News for June 17

News for June 17

This was probably the busiest week of the year...a field trip, a concert and Pioneer Day!

The children learned how to solve crossword puzzles. Then they solved a crossword puzzle based on clues about math concepts we learned in Room 204 this year. 

The students finished writing all the word wall words in their personal dictionaries this week...over 200 words!

In math, the children learned facts about playing cards. Did you know that a package of cards is called a "deck" and that there are 13 hearts (red) + 13 diamonds (red) + 13 clubs (black) + 13 spades (black) = 52 cards. 

On Tuesday, the students went on their field trip to the Bata Shoe Museum and the University of Toronto Imaging Facility. At the museum, the children painted Dutch-style wooden shoes and learned about the history of First Nations footwear. At the university, the children used light microscopes to look at seeds, electron microscopes to look at fruit flies (Drosophila) and confocal microscopes (that uses lasers) to look at fruit fly eyes. Finally, they watched some experiments with liquid nitrogen! Photos from that day will be presented in a separate posting.

The students worked on creating a gift for someone special in his/her life. They designed a photo holder using wire and wrapped the present in wrapping paper decorated with tessellated hexagons!

Friday was the last day of our school's healthy snack program. The students wrote thank you letters to Chris the Snackman to thank him for providing snacks to our class this year. (They also wrote thank you cards to all the presenters on our field trip.)

Our Pioneer Village was finished this week and the students practised their presentations. On Friday, the groups were videotaped sharing what they learned about their pioneer buildings. This video can be seen in a separate posting.

Pioneer Day, June 17, 1816 was a great success! The students made a lunch of baked beans, corn, cornbread pancakes, carrots, cheese, pickles and homemade butter. Finally the class had fresh strawberries and blueberries with sweet tea for dessert and they had raisins and popcorn for a snack. The children practised their math facts using blackboards and chalk, they prepared their pioneer village presentations, they heard the fairy tale, The Bremen town Musicians (which was written by the Brothers Grimm, 200 years ago in 1816). Finally the students learned about writing with feather, or quill, pens and they each had a chance to try to write and draw using this type of pen and ink. They learned about the famous "pangram" sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet:

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

The students finished their art based on the work of the Dutch artist M. C. Escher. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

Books read aloud this week:

A Shiver of Sharks: A Collections of Aquatic Collective Nouns by Patrick George

Go FIgure: A Totally Cool Book About Numbers by Johnny Ball

On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne

The Bremen Town Musicians (1816) by The Brothers Grimm