New Science Unit

 New Science Unit - Forces acting on Structures and Mechanisms

In this unit students will develop an understanding of forces by designing and building mechanical devices and structures. They will identify the forces acting on and within structures and mechanisms and give simple descriptions of the forces. Students will also examine the effects of forces from natural phenomena on society and the environment.

Sounds interesting, right? I'm ready to begin! We're off to another Science adventure!

Drama Presentations

Last week's drama presentations culminated a wonderful cross-curricular activity that spanned a few weeks. In Literacy class the students looked at identifying Facts and Opinions. They examined print and video advertisements to also identify several advertising techniques (i.e. exaggerated claims, giveaway promotions, catchy jingles etc.). This tied in nicely with Health class and the whole unit on Healthy Eating and reading food labels. We questioned as a class the use of certain gimmicks to lure targeted consumers to buy certain products (mainly food) and whether these so-called 'nutritious' products were actually living up to the claims that were made in the ads. For Drama, the students had to work in groups to create a product, a name for the product and a slogan and then use some of the advertising techniques that were discussed in class to try and promote the product to would be consumers. The result, of course, was AMAZING! Take a look!

Math is FUN!!!!!

Learning about Perimeter can be fun! Last week we looked at measuring to find perimeter, calculating the perimeter of a rectangle and irregular polygons using standard units and using grids to find perimeter. That's when it got really interesting! My students each received a grid paper and were instructed to draw a mine-craft looking picture then calculate the perimeter of the shape/object drawn. The results were quite impressive. Here are some pictures:

Close up of Minecraft robot :-)

Les Phrases Bizarres !!!!!

French Homework on the weekend - Write 5 crazy sentences in French and draw a picture for each sentence. The results were indeed bizarre!!!!!


Take a look at a few examples ....

L'antilope aime manger la pizza - The antelope likes to eat pizza!

La tortue danse dans l'eau - The turtle dances in the water!

Le zèbre mange l’arbre ungali - The zebra is eating the ungali tree!

La tortue nage dans le lac avec le cochon - The turtle swims in the lake with the pig!

La classe de francais!

Bonjour tout le monde! Hi everyone!

This is my first post about French. C'est dommage, n'est-ce pas?

Here'a a snap shot of my students in class today working in groups to put sentences in the correct order. It was a great way to review some of the vocab from the Unit under study.

Social Issues

Last week's Social Studies class was super INTERESTING as we examined some of the social issues in Brampton. It was a GREAT discussion and I can't wait for the next class to get the conversation going about Poverty and what each level of government is doing to eradicate child poverty in Canada.

Take a look at the mind-map that the class came up with!

Social issues in Brampton

They spoke, I listened!

In a few of the 3 way Student-led conferences last week, several students candidly spoke of the need to get access to more French resources to support their learning in the subject.

I have now created an Edmodo account to share content with my students. Get ready for a burst of info! I have successfully used Edmodo for a number of years and I simply love it! I was a bit hesitant to start the year off with it because I just wasn't sure if my Grade 5 students would be ready to use this learning platform. Judging from their maturity and tech savvy, I think they are!

You spoke, I listened! Get ready to extend your learning beyond the classroom!