Today, many students have read up to Chapter 4 in their novels! They a making a plasticine scuplture based on their reading. In their discussion groups, they will be explaining their sculpture to the group!

Students have been asked to practice their speeches tonight! I have sent home the marking sheet that will be used to evaluate their presentation! Every student will mark all of the presentations! There are some wonderful speeches! Most students are preforming on Thursday. However, many have chosen to go on Wednesday....and a few have chosen to present tomorrow! I can't wait!

In art, students are working on a "Contrast Piece". They need to use line and the colour wheel to help them with their designs. We will be finishing these tomorrow!

I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.

Rosa Parks

We recorded the song that we wrote with Katherine Wheatley today!

Most of the speeches are done and students have been practicing the presentation of their speeches- working on eye contact, gestures, volume and pacing! Students will be presenting them to the class on Wednesday and Thursday. Some students are really excited and they want to present on Tuesday! The homework tonight was to practice their speeches. Some students need to finish their speeches.

Skating was fun too!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Education is the most powerful "weapon" which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela

New Novels and Skating!

Tomorrow is the big day! We're going to record our song with Katherine Wheatley!

Here are the first few lines of the song:

People were scared about Y2K.
They didn't know we were coming their way.
The year 2000 was the year we arrived.
We're going to keep hope alive.

Don't forget to bring your skates and a helmet tomorrow! Skating is from 2:15-2:55!

The students have been given their new novel and have read two chapters! Please ask your child to summarize what has happened so far!

What happens when you push your wrists against a door frame for 1 minute?

Wow! There are some fantastic speeches! Most people have finished their jot notes and now we're going to spend the next two days writing the paragraphs and giving each other feedback! Way to go!

We won't be having a math quiz on Friday as we had our Geometry Quiz today!

Ask your child about our science experiments that we started today!

Speeches....

Today we spent some more time on our speeches! Tomorrow will be the last day where students will have class time to add jot notes to their subtopic sheets! Some students have chosen to take home their packages tonight to search for more information. Tomorrow, if the jot notes aren't done, the sheets will be sent home for homework.

Katherine Wheatley came into the classroom again and we rerecorded our song! We worked on our crescendo in the bridge! It sounds fantastic! The North Star was in our room during this process! How exciting! There are some excellent singers in this class!

Keeping Hope Alive!

First of all, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

The students had their last songwriting session with Katherine Wheatley today! They finished writing the bridge. Here it is:

Ruby Bridges went through that door.
Rosa Parks got on a bus.
Ghandhi said to Be The Change.
Now the change is up to us.
Mandela spent many years in jail,
Fighting for equality.
Martin Luther had a dream.
Let's make that dream reality.

Today, each student had an opportunity to have a conference with a teacher about their speech. Many students are in the process of organizing their material into subtopics. Some students are even ready to turn their jot notes into paragraphs during our computer time tomorrow!

In math, the Grade 4's continued to explore transformations. The Grade 5's met with me and explored tiling using transformations.

The words of the week are as follows:

trapezoid, herbivore, congruent, parallelogram, quadrilateral

These are words that we are encountering in other subject areas. Some students will have different words assigned to them during their guided reading group tomorrow!

We are trying to spend time making inferences about stories and songs. Todays song was Superman by Five For Fighting. I asked students why they think that I might have chosen this song on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. There were some great answers including:

-It's about courage.
-Both superman and Martin Luther King Jr. are heroes.

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCdEuMk7C9E

Students took home their science tests and math quizzes today. 

Nelson Mandela...

We had another songwriting session with Katherine Wheatley today! The students continued to come up with fantastic ideas! They are trying to think of people who "were the change" that we'd like to see in the world. Nelson Mandela was one of the people whom Wheatley mentioned. So, after the session, the class watched a short video about him. I have included the link below.

Nelson Mandela

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqoYmx_L-Xs

Here are a few lines that we wrote today. Please ask your child about the rest!

We'll do our best.
We'll do our part.
We'll keep the whole world,
In our heart.


We also had our science test today and our math quiz on transformations. Students were given time to work on their speech webs. Students have been told to take these webs home to show to parents. They have also been encouraged to add more details to these webs over the weekend. On Monday, we start organizing our material under subheadings using jot notes.

Students were given a speech package about a week ago. At the end of the day some of the students couldn't find their speech package. They had been asked to bring them home to show to parents as well. I will have extras available on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Keeping Hope Alive

Today the students had their second songwriting session with Katherine Wheatley! The theme of the song has now shifted to Keeping Hope Alive! Wow!

Here's a verse of this work in progress!

I've got too many games and toys.
I'll give them to other girls and boys,
Who live where they struggle to survive.
We've got to keep their hope alive.

The science test will be tomorrow! Many students seem to know the material really well!

Today students recieved some feedback about their science research jot notes. They were given an hour to respond to this feedback in the computer lab. Many added more information to their research.

If Everyone Cared....

Today students wrote their words of the week into their agenda and they wrote interesting sentences using these words! During art we explored the concept of symmetry by colouring symmetrical designs. Many students used the colour wheel to guide their colour choices! Way to go!

In math the Grade Four students did some activities that explored translations. Grade Five students explored translations, rotations, and reflections.

We have another songwriting session with Katherine Wheatley tomorrow! It should be exciting!

Please encourage your child to read over their science material each night for the test on Friday! We've been having fun playing the "science gamshow" each day! Some students already have a fantastic understanding of the material!

I thought that I'd include a link to a video that shows images of Martin Luther King Jr set to the song If Everyone Cared by Nickleback. We've been trying to listen to at least one song a day. We try to make connections between songs and the material that we cover in class.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmUyrD0n9ws

Writing A Song With Katherine Wheatley!!!!!!!

Today we had our first songwriting session with Katherine Wheatley! The students considered a number of topics for our song (e.g., courage, compassion, poverty, weather...). They decided on Growing Up.
Here's a link that will take you to a Katherine Wheatley song on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pT9VtlSun0

During math, students worked on the following pages in the text:

Grade 4: p.238 & 239
Grade 5: p.230

If they did not complete the work, it was sent home for homework.
Yesterday we created "Battleship" games as we are exploring Coordinates through Grids & Maps.

The Science Test is on Friday! Students were given sheets on Friday that tell them what parts to study. The test will be multiple choice and fill in the blanks. Each day we are playing a game show in class where the students have to respond to trivia questions based on this content.

Speeches and the Charter For Compassion

The students have picked their topics for speeches! We're going to be spending quite a bit of time working through the process together. In fact, I am writing a speech as well so that I can carefully model the entire writing process!

The topic that I have chosen is Compassion. Today I explained to the students my reasons for choosing this topic.

1. It's something that we are focussing on in class.
2. Last year The Charter For Compassion was introduced around the world. So the topic is current. I shared the website with the students today.
(http://charterforcompassion.org/site/)
3. Our "read aloud stories" and songs have been about individuals who tried to "Be The Change" and bring about a more compassionate world.

Today I also modeled how to get ideas for subtopics by creating a web. The students were given time to do this as well.

This week, we will focus on "webbing" and ensuring that we have enough content for our next step. Then, next Monday to Wednesday (17-19), students will organize their webs into subtopics with jot notes. On Thursday and Friday (20/21) they will turn these jot notes into paragraphs.

Speeches will be presented in front of the class (or in front of a small group) on January 26 & 27. Students will have class time to practice.

There's a lot of excitement around these speeches! They're doing a great job! There's definately some interesting topics!

I Have A Dream

Here's a link to Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

Not only did we discuss the content of the speech, we watched carefully to figure out why he was an engaging speaker. We noticed things like the amount of eye contact, gestures, changes in volume and pacing, and the way that his speech was structured.