Sunday, 20 September 2015
Social Studies - Rights and responsibilities
We started the first unit in Social Studies (The Role of Government and Responsible Citizenship) last Friday. Students talked about their rights and freedoms in Canada, the basic needs of humans and how these are connected to our rights and responsibilities.
The overall expectation in the unit is ultimately to have students assess responses of governments in Canada to some significant issues, and develop plans of action for governments and citizens to address social and environmental issues. They will use the social inquiry process to investigate Canadian social and/ or environmental issues from various perspectives, including the perspective of the level(or levels) of government responsible for addressing the issues. The expectation is that they demonstrate an understanding of the roles and key responsibilities of citizens in Canada.
The overall expectation in the unit is ultimately to have students assess responses of governments in Canada to some significant issues, and develop plans of action for governments and citizens to address social and environmental issues. They will use the social inquiry process to investigate Canadian social and/ or environmental issues from various perspectives, including the perspective of the level(or levels) of government responsible for addressing the issues. The expectation is that they demonstrate an understanding of the roles and key responsibilities of citizens in Canada.
Thursday, 17 September 2015
Collaborative Problem Solving in Math
Our Math task today was a good lesson in teaching collaboration and perseverance. Problem solving as a group produced meaningful learning and bolstered the students' confidence that they are capable of working independently. Good job everyone! You did it!
Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Students' Thinkng
We had our first Math Congress today and it was great!It was wonderful listening to some of the students articulate their thinking to the class.You all did a great job!
Here are some samples illustrating how the students approached the Budgie Math Problem. Some amazing strategies were used. I'm impressed, keep up the good work everyone! Hopefully you learned some strategies from your peers today that you can use at another time.
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
Science
Today's introductory Science class on Energy was well-received. The students were enthusiastic to show off what they already knew about the topic. Here's a mind map of their understanding of the term (in their own words!)
Today's Math Class
We started out by deconstructing yesterday's problem solving Math question (Would you rather ....) Careful questioning and prompting during and after problem solving is crucial so that students can collectively reflect on their work and make meaningful connections.
In the second Period, we moved on to the day's Math Problem. Students again worked independently. Tomorrow we'll conduct our first Math Congress so that students get a chance to articulate their mathematical thinking. It should be interesting! I'll post pictures for sure!
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| Today's Math Problem * Correction '...wants to buy some budgies NOT 100 budgies' |
Monday, 14 September 2015
First Math Class
We started the new week (second week of school already!) with our first Math class. All week students will be working individually and collaboratively to figure out Math problems that have been deliberately chosen to assess their sense of numbers and the ability to reason proportionally.
Proportional Reasoning is HUGE in the Math curriculum, so what exactly is it? Proportional Reasoning involves the deliberate use of multiplicative relationships to compare quantities and to predict the value of one quantity based on the values of another.The essence of proportional reasoning is the consideration of number in relative terms, rather than absolute terms. Students are using proportional reasoning when they decide that a group of 3 children growing to 9 children is a more significant change than a group of 100 children growing to 150, since the number tripled in the first case; but only grew by 50%, not even doubling, in the second case.
Although The Ontario Curriculum documents for mathematics do not reference the term proportional relationships until Grade 4, activities in the primary grades support the development of proportional thinking. For example, if we ask students to compare the worth of a group of four nickels to the worth of a group of four pennies, we are helping them to develop proportional thinking.
To start things off, the students viewed a video read aloud of the book "If You Made a Million" by David Schwartz.
Proportional Reasoning is HUGE in the Math curriculum, so what exactly is it? Proportional Reasoning involves the deliberate use of multiplicative relationships to compare quantities and to predict the value of one quantity based on the values of another.The essence of proportional reasoning is the consideration of number in relative terms, rather than absolute terms. Students are using proportional reasoning when they decide that a group of 3 children growing to 9 children is a more significant change than a group of 100 children growing to 150, since the number tripled in the first case; but only grew by 50%, not even doubling, in the second case.
Although The Ontario Curriculum documents for mathematics do not reference the term proportional relationships until Grade 4, activities in the primary grades support the development of proportional thinking. For example, if we ask students to compare the worth of a group of four nickels to the worth of a group of four pennies, we are helping them to develop proportional thinking.
To start things off, the students viewed a video read aloud of the book "If You Made a Million" by David Schwartz.
They then worked independently on the following Math Problem. Below are samples of students' work.
Friday, 11 September 2015
Our podcasts
We ended the last day of school recording our podcasts using Vocaroo. It was a fun reading, writing and speaking activity. The web-based app was simple to use and the sound and clarity was great. Take a listen, there are lots to choose from! Well done everyone!!! You're off to a GREAT start!
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
First Day Back to School!
Today was a great start to what I know confidently will be another terrific year with Grade 5s! My students are AMAZING, ADORABLE and AWESOME. No wonder we are 5A!!!!!
To set the tone for the upcoming year, we talked about the meaning of 21st century teaching and learning. We brainstormed how technology can be integrated into the classroom and the purpose it serves. Take a look at the students' responses:
We also discussed the responsible use of technology in the classroom. This was a nice segue into the guidelines and expectations outlined in the Student Agenda. The students did an Agenda Scavenger Hunt then ended the day describing themselves in ten or more words using a web-based app (ABCya Word Clouds). See some samples below:
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Sunday, 6 September 2015
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
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