Oreo-mazing day...

All of the chocolate and lack of school structure over a four-day weekend can make the first day back a bit challenging. I figured if you can’t beat them you may as well join them, so today we engaged in a series of Oreo cookie related experiments and activities. Ask your child about the Oreo cookie graphic organizer that helped with our persuasive writing this morning, or the math activities with mean median and mode that involved stacking Oreos, or the probability experiment, Or the data management experiment, or the measurement experiment.  We finished off with some science experiments involving cookie diagrams.  

Here’s a few pics from the day...

Hands Up!

In science we are looking at the Human Body in grade 5, and Classification of Living Things in grade 6...and as part of that we investigated the bones in the hands of mammals, with a focus on humans today.  We are labelling the bones in a diagram.  Here is a labelled one for everyone to refer to...



Here is a fun video comparing sizes of animals...

International Women's Day Facts

 

Blues Workshops

Last Friday we started our week of daily blues workshops, that will culminate in a special presentation to the whole school this Friday, March 9, from 9 AM until 10 AM. Each day we have been working with Natalie Fraser, a local voice coach and drama instructor.  Under Natalie‘s guidance the class has been learning a variety of songs and styles of singing, as well as coming up with movements to go along with each piece. It has been a learning  experience for everyone, and one of the best measures of how engaged the students have been was on Monday, during the national anthem, when they belted it out with more fervour and volume then I have heard at the start of many professional sporting events.

Hopefully all this hard work will pay off on Friday during our sharing.  Parents are invited to come and check it out!

Room 211 Renaissance Artists

An activity focused on line, and and space, had students breaking a drawing into smaller parts, by looking at the original upside down, one portion at a time.  Once the original was fully revealed, students realized that they were drawing the Mona Lisa, and they were amazed to see how accurate they had been.  See for yourself.  This is step one in a project.  We will share the final product when it is finished.

Canal Skate and Reports

Dear room 211 families,

 your child came home today with their first term report cards. These report cards were stapled closed so that they could come home and students could open them with you and review the comments within. Please go over the comments with your child, as they are reflection of your’s child’s progress in the first term. Take the time to do this with them so that you can talk about where they’ve come and make plans for where they choose or hope to go to in the coming term. As is tradition at Churchill there are no marks on these report cards, so it is very important that you talk about the comments and in some cases maybe explain or discuss the meanings and reasons for them. 

All of this being said, I did emphasize with the class that no one will ever gain or lose a job or anything else in the future based on what they get on their grade 5/6 report card.  We reflected on how we make our own realities, and how we can choose to define our future by the actions we take in the present, and how the past is behind us.  The first term was an opportunity to grow, and I am proud to say that everyone has grown so much already.  Now that this is behind us, we look forward, and I told them to think of this as a fresh start.  Term 2...

As always if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. As for the Canal trip tomorrow… with the warming weather, the NCC has closed the canal to preserve it for the weekend so we won't be going on the canal skate trip tomorrow.  I contacted the bus company to cancel them for tomorrow, and we are looking to see if we can reschedule for next week some time (likely Thursday, but stay tuned...)  I wish this was not happening, but I can't control the weather, and if we wanted a canoe or swimming trip, we needed to fill out a whole other batch of forms ;)

Briefly, we have been discussing topics related to Black History Month in class.  Ask you child about MLK, Nelson Mandela, Wangari and the trees in Kenya, and ask them about some slave ship statistics.  Each child used Google Sheets, a spreadsheet program, and created a graph of data on the slave trade, and the information they illustrated was quite eye opening for everyone.  It painted a more clear picture, and many of the students reflected on how it changed their perspective on the whole idea of slavery, by looking at the origins of the people who were enslaved and their journey.  We have been examining the elements of dance.  Ask about the difference between a waltz, jazz, foxtrot, hip hop, and salsa.  You may be quite surprised with what your child says about body, time, energy, and relationship of the dancers.  The class is pumping out amazing artwork lately.  Come by and check out our finished boxcar graffitti, MLK word clouds, one point perspective skyscrapers, and more.  

Stay tuned, and don't forget to check the blog for regular updates...

 Regards,  

Ray Kalynuk

Facilitating an Educational Adventure in Grade 5/6

Churchill Alternative School

http://www.alternativeschooladventure.blogspot.ca/

www.sixstringstudents.blogspot.com

www.churchillschoolofrock.blogspot.com

Black History Month Guest Speaker

Today we had the privilege of having Reverend Anthony Bailey,  from a nearby church, come by to speak to our 4/5/6 students.  As a local community leader he speaks to government and community organizations about ideas of race, prejudice, inclusion, reconciliation unity and understanding.  He spoke about the history of black peoples in Canada.Ask your child about the messages and ideas they took away from this presentation.