Week of Feb 28 - Mar 4

Notices

March Calendar

Please sign the permission forms for filming for the Read 4 the Top even if your child is not in the semi-finals

Week Overview:

Math: Between now and spring break, March 11 th, I hope to wrap up our measurement unit on time. It is expected that all students will be able to tell time using an analog clock. There will be a large test on analog and digital time the week before spring break.

Socials: This week, and next week, we will explore the First nations Beliefs and Ceremonies, text pages 85 - 89. I am a member of the Tagish-Tlingit first nations and am a member of the wolf clan. I will guide the students through the concepts of the responsibilities that go along with earning a name and becoming a contributing member of a clan. We will learn about the potlatch, totems and spirit guides and getting an ancestral name. Today we did a game, with candy rockets, to show the students how in a traditional village the person with nothing or the least was often the chief. I find that this exercise shows children that having the most stuff does not make you the most trusted or respected member of a community.

Science: Continuing on our 'Weather' theme until spring break when we will switch to a unit on 'Light.' This week we will work on page 68 from the text which examines blizzards and droughts. I think it is appropriate at this time to work on this topic as living through our recent blizzard brings this topic up close and real for our Victoria children who can go a year or two without any snow at all. The students will write about their own experiences with the blizzard of 2011, as well as imagining the effect of the blizzard on other living and not living parts of our environment.

Today:

Spelling pre-test given and corrected. Spelling pages for students to work on, as an aid in thinking about spelling words, handed out and students worked on them.

Words this week (ight/ought/aught) Unit 22: frighten flight brighter flashlight mighty delight tighten nightly brought ought thought fought sight caught daughter taught naughty fault Bonus: ceremonies

After recess Mrs. Withers took the 8 read for the top students and read and made questions for semi-final round. The students remaining worked on their Classic Novel reports or their Math Time project (due Friday)

Today we worked on pages r181, r182 reading and writing analog and digital time and page 188, solving problems on time.

After lunch those students not in choir listened to the music and did a one page report on music of Electric Light Orchestra.

Language Arts: A one page report in our famous Canadian series Jim Carey.

The students finished the day in Music where they practiced their recorder and a dance that they are going to perform at one of the assemblies.

Friday Update

We started the day with reading as the last of our read for the top teams, not already in the semi-finals, competed. The team cited technical difficulties as the reason for their defeat, but the grade 5 team they were up against were very strong.

After recess we did our Friday test and then did graphing in math with the extra time. Graphs are a great way to learn about the students, talk about math concepts, like fractions and percents, and all in all spend some enjoyable time doing math. The Friday tests were not handed back today as I needed more time to evaluate the 100 times table questions for report cards which come out on March 10 th.

The First nations Projects were due today. Many great reports were finished and those students earned extra computer time at the end of the day. Many students were close and finished off their reports, while those finished had free computer time. Those students still not finished will have to bring them home on the weekend as no more class time will be given for their completion.

In buddies after Lunch the students helped their little buddies with math, had a rousing game of Dr. dodge ball in the gym then, as noted above, had a free computer period for those who worked hard finishing their First Nations Mini-book projects.

Thursday update

Today, while the last group competed in the Read for the Top, the class worked on their First Nations mini-book Due Tomorrow

Math: finished correcting Tuesdays class assignment no new text pages assigned

Math Project: History of time mini-report assigned. It is due next week.

Science: What is temperature and reading temperature. A one page report assigned with class time to complete, due tomorrow

Reading: 30 min

End of the day had 15 min to play in the snow.

Friday Test

Science:

Temperature is the degree of hotness or coldness that can be measured using a thermometer. It is also a measure of how fast the atoms and molecules of a substance are moving.

What makes the liquid in a thermometer move up? molecules move faster and expand
What is the temperature of the Human body? 37

What is the freezing point? 0

What is the boiling point? 100

What is room temperature? 25

Socials:

List two facts about Tommy Prince

He was one of Canada's most decorated First Nations soldiers, serving in World War II and the Korean War. Born in Manitoba, Canada, he was from the Ojibw'e Nation at the Brokenhead reservation in Scanterbury, Manitoba. He was a descendant of the Indian chief, Peguis, who had led his nation from Sault Ste. Marie to the southern end of Lake Winnipeg in the late 1790s, keeping their French name, the Saulteaux.

Math:

50 x table questions 1x 2x 3x 4x 5x 6x 7x 8x 9x

SNOW!!! SCIENCE???

Remember snow is weather and weather is science so venture out into this weather wonderland and conduct a few snow experiments.... on the other hand, if your bored and snowed in, it is a good day to finish off your First Nations mini-book projects, get ahead on your Classic Novel report and catch up on the rest of the work you might need to finish. P.S. I hope pointing out that playing in the snow is Science does not take away any fun on your snow day.

The picture above is the snow out my window this morning just before I drove half way into work and turned around and came back home to dig out the horses.

Dragon Mask on Display

Our dragon masks are up in our class and in the main hallway and as you can see many people are stopping to read stories, look at the art work and admire the dragons. Come in and see the masks that I heard one substitute teacher say looked like high school work. Yes grade 4 students are talented and artistic.

Michael Kusugak

Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak came and talked to the students who made it in through the snow storm. He was (born 1948 in Repulse Bay — then in the Northwest Territories, now in Nunavut) And stays in Vancouver Island in the winter. He is a Canadian children's writer and storyteller, who writes about Arctic and Inuit culture. He was named the winner of the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 2008.

He currently lives in Rankin Inlet, and has also worked as an educational administrator for Nunavut Arctic College. Ijiraq, a moon of Saturn, was named by astronomer John J. Kavelaars after encountering the term in one of Kusugak's books.

Works

• A Promise is a Promise (co-authored with Robert Munsch, 1989)
• Baseball Bats for Christmas (1990)
• Hide and Sneak (1992)
• Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails (1993)
• My Arctic 1,2,3 (1996)
• Arctic Stories (1998)
• Who Wants Rocks? (1999)
• The Curse of the Shaman, A Marble Island Story (2006)
• The Littlest Sled Dog (2008)

Tomorrow is Anti bullying day

Students should wear something pink to support Anti bullying. The Ministry of Education has proclaimed that February 23rd will officially be "Pink Shirt Anti-Bullying Day" across BC. Schools are encouraged to engage in activities which draw attention to the harmful effects of bullying in our schools and to the right of every student to engage in an education free from bullying and intimidation.