plays were good and funny.
We learned about the Italian composer called Rossini, he lived over 200 years ago. He wrote music called opera. Opera was started in Italy. We listened to The Barber of Seville and used straws to conduct the music. We watched a movie about Rossini and this opera. We thought this movie was good and very funny.
Good bye from Hodman and Eric



Sunday, November 16, 2008

Update from Ms. R

This week's homework is to write a fiction or non-fiction story about the small package of gummi bears taped into the homework writing journal.

On Thursday, we counted 50 school days. Of course that means 50 pictures of Mr. Lee in his crazy shirts. Here is a video of some of the shirts so far.



Important Dates:

1. November 27 - Multi-cultural Night (flyer sent home on Friday)
2. December 1 - Report Cards go home
3. December 4 (evening) & December 5 (morning) - Parent/Teacher interviews
4. December 4 - P.A. Day - no classes
5. December 18 - Holiday Concert (evening)
6. December 20 to January 6 - Winter holidays

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

November 12 News

November 12 News by Ansh and Eve

This is our peace writing, our painted peace poppies and our folded paper cranes. This photo is of Ms. Adeodu our new student teacher. She is helping the star student with the morning message.
In math we are talking about measurement, area and perimeter.
We saw a video about magnets. There are north and south poles on magnets. We made puppets out of stiff paper and taped paper clips on the bottom and we used magnets under a tissue box stage to move the puppets. Some of the magnets were not strong enough and seemed to lose their power.
We finished reading the book Stink and the Super Smelly Sneaker Contest. He didn't win because he ended up being a judge. His friend Sophie won the contest and they called her Sophie of the Smells.
We sang our peace song at the Remembrance Day ceremony. The whole school sang a song I am but a small voice. We had a visitor talk to us who survived the war and he had medals on his jacket.
We learned how adjectives make a story more interesting. If there were no adjectives in the world all the stories would be boring.
In our reading groups we learned how to use encyclopedias. I looked up tarantulas (Ansh) and I looked up Italy (Eve).
We sang some silly songs. I liked singing Hokey Pokey (Ansh) and I liked singing The Green Grass Grew All Around (Eve).
We learned a drawing technique to show how things glow by using straight, short lines like for fireflies, lightbulbs and candles.
Good bye from Eve and Ansh



Thursday, November 6, 2008

Update from Ms. R

Important Dates:
1. November 3-9 - Book Fair - Our class visit day is Monday Nov.3 and children are encouraged to bring money to purchase books.
2. November 11 - Remembrance Day Assembly - 10:45 AM - Our class will perform - families are welcome.
3. December 1 - Report cards go home
4. December 4 (evening) and December 5 (morning) - Parent-Teacher interviews
5. December 4 - P.A. Day - no classes

Here is a video of Edie Shaw teaching our class drumming.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

November 5 News

November 5th News by Grace and Kevin

This week in science we learned that magnets don't stick to all metals. They don't stick to pennies but a 2008 penny did stick. We made magnets out of sewing needles. Magents work through paper, plastic bags and cups, water and even Ms. R's hand!
We wrote stories about our spiders as if we were the spiders, because spiders can't write (they aren't real... we made them). My spider's name is Ashley (Grace) and mine is David (Kevin). We learned how to make paper cranes out of a flat piece of paper and folded it into a 3D crane.
Carol-Ann the poet came to visit us. She taught us some of her poems, she read some poems out of books. One book was called "Do Buses Eat Kids?". The photo shows her teaching us how to do the actions to the words of the poem and then we repeated them.
We made caramel apples for a treat for Halloween. We used caramels that we took the wrappers off of and melted them in a big pot. We dipped the apples in the caramel. There was parade and a class party where we ate some food and watched the Lego Sports movie.
We learned how to do the ASL signs to go with our Peace song that we will sing at the Remembrance Day assembly. We painted poppies using red and black paint. We wrote about what peace means and taped the story, the paper crane and the poppies on black paper and they are now on the bulletin board in the hall.
In math we started to measure things using rulers, metre sticks and measuring tapes. We learned a new class cheer. The Book Fair is this week and goes until Friday. We started a read aloud called "Stink and the Super Stinky Sneaker Contest". The book is really gross in a funny way. Stink went to a museum where he went inside a nose and a mouth and said it was the smelliest trip ever.
Good bye from Kevin and Grace