News for April 28

News for April 28

Room 204 learned about probability, the artist Andy Warhol, how to cork (knit) and much more!

In math, the children talked about probability, or the chance of an event happening. Using the key words certain, likely, equally likely, unlikely and impossible, the students worked very hard to use these words correctly in their math work and their everyday conversations. (We even have a chart on our door to record the proper use of these words with tally marks. So far, the word "impossible" is the most popular probability word...) The class used what they know about fractions to help determine the probability of an event happening, they flipped two-sided counters, rolled dice, picked coloured cubes out of a bag and used spinners to play games and decide if games are fair or unfair.

In social studies, the children discussed how the Aboriginal Peoples (also known as First Nations Peoples) helped the pioneers to find food, shelter and medicine when they arrived in what we now call Canada around 200 years ago. They taught them how to grow vegetables that grow easily here. Corn, beans and squash were called the "3 sisters" because these plants, when planted together, helped each other while they were growing. The corn was tall and served as something that the vines of the bean plant to climb on. The squash plants have large leaves to discourage weed growth and keep moisture in the soil. We also talked about how the Aboriginal Peoples taught the pioneers to hunt, trap and fish to get food for their families. The children looked at parts of corn on the cob with magnifying glasses and we even cooked the corn on the cob to eat and we even ate popcorn as a snack when watching an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" about farming corn!

In preparation for our "Pioneer Day" in June, the students planted lettuce seeds and a class pot of mint seeds. We will harvest our lettuce to eat for lunch that day and use the mint leaves to make mint tea to drink with our lunch.

The TDSB character trait for May is "integrity". Our vice-principal, Mme Robertson challenged 

all the students to write definitions of integrity and give them to her to read on the morning announcements. Our class discussed the idea of integrity as "doing the right thing even when no one is watching" and then wrote letters to her. She even mentioned on the morning announcements about how impressed she was with the integrity letters she received from Room 204!

The children started to look at the things they have collected in their treasure boxes since the beginning of the year. They used their treasures to help give them ideas to plan and write a story. All the students have finished planning their stories and are now working on their rough copies of their writing.

In art, the students learned about the modern artist Andy Warhol and his famous paintings of Campbell's Soup cans. When he first exhibited this art, people thought he was crazy!  But now, did you know that his single painting of soup cans is now worth over $11 million dollars? The children used his soup can paintings as an inspiration to draw and paint their treasure boxes (made out of empty jars of Dole peaches). Using thick watercolour paper and watercolour paints the students created excellent paintings of their jars. These are now on display in the hall outside of our classroom. Also the children started to write art reflections on creating this art and these essays will go on display by the paintings when they are finished next week.

Every child in the class finished making a corker and began to use it to "cork" a knitted tube. (This is also called "French knitting.) In the pioneer days, people often had to made their own tools and toys and corking was a traditional pastime for children. We even used wool yarn that we dyed ourselves!

 This week on The Room 204 Interview Show our guest was Ms. Janetos. She is an ESL teacher at our school. The video can be seen in a separate posting.

Finally, I should mention, that it was unlikely, but not impossible, that their classroom teacher, me, would teach the class gym this week. Ms. Francesca was away on Monday morning, so, much to the surprise of the students, I taught the class gym. They were unsure at first, but we had fun playing cooperative games!

Books read aloud this week:

My Museum of Me by Emma Lewis

Andy Warhol - Pop Art Painter by Susan Goldman Rubin                             

Derek the Knitting Dinosaur by Mary Blackwood

Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep - A Yarn About Wool by Teri Sloat

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

Little House on the Prairie - Money Crop: Corn (DVD)