The Room 5 Interview Show!

Our guest this week was Mrs. Farrelly. She is the principal of our school.

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to complete the homework worksheet on math and writing. This homework is due on Friday, January 31.
Important Dates: 

February 12 - Report Cards go home
February 13 (evening) - Selected parent/teacher interviews
February 17 - Family Day Holiday
February 20 - Family Fitness Night
March 7 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day
March 10 to 14 - March Break Holiday

News for January 23

News for January 23

This four-day week the students started a big project....our weekly Room 5 Interview Show! Every week, two students will interview a school staff member. The children had to think of all the parts of a TV show from the questions to the credits. This week Etienne and Lola U. interviewed the principal of our school, Mrs. Farrelly. Please look for the video in a separate posting.

In math, the children finished the unit on 3D geometry. As a connection to learning about Chinese New Year, the students reviewed shape names as they folded red envelopes (lai see) to create a 3D lantern to decorate the hallway outside of our classroom. They also had a chance to create 3D figures out of paper "nets". Finally, they finished up the unit by completing a review sheet of 2D and 3D geometry concepts.

In science, the children did some experiments to look at mixing liquids and solids. A solid plastic die does not dissolve in water but a sugar cube does. Vegetable oil did not mix with water but did when liquid soap was added. 

The class learned about how wool is processed from the sheep to knitted and woven fabric. This week we started this unit of study by dyeing the natural white sheep's wool with Kool-aid (for example, lime Kool-aid creates green). After dissolving the solid crystals into a tub of water, the students learned that vinegar is added so that the colour stays on the wool and hot water is used to speed up the process, but doesn't change what would otherwise happen (in science, this is called a "catalyst").

The class used our list of what makes a fairy tale different from other fiction stories to analyze the fairy tales, The Emperor's New Clothes and Chicken Licken. Each student was challenged to write his/her own fairy tale that has at least three fairy tale characteristics. The whole class managed to finished planning these stories and are now working on the rough copies.

We continued our vocabulary building this week by taking the cards the children made last week and choosing some every day to talk about. "Honour" and "transport" are just two examples...

The class worked on our movie about Flat Stanley and the flat students that the children made. We thought about all the different things the students did around the school and then we took photos and videos of the students doing things with their "flat" friends. Look for the video in another posting!

At the end of the week, the children began to design the covers for their new art journals. So, not only will they create art inside the journal but they will also design and make the journal itself. This week they used sharpie marker to make an abstract design and learned how to use watercolour pencil crayons to add colour to the spaces in their design.

Books read aloud this week:

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen

Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow

Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep by Teri Sloat

Update from Ms. R

The homework for this week is to write a story in the homework journal based on the colourful band-aid Ms. R taped inside. The class talked about fiction ideas (e.g., a "magic" band-aid) and non-fiction ideas (e.g., who invented the band-aid?). There is also a math worksheet reviewing 2D and 3D geometry vocabulary. This homework is due on THURSDAY, January 23 (due to Friday being a P.A. Day).

     

News for January 17

News for January 17

This week  the students

In math, the class began to study three-dimensional or 3D figures. After learning the parts of a 3D figure (vertices, edges and faces) they practised finding and counting these on 3D models. For grade two the categories of 3D shapes are prisms and pyramids (plus others such as spheres, cylinders and cones). Each child had a chance to create their own 3D figures using toothpicks (the edges) and small balls of plasticine (the vertices). After making their models, the students wrote about what they learned. Finally, they made a display of their work by making a good copy of their writing and a photo of him/herself holding the 3D figures.

The students did a choral reading of the traditional fairy tale, The Elves and the Shoemaker. This was in the form of a script, so children had an opportunity to read the different character parts. The class also added to our list of things found in fairy tales (e.g., fictional characters like giants, elves and trolls).

The class did a "Mad Libs" writing activity to practice what they know about nouns, adjectives and verbs, using the framework of the story Little Red Riding Hood.

This week the students investigated the features of our classroom dictionaries. They found that the words were in alphabetical order and for each word there was a lot of information besides what the word means (e.g., how to pronounce the word). The students generated over 90 vocabulary cards listing words that they didn't know. Also at the back of the dictionaries is information about  calendars, holidays, math units and Canada. This prompted a short lesson on how Canada is divided up into smaller parts called provinces and territories. The students even learned a song to help them remember the names and order of the 10 provinces and 3 territories.

The class read a non-fiction story on the properties of liquid water. Using containers of different sizes and shapes they experimented with the idea that liquids do not have a shape and therefore take on the shape of the container it's in. The next challenge was to take a piece of plasticine and put it in the water (it sank to the bottom) and how they could change the shape of the plasticine to make it float. The children also read about icebergs and how they are like gigantic ice cubes floating in the oceans!

The children used black wax pencils ("China marker") to create drawings inside the colourful picture frames they made last week. These are now on display in our classroom.

Our class was asked by Mr. Grundy's kindergarten class to have a "gingerbread man trap" to help them with their study of the story, The Gingerbread Man. The next day, we did indeed catch a gingerbread man much to the surprise and delight of the kindergarten students!

The class started to plan for our new Internet TV show called "The Room 5 Interview Show". We brainstormed the people that the class would like to know more about and made a list. Watch for our first show starting next week!

Books read aloud this week:

Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown (chapter book - finished)
Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson
The King's Chessboard (a fairy tale from India) retold by David Birch
The Jolly Postman (fairy tale letters) by Janet and Allen Ahlberg
The Elves and the Shoemaker (traditional fairy tale)

Our Amaryllis

Here is our beautiful Amaryllis plant!

Unfortunately, it did not flower before the winter holidays, but Bhavya's family looked after our plant for us and sent this picture. Thanks so much for looking after our plant for us!

Update from Ms. R

Welcome back to everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the families of Room 5 a happy new year and all the best for 2014.

The homework for this week is to complete the worksheet with a geometry activity on one side and a science activity on the other side. The writing assignment is linked to our reading of the chapter book, Flat Stanley. Each child made a flat version of him/herself to take home. Each child is to write about what adventures the flat student had while at the student's home. These stories will become part of a class book for all the children to read. If possible, please take a digital photo of the figure doing something with your child and send it to me at nrawlinson@rogers.com. I'm looking forward to reading all of the stories! This homework is due on Friday, January 17.