Author Visit

Sigmund Brouwer was in the house today talking to us about how everyone loves stories. He also explained that writing is a vehicle to share your story. Since we are launching in story starters this upcoming month his visit was well timed!!!

He has free eBooks that can be downloaded at www.rockandrollbooks.com

Trifold Illustrations

Now that we are done reading our class novel, "I Was A Rat", we created 3D illustrations of our favorite scenes. We have learned how to copy quotes and site page numbers so we matched our illustrations to the quotes from the book. These will be available for viewing and taking home on PT conference night, Nov 5th. 

Going Further

So I feel like my last post on plastic cup towers needs a follow up post.  My class successfully completed the challenge which was to build the tallest tower they could given 30 cups and the limits with the two elastics.  It needed good conversation, collaboration, and the willingness to try and experiment as well.  Failure was suffered several times when towers were knocked over (some of them near the end when it happened) but resiliency won out when they simply started all over again.

Risk

Resiliency

Collaboration

THESE are the skills I want to foster in kids when I teach.  Knowing your times tables makes you good at multiplying but you are limited in any further results.  The ability to work together, to risk possible failure, and to know how to work in a team are the skills that carry us forward as contributing citizens of society.

What I also loved was that after the challenge was over.....the kids took it further.  The challenge I gave them wasn't enough.

Let's make one that touches the roof!

Quickly followed by, let's start it on the floor and THEN touch the roof!

Their desire to iterate the original challenge resulted in them challenging themselves, taking things a step further, and experience great levels of success.  Here's the photo evidence of that.

Design Challenge: Plastic Cup Tower

The challenge was to create the tallest tower possible. The problem to solve was that you couldnt touch the cups with your hands!  You had an elastic that a max of two people could use. One hand per person. 

Thanksgiving Challenge #4: Cooking a Turkey

Mrs. Olthof was in charge of cooking the turkey this year.  A turkey is supposed to be cooked at a rate of 12 minutes/pound.  My turkey was 18 pounds!!!  (We had lots of left overs.....)  How long was it supposed to cook for????

Thanksgiving Challenge #3

Thanksgiving is celebrated in October in Canada and November in the United States. Why is that?  Give me your answer in the comments section along with any websites you used!

Thanksgiving Challenge #2

In Social Studies we have learned about the difference between Equality and Equity. The following cartoon has a message related to that concept. Which side is which?  What do you think the message is? 

Thanksgiving Friday Challenge

What makes leaves turn colour in the fall?    Have you ever wondered why some turn yellow?  Some red?  Some orange?  Do some research to find out what causes this and put your answer in the comment section. Please include the website you used in your answer. Hint!  Look in the 2learn.ca website Science section for help!

Finding Perimeter Lengths

Suppose we had to answer this question? 

Where would we start?  Well I would draw a rectangle to start with. I know the rules of a rectangle tell me there will be two sides of equal measure. 

Now I can randomly plug in some pairs of numbers I know will add up to 14m. 

Last step is to complete my diagram and then double check to make sure my sides all add up to 14m. After all, the perimeter is the outside lengths of the shape all added up together!

Problem Solving With Perimeter.

Here's our challenge?  Where to begin???  I'm going to draw a picture to start with. 

And I also know this...

So I have to get to 3000m while running around this block. Each block is going to be 800m if I add up the totals to get the perimeter. So how many laps to get to 3000?

Collaboration

Today I am in Innisfail collaborating with other Grade 6 teachers. 

Talking Trees

In the next little while we will be investigating what trees can us about their life history. We will be investigating tree cookies but first we needed to polish them down so we could see the story!  It was hard work!  But these are strong little arms. We made a huge sawdust mess too. It was great :)

Transpiration Experimentation

One week ago we began investigating if transpiration really exists. We bagged leaves on tree to try and capture the water that evaporates directly from the leaves. We had lots of questions to investigate. Do needles transpire or just leaves?  Do fall leaves stop transpiring because they are in winter shut down?  How long before we notice results?  Well here is what we saw today.....

We are going to check them again Monday to see if there are further results. We are also wondering if we should run this experiment again in the winter with the needle bags. Do coniferous trees transpire all year long?  Do they transpired as much in winter or do they conserve water???  Oh the questions we have.....

Word Hunt!

We are reading the book "I Was A Rat" by Philip Pullman. We are enjoying the humorous story of Roger who was changed into a pageboy from a rat back in the story of Cinderella. Today we created word lists of words the author used that intrigue us, capture our interest, or maybe we aren't familiar with. Do you know these words?  Or would you have to look them up?  Can you help us out in the comment section by picking a word from their list and defining it in "kid friendly" language?  Tell us where you are from too!