December, 6, 2017

Good afternoon families of room 18!

Today we had the chance to roll up our sleeves and do the following:

We began the day by looking at an interactive video posted on the CBC website to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. We have been discussing the difference between natural and manmade disasters in Social Studies, and while we didn't have Social Studies today, it was a really neat opportunity to understand what happened as a part of that disaster and how the unfortunate event boiled down to a few simple decisions made by humans. It was a really neat 360 degree interactive video. If you have a chance, you should take a look with your student and maybe they can share some of the knowledge they have about disasters!

http://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/

We had music with Mr. Wiens and then came back to class to continue on with our Wonderful Word Problem Week! We will be taking up some more of the answers during math tomorrow, completing another of our bi-weekly basic fact tests (which we will be switching up soon) and completing word problems written by our very own students over the course of the week.

After recess, the fun really began! We had our first, full-length experiment where we got to test materials that were possible conductors of electricity. Students used circuit kits to test materials such as balloons, keys, pennies, wooden popsicle sticks, and steel wool (just to name a few) to see which materials would conduct electricity from a battery to turn on a light. The room was buzzing with exciting scientific discoveries!

After lunch, we began to look at our first extended form of expository writing, which should hit student blogs for publishing next week (this blog will keep you posted for the next update!). We will be looking at how to use our paragraph hamburger format as an extension to create longer form writing. This will eventually be useful for procedural writing, autobiographical writing and of course, opinion writing!

We then had gym with Mr. Sadowsky and finished up the day with a learning check-in with Ms. Ryan in order to gauge understanding for our upcoming writing tasks.

Students brought home their class portrait today and will be receiving a concert newsletter tomorrow.

Reminder: There is no school this Friday!