Cold outside, but heating up inside!

We are in the depths of January, and the cold continues, but things are heating up in room 308.  (literally, the heat in the building is overwhelming at times, just ask about gym time!)  I am recovering from the new shock of baby Oscar at home (Jenny is the one really recovering, I just need some more sleep, and an extra set of hands) and I want to send out thanks to everyone for their kind words and support over the past weeks.  Oscar Lawrence Kalynuk (Laurence was the name of the midwife who delivered her, and Lawrence is my father's name, and it sounded good with Oscar...so that is where it comes from) is happy, and healthy, and gaining weight at a strong pace.  He didn't lose any in the first days, and has continued to grow from there, so things look good from there.  We had a procedure done last Tuesday on a lip and slight tongue tie, and the recovery is more difficult for Jenny and I in many ways, as we are the ones stretching and monitoring it, but it is going well.  His brothers are very happy to spend time holding and looking at him, though they will be happier when he is able to get outside skating and skiing with them.  Excuse me if a proud Papa shares a few photos here...



In class we have finally put a wrap on the oral presentations that we started in December.  There were great topics chosen, and some great growth shown by students in terms of presentation skills.  We will have other presentation opportunities as the year progresses, and it will be interesting to see how much the class will have improved, as this process has helped them to highlight areas of growth, and has given them all more confidence.  We are into the storytelling adventure, and will be choosing, and refining our stories this week.  With luck we will start filming our stories in the first week of February.  If anyone out there has any filming, editing, or even DVD making skills/programs, we would be very interested in some help with this process.  The plan right now is to us Gumby (our Ipad) to film the individual stories in a story booth setting, and then edit, and collect the stories in some way so that we can possibly have a menu and collection on a dvd.  If you have experience doing any of the steps I am referring to, let me know if you can help out.
This Friday we Skate from 10 to 11, with the bus leaving from Churchill at approx 9:40), and keep your calendars free on the Thursday before family day weekend (Feb 12) if you can join us for a skate on the canal from 11 until 1 approx.  Letters and forms will be going home this week regarding that trip, but we will need several volunteers so that we can skate in small groups and experience more of the canal on this outing.
Way to go everyone who is getting onto IXL math on a regular basis.  There has been an increase again this week in traffic from our class.  Ethan put in almost two hours, while Miranda, Hunter, Jake, Ryan, Kailee, and Felix all spent a considerable amount of time working on IXL this past week, and 10 others put in some time too.  I will mention to parents that it is a good idea to check in on your child now and then when they are using this resources, just to see how they are doing.  The questions are set up to show you where you have gone wrong if you choose incorrectly.  It has detailed explanations when the wrong solution is picked.  Why I mention this is that occasionally I will see that a student has spent a certain amount of time working on IXL, and the number of questions they have attempted does not reflect the time spent (ie 20 min and 300 questions attempted).  It is easy to spend time on the program, but if they are moving too quickly through questions, or not getting many correct, it is simple enough for them to just choose a different level to work on.  This is a tool to challenge their thinking, and flex their math muscles, not to just take up their time.  Check the number of questions and their level, and their results to get an idea of whether they are working on the right level.  They know how to change levels, and can do so at any time.
In social studies we did some primary research into Canada's international connections through immigration by mapping the links between our families in Ottawa, and known ancestry.  It was a great experience for students to gather this information from their peers, as we all learned something new about our classmates (we mapped countries of origin of any known parents/grandparents/great grandparents for students).  We would really like to make a master map of these connections, and are looking for a poster sized world map.  If anyone happens to have one that dropped out of a National Geographic or something like that, could you please send it in for us to pin up and use?
Things are really 'current' in science, as we jumped from static electricity experiments to building electrical circuits this past week.  In the week ahead we are going to build and explore a variety of electrical circuits and devices.  (if anyone works with 3v two pronged leds, we are looking for a small supply of them...)
Check out this video on the generation of electricity (it is American...but applies to us as well)

In math we are reviewing some data management concepts that we have looked at over the term, and we are working on 2d and 3d geometric principles.
Have a great week!