Ruth King Division 2

Hello!

This week we started looking at rounding and estimating numbers. We started off with some rounding games, which helped us learn a couple different strategies to estimating. We also worked on our 7 multiples, the hardest multiple of all. Steady improvement as the week progressed.

In social studies we focused on aquafarming, and the positives and negatives of fish farming salmon in BC. Our mini projects are coming along nicely as well.

We finished off our solutions unit in science this week with a game of Jeopardy and a solutions test. We also investigating the evapourates product from last week’s solution. Many students were not amused by the evapourates milk and koolaid mixture…

With Halloween approaching, we looked at the genre of horror stories, and what makes things scary. Branching out from a word web we described some of the feelings we get when things are creepy or frightening. We also looked at how to build suspense, and what are some methods the author uses to create it. With all of our insight we started our writers workshop into creating horror stories for next week. The students were busy revising and editing on Friday, and on Monday most should be ready to start their good copy.

We finished our study of Picasso with our self portaits.

They did a fantastic job! Try and find out who is who.

And finally for our Fun Friday, because the students worked so hard during the week finishing their reading synopsis, social studies projects, and math work, we carved pumpkins! Many of the students stated they had never carved a pumpkin before, so it was a great team building excersise.

Here are some pictures of their hard work.

Overall it was great learning experience and team building activity.

Next week we will be continuing with estimating and rounding, and working on our 9 multiples. We will finish our horror fictional stories, and start looking into readers theatre for language arts. We will begin our simple machines unit for science by building catapults and learning how to improve our designs. In social studies we will look at how to use natural resources effectively, and focus on the three R’s of reusing, recycling, and reducing our use of nonrenewable resources. And in French we will be interviewing each other, focusing on basic conversation and preferences.

Hello!

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend.

We skipped our multiple drill this week, so next week we will start mult 6. This week we focused on place value, what each digit represents, all the way up to a million. We did this through a nice game called “Roll to a million”

After that we focused on figuring out how many 10s, 100s, 1000s, ect could fit into larger numbers. Its a slow process, but everyone seemed to be getting it near the end.

During language arts we practiced our weekly words, either prefixes re/un or short/long a words, by sorting them into various groups different ways. After we looked at verbs and adverbs, reading a book on each and playing a game. Some of the students sure can walk “graciously” and “awkwardly”.

I’m science we looked at different levels of solutions, either unsaturated, saturated, or supersaturated. We experimented using sugar water, and hopefully if our experiment goes well sugar crystals will form.

This week we looked at mining and minerals as a natural resource, focusing on the positive and negative effects of the different mining operations, beloefs, and practices around the world. We practiced mining ourselves by mining chocolate chips out of cookies.

There were mixed results, but overall the class really seemed to understand the concept of making money verse protecting the environment. Those cookies still intact didn’t mine as many chocolate chips, this not making as much money, but saving money and the environment more. Those cookies that turned to crumble found more chocolate chips, making more money, but losing money due to environmental penalties. By the end of the class there was a lot of discussion going on about various mining practices.

And finally in French we looked at responding to questions with our personal information, such as je m’appelle, je suis in garcon, and j’ai 10 ans.

Next week is another short one, with no class on Friday for the Pro D. We will be looking at more place value values by turning standard form numbers into expanded form. We will be reviewing our grammar section of adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs with an alliteration game, hopefully helping us practice for the grammar quiz. We will be creating our own mixtures and solutions, and challenging others to try to separate their solution. For social studies we will be researching the forestry industry, and investigate the benefits and negatives of clear cutting. And finally in French we will begin looking at stating our preferences to questions asked.