Hi all!
What a great first week back to school- and it's only Wednesday! 2019 is OUR year!
Just a few notes for you and your parents as we approach the weekend:
1. "Where are my tests and projects?", you may be asking yourselves. The answer, is neatly organized in piles covering Ms. Walker's entire dining room table! As report cards are fast approaching, much of your assessment materials will be living at home with me for the short term in order to personalize report comments, and tally up all of our cumulative grades. I promise to return them all to you directly once comments are complete :)
2. We have been doing a lot of Social Studies this week as we have begun our new unit on The Great Lakes St-Lawrence Lowlands Region. We have discussed the physical land features of the area, and its rich soil for agriculture and farm land. We have taken virtual tours of Southern Quebec as well as Southern Ontario, as well as the beautiful Saint Lawrence River. We have started discussing how vital the river is to Canadian trade, and what a feat of engineering the water way is considered since its unveiling in 1958.
3. We have learned about the Iroquois/Haudenosaunee and the Iroquois Confederacy, which includes the following six Nations:
The Mohawk
The Oneida
The Onondaga
The Cayuga
The Seneca
The Tuscarora
4. As you may have gleaned by now, Ms.Walker thinks learning about a culture through their food is a wonderful way to understand that place and its people better! Today had a special treat in class and each tried a proper, wood fired, Montreal-style poppyseed bagel! We even had some Montreal-style smoked meat as well, which was made and smoked in-house at Ms. Walker's new favorite spot; The St. Lawrence Bagel Shop. It is located on Memorial Dr and Parkdale Dr, NW. (Pictures attached).
We have also learned about Sugar Shacks (Cabane a Sucre), maple toffee (tiree d'erable), how to pronounce 'poutine' in french ("pooh-ts-ain," as the Quebecois say!), rrrrrrrollllllling our r's, and a bit about famed explorer and founder, Samuel de Champlain! We'll get into that aspect a bit more as we move along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnJ6bETDrnM&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhmblzSAeU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poe2cLKw9ko&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbheLXfyUxk
5. We've used this new S.S. information to guide our story writing endeavors, as we continue working on how to describe setting in our creative writing. We have used two pictures of a Longhouse as well as Chateau Frontenac (attached above) as inspiration for our next setting descriptions. We have been working hard to use juicy words, sensory details, poetic devices, and vivid embellishments in our work. Show these pictures to your parents.
6. This week field trip forms will be coming home for signatures. Our class will be going to Telus Spark on January 24th (along with 1/2 of Ms. Thompson's class as well) as part of our Science studies in the Electricity and Magnetism unit. We will be learning about solar power, and alternative sources of energy. If any parents are interested in volunteering, we will need 4 more chaperones for our trip! Please e-mail Ms. Walker at laawalker@cbe.ab.ca. ** Ms. Hidalgo as well as the other half of Ms. Thompson's class will be going on January 23rd, separately, due to program class-size restrictions on-site ***
7. Lastly, we have embarked on our journey to mastering fractions in Math! We have started by using pictures/diagrams (such as pie charts or "chocolate bars"), and writing the corresponding fractions that represent them.
As a class, we have begun discussing the concept of "equivalent fractions", and how if two pizzas are the same size, but one is cut in half (and you eat 1/2) but the other pizza is cut into 8 slices (and your friend ate 4/8 of those slices), you both actually ate the same amount of pizza, but just with a different number of cuts/slices!
To support this learning, kids and parents can start looking for other real-life examples where we see fractions all around us and compare/discuss! How could we cut toast in different ways? When you eat a pie for dessert, what is the denominator you would use to represent the number of total slices available? See what you can come up with and make real-life, meaningful, connections showing how important fractions are to our daily activities.
Have fun!
What a great first week back to school- and it's only Wednesday! 2019 is OUR year!
Just a few notes for you and your parents as we approach the weekend:
1. "Where are my tests and projects?", you may be asking yourselves. The answer, is neatly organized in piles covering Ms. Walker's entire dining room table! As report cards are fast approaching, much of your assessment materials will be living at home with me for the short term in order to personalize report comments, and tally up all of our cumulative grades. I promise to return them all to you directly once comments are complete :)
2. We have been doing a lot of Social Studies this week as we have begun our new unit on The Great Lakes St-Lawrence Lowlands Region. We have discussed the physical land features of the area, and its rich soil for agriculture and farm land. We have taken virtual tours of Southern Quebec as well as Southern Ontario, as well as the beautiful Saint Lawrence River. We have started discussing how vital the river is to Canadian trade, and what a feat of engineering the water way is considered since its unveiling in 1958.
3. We have learned about the Iroquois/Haudenosaunee and the Iroquois Confederacy, which includes the following six Nations:
The Mohawk
The Oneida
The Onondaga
The Cayuga
The Seneca
The Tuscarora
We have been studying the Longhouse, and how the men would join the Longhouse of the women and her family as it was a matriarchal society. We have discussed the role of Clan Mother and chief, and the balance of duties and responsibilities within the community. The Attached video is an excellent resource for review, and might be really cool for parents to see as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIs3aiFrTQc
4. As you may have gleaned by now, Ms.Walker thinks learning about a culture through their food is a wonderful way to understand that place and its people better! Today had a special treat in class and each tried a proper, wood fired, Montreal-style poppyseed bagel! We even had some Montreal-style smoked meat as well, which was made and smoked in-house at Ms. Walker's new favorite spot; The St. Lawrence Bagel Shop. It is located on Memorial Dr and Parkdale Dr, NW. (Pictures attached).
We have also learned about Sugar Shacks (Cabane a Sucre), maple toffee (tiree d'erable), how to pronounce 'poutine' in french ("pooh-ts-ain," as the Quebecois say!), rrrrrrrollllllling our r's, and a bit about famed explorer and founder, Samuel de Champlain! We'll get into that aspect a bit more as we move along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnJ6bETDrnM&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhmblzSAeU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poe2cLKw9ko&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbheLXfyUxk
5. We've used this new S.S. information to guide our story writing endeavors, as we continue working on how to describe setting in our creative writing. We have used two pictures of a Longhouse as well as Chateau Frontenac (attached above) as inspiration for our next setting descriptions. We have been working hard to use juicy words, sensory details, poetic devices, and vivid embellishments in our work. Show these pictures to your parents.
6. This week field trip forms will be coming home for signatures. Our class will be going to Telus Spark on January 24th (along with 1/2 of Ms. Thompson's class as well) as part of our Science studies in the Electricity and Magnetism unit. We will be learning about solar power, and alternative sources of energy. If any parents are interested in volunteering, we will need 4 more chaperones for our trip! Please e-mail Ms. Walker at laawalker@cbe.ab.ca. ** Ms. Hidalgo as well as the other half of Ms. Thompson's class will be going on January 23rd, separately, due to program class-size restrictions on-site ***
7. Lastly, we have embarked on our journey to mastering fractions in Math! We have started by using pictures/diagrams (such as pie charts or "chocolate bars"), and writing the corresponding fractions that represent them.
As a class, we have begun discussing the concept of "equivalent fractions", and how if two pizzas are the same size, but one is cut in half (and you eat 1/2) but the other pizza is cut into 8 slices (and your friend ate 4/8 of those slices), you both actually ate the same amount of pizza, but just with a different number of cuts/slices!
To support this learning, kids and parents can start looking for other real-life examples where we see fractions all around us and compare/discuss! How could we cut toast in different ways? When you eat a pie for dessert, what is the denominator you would use to represent the number of total slices available? See what you can come up with and make real-life, meaningful, connections showing how important fractions are to our daily activities.
Have fun!
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