Room 5 Pioneer Village Research

The children worked in groups to research and build important buildings in the average pioneer village. Here are videos of the group presentations:

Part 1 - The General Store, The Blacksmith and The Grist Mill


Part 2 - The Pioneer School and The Pioneer Home

 

The Room 5 Interview Show!

Our guest this week was Ms. Francesca. She is the gym teacher at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to for each student to teach an adult how to play the Cooperative Story Game using the homemade dice they created this week.There is also a worksheet to be completed to help the students reflect on how the lesson went. The homework also includes a math package reviewing geometry concepts. This homework is due on Thursday, June 4th. (Friday June 5th is a P. A. Day.)

NOTES:

1. The warm weather has arrived (finally)! Please make sure your child has a refillable water bottle, a hat (to protect sensitive heads from the sun) and sunscreen. The children do have access to a water fountain, but to prevent long line-ups, a personal water bottle saves time.

2. The Primary Concert will be held on Wednesday, June 10th at 6:30 pm at Hodgson Senior Public School. A letter was sent home this week about this event.

3. Please return completed June 17 field trip forms along with $13.00 to cover the costs of the Bata
 Shoe Museum activities.

4. Children that have birthdays in July and August will have a chance to celebrate with the class in June! For example, if a students has a birthday on August 15, we will celebrate his/her birthday on June 15. If you are sending in treats, please remember that all food in our school is to be nut-free.

Here are the students, just before we set free our Painted Lady Butterflies!

News for May 29

News for May 29

This week we said "good bye" to our Painted Lady Butterflies. Most of the butterflies emerged from their chrysalids (there is still one chrysalis left in the butterfly house) and we set them free on Friday. It was amazing to watch them fly away! The children learned about the structure of butterfly (and moth) wings. The wings are covered in small scales that are different colours and it is the placement of the scales that determines the pattern on the wings. The wing patterns are also symmetrical. Both butterflies and moths belong to the Order Lepidoptera, which means "scaly wings" in Latin. The students finished writing their butterfly journals and learned how to fold a paper origami box to hold one empty chrysalis to remind them of this class project.They even made small, symmetrical paper butterflies to decorate the tops of the boxes!

In Math, the class reviewed  and practiced how to tally information from a research question and how to graph the results. They also reviewed basic multiplication and division facts.The students also created their own dice to use for the homework activity for this week.

In Art, the class reviewed the math concept of how two dimensional shapes move across a surface (translation, rotation, reflection) and how some shapes can be put together, like tiles on a floor, without any spaces in-between. These patterns are also called tessellations. They learned about the Dutch mathematician/artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972) who is famous for his tessellation art. The students each created their own flat shape and began to create their own tessellation art.

In Writing, the children learned about synonyms (words with a similar meaning) and how to use commas when writing a list. The children continued researching and writing their facts about the plant or tree they chose for their science posters. The class reviewed how to play the cooperative story writing game using two dice. After writing a story with a partner, the partners read aloud their stories to the class.

In Reading, the class began a guided reading project of the classic book Black Beauty. We are fortunate to have 12 copies of this novel and we are using these books to chorally read the story together. The story of Black Beauty was written by English author Anna Sewell in 1877. It was one of the first books to have the story told from the perspective of the animal, in this case, a horse. The author wrote the book to help prevent people from mistreating animals. This is a great connection to our pioneer unit as it depicts life in England 138 years ago.

In Science, the students studied the seeds in an apple.They each dissected the the apple to count the number of seeds inside and identified the stem, blossom end and seed ovaries. The students learned the story of a real man, John Chapman (1774-1845), also known as, Johnny Appleseed who is, in part, responsible for apple trees being commonly found in the northern US. The students also read and discussed a non-fiction story about a common plant found where we live, the dandelion. They also looked at seed cones and needles from a blue spruce (coniferous) tree.

In Social Studies, the students presented their research on buildings commonly found in a Pioneer Village. The videos of these presentations can be found in a separate posting.

At the end of the week, the children began rehearsing for their performance at the Primary Concert on June 10th.

Books read aloud this week:

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (finished)
Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg
Butterfly Alphabet by Kjell B. Sanved
Butterfly House by Eve Bunting

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story (fiction or non-fiction) in the homework writing journal about the soap that the students made last week. There is also a set of math review sheets covering concepts in multiplication and division. Students were also asked, if possible, to do some research on their plant or tree topic and to bring this information to school to help with their research posters. This homework is due on Friday, May 29th.

* Note: We are having a field trip to the Bata Shoe Museum/University of Toronto on Wednesday, June 17th. We will need two parent volunteers for this all day trip. Please let me know if you wish to volunteer. Permission forms will be sent out this week.

Important Dates:

June 5 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
June 10 - Primary Concert (evening) at Hodgsen Senior Public School - details to follow
June 13 - FUN FAIR
June 17 - Trip to Bata Shoe Museum (AM) and the University of Toronto (PM) - details to follow
June 24 - Report Cards go home
June 25 - Last day of classes for the school year

News for May 22

News for May 22

This short week the children were very busy! From selling soap to studying butterflies to growing plants the students filled the days with their questions, answers and theories.

In math, the students tried playing each other's beanbag math games and then wrote reviews to the game creators to let them know what was good about the game and some ideas to improve the game. The class also reviewed how to move horizontally and vertically on a grid. The students learned a bit about algebra and strategies on how to solve questions when the unknown is in a different place. For example, usually a math question is in the form of 4+9=__, but sometimes the question can look like this 4+__=15.

The basil and coriander plants germinated this week and the leaves and stems were very different! The basil plants have short stems and wide rounded leaves. The coriander plants have long stems and long narrow leaves. We also looked at and planted the seeds for poppies, four-leaf clover, money plants and forget-me-nots. The seeds all look very different!

After waiting and waiting, the butterflies began to emerge from their chrysalids. At the end of the week there were three butterflies in our butterfly house. After thinking about what happens inside a chrysalis the students learned that inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar breaks down into "caterpillar soup" and reforms into a butterfly. The children used Lego pieces in a zip lock bag to help them understand what happens inside the chrysalis. The class also learned that the caterpillar stage is also known as the larvae stage and the chrysalis stage is also known as the pupa stage of the life cycle. Metamorphosis is the name given to the process of changing from one shape to another different shape.

Each student began to research the plant or tree that they chose to learn more about. They worked on making the title for their posters and began looking in encyclopedias for more information.

Each student took the soap that they made last week and designed a label to package it and a poster to advertise it. After talking about what information needs to be on a label and what kinds of information helps a person choose a particular brand of soap and various ways to present this information, the children each designed a poster to "sell" his/her soap. These posters are now on display outside of our classroom.

In guided reading the class chorally read and discussed the story The Medicine Walk to learn more about how native medicine remedies are collected and passed down from one generation to another and how native people shared this information with the pioneers.

The pioneer village groups continued their research this week and worked on their presentations. Each group will present what they learned to the class next week. Each student also had a chance to saw a piece of wood (from a pine tree). After learning about the safe way to use a saw, each child used a saw to cut the piece of wood into two pieces. It's not easy! The class now understands that for pioneers to build a house out of wood without electric tools was very, very difficult and took a lot of time and effort.

Books read aloud this week:

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (chapter book - continued)

The Room 5 Interview Show

This week our guest was Ms. Mantello. She is the teacher/librarian at our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the math review sheets of the "number sense and numeration" math strand. There is also a story related to our pioneer unit with some reading comprehension questions. This homework is due on Friday, May 22nd.

Please remember that the children are expected to read for a minimum of 20 minutes at home each day. Of course, they are encouraged to read for more than 20 minutes!

Here are a couple of students enjoying our school's annual "Jump Rope for Heart" event this week.

News for May 15

News for May 15

This week the students observed a lot of changes in their plant and caterpillar science observations. Not a lot happened with the plants but some students had their basil plants sprouting. This was a surprise because many students predicted that the coriander would germinate first because the coriander seeds were so much bigger than the basil seeds. The students also completed worksheets reviewing basic plant biology learned so far. Each child also picked a plant or tree to research for our next set of research projects.

Our caterpillar project is now entered the chrysalis phase. The students learned that a butterfly makes a chrysalis and a moth makes a cocoon. Most of the caterpillars are now in a chrysalis and these were transferred to the butterfly cage.

Students each read another student's storybox book and wrote the author a letter telling the author three things they liked about the book, one thing that could be improved and finally a question about the story.

The class did a guided reading activity to learn about how pioneers made candles and soap. Later in the week, the children had a chance to make homemade soap using modern vegetable-based type of soap (that is, it does not include the harsh chemical called lye). The children also added lavender flower buds and essential oil. The children also continued to work in their groups to research and create a building for our pioneer village.

In math, the students continued to work with partners to design and create games using the beanbags they made last week.They also have begun to finish off lessons in their workbooks, for example, reviewing how to move an object horizontally and vertically on a grid.

During our computer time the children learned more about plants by visiting the science site:

sciencekids.co.nz/gamesactivities.html

Books read aloud this week:

Owls in the Family (chapter book) by Farley Mowat

Cornbread pancakes recipe

Cornbread (a recipe from Ms. R's Nova Scotian grandmother)

Serve plain or, the way my family likes to eat it, with lots of butter!

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup flour
1/3 cup of white sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

* Stir together the cornmeal, milk, egg and oil. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix until just combined (do not over mix).
* Pancakes: Using 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake, cook in a lightly oiled frying pan until golden brown on each side.
* Classic cornbread: Pour batter into a greased 8x8 pan and bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes until the top springs back when lightly touched.
* This recipe can be doubled.

Update from Ms. R

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the families a Happy Mother's Day!

The homework for this week is to complete the non-fiction reading comprehension activity about owls. There is also a math worksheet reviewing motion geometry concepts. This homework is due on Friday, May 15th.

News for May 8

News for May 8

The big news for this week was our special "Pioneer Day" on Thursday, when we pretended to live like it was 200 years ago. So, technically, it was Thursday, May 7, 1815...

The students tried cursive writing with feather (quill) pens and ink. They learned the famous sentence that has all 26 letters of the alphabet (called a pangram), "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." They performed a pioneer song and dance in the music period. Using chalk and blackboards they solved arithmetic (math) problems. The children learned how to make homemade rope by twisting cord until it twists around itself. (They used our dyed wool to practice how to do it.) In the pioneer spirit, the children helped to prepare food for the pioneer lunch. The students helped to make homemade applesauce, cornmeal pancakes and butter. Also on the menu were pickles, carrot sticks, cheese and raisins and popcorn for recess snacks. Did you know that the dried navy beans we sowed (planted) and grew into bean plants are the same kind of beans used to cook baked beans? We also used these same dried beans to sew beanbags (to use in games next week).

It was a fun day but the students also realized that living hundreds of years ago was also a lot of work! Here are some photos from that day:



In math the children learned about motion geometry or how shapes can move across a surface. Shapes can slide (translation), turn (rotation) or flip (reflection). The class also talked about lines of symmetry in nature and in objects and learned how to use "mirras" or translucent mirrors to help figure out where the lines of symmetry are on a drawing.

Room 5 is turning into a room of scientists! We have two big science projects going on now as we look at plants and as of this week...caterpillars. The students have grown bean plants from dried white navy beans. Did you know that the first leaves that feed the plant are called "cotelydons" and are actually the two halves of the bean seed?

The Painted Lady Butterfly caterpillars arrived on Tuesday and are growing so fast! Most have now doubled in length and have molted several times shedding their skin as they grow. Did you know that the small pellets in the caterpillar containers are actually their poop? (But, the science word for it is "frass".)

The children finally finished designing and making their books inspired by a small, empty box. Next week, the students will read and write reviews of each other's books.

The class is now working in groups to research some of the places in a pioneer village. They are researching: the general store, the schoolhouse, the grist mill, the pioneer home, the blacksmith and wheelwright. The groups used wooden blocks to create a building and are now collecting facts to present to the class. The students also started to learn a pioneer song, "When I First Came to This Land".

In honour of Mother's Day and in the pioneer spirit, each child made a special gift and card to take home. Using all kinds of different beads and pieces of thin wire, the students created large beads made of smaller beads to make a unique necklace for their mothers.

Books read aloud this week:

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (chapter book)

The Room 5 Interview Show - Mr. Grundy

This week, we took our interview show to Room 103 to interview Mr. Grundy. Mr. Grundy is a kindergarten teacher in our Learning Buddies classroom.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework journal (fiction or non-fiction) that has something to do with plants. There is also a math worksheet reviewing patterning concepts. This homework is due on Friday, May 8th.

***Note to parents...

1. As part of our social studies unit, on Thursday, May 7th we are pretending that it's May 7, 1815 in our classroom! The children will be preparing and eating lunch in the classroom in the morning. Your child does not need to bring a lunch that day. Please have your child bring $2 to help with the cost of the food.

2. EQAO testing will be the last week of May. The main testing days are Monday to Wednesday (May 25-27). Please try NOT to schedule any appointments or activities on these days. If you have any questions, please email Ms. R.

News for May 1

News for May 1

This week the students saw their bean seeds begin to germinate! The class wrote and drew in their science journals their observations about what was happening to the seeds. Some seeds got bigger, grew a white root and started to get green leaves. Other seeds though started to turn black. Each child picked one seed that had sprouted and put it in soil to grow. We discussed the things that a plant needs to grow and designed experiments to test these requirements. (For example, to test if plants need light, we planted a sprouted seed and put it in the dark in a sealed box.)

In math, the students finished up the unit on probability and wrote a test on Wednesday. The highlight was an activity figuring out the probability of getting a particular animal-shaped sponge when picking a "growing capsule" from a bag filled with 24 capsules. Now the class has started to review all the math learned so far this year as they prepare for the EQAO test at the end of May (the week of May 25th). The children started to review patterning this week reviewing the types of patterns (growing, shrinking, repeating) and the strategies used to figure out the pattern rule and "what comes next".

The students went to two assemblies this week. The first was the annual Jump Rope For Heart assembly to talk about the jump rope event happening on May 11th. This is our annual fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. (Materials for fundraising were sent home with the children on Monday of last week.) The second one was an assembly talking about the character trait of cooperation.

In writing the students made a lot of progress on their box stories. Recall each child chose an empty box and used that to inspire a fiction story. Part of this project is for the student to design the book in such a way as to use the box somehow in the final book. Of course, the students wrote, edited, revised and did the good copy of their stories as well. Students also reviewed the parts of speech knowledge for grade 3 (nouns/adjectives, verbs/adverbs) by playing a MadLibs writing game.

This week on the Room 5 Interview Show, Chris and Abdi interviewed Mr. Grundy. He is a kindergarten teacher in our Learning Buddies classroom. The video can be seen in a separate posting.

The class started a read aloud chapter book, Owls in the Family, by famous Canadian author, Farley Mowat. Mr. Mowat passed away about a year ago.The books he wrote sold over 17 million copies and have been translated into 52 different languages. The book we're reading is based on Mr. Mowat's childhood in Saskatchewan about 80 years ago. We are practicing the comprehension strategy of "making a picture in your mind" with this story as there are very few illustrations.

Books read aloud this week:

The Game of Sculpture by Herve Tullet
Books! by Murray McCain and John Alcorn
Panorama - A Foldout Book by Fani Marceau and Joelle Jolivet
Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (chapter book)