A guest speaker and a busy 4 day week...

Hello families of Room 205s. We've had a very busy week in our classroom. We managed to squeeze a lot of work into a short week. The grade 5's have completed their Prime Minister posters and they began their presentations today. These will continue into the beginning of next week. We are learning about the history and accomplishments of many of Canada's past Prime Ministers. Great work grade 5's!

The grade 4's received their Canada's Provinces and Territories large project this week. This is a 3 part project in which they are asked to complete a travel brochure, a postcard and a persuasive presentation on a given province or territory. In order for this to be fair, the students were asked to choose a province or territory from a hat. They have all been assigned a territory and many of them have started working on their research and jot notes. Their research booklet contains the expectations, the success criteria, several pages for jot notes, a postcard first draft page as well as a self evaluation. The grade 4's are very enthusiastic about this new project! I'd appreciate your assistance in taking your child to the library over the next few days to obtain some books for researching their province/territory. I'd also like them to print out some information from the Internet and bring that in to class as well. The due date for this project is: Tuesday May 13, 2014.

Guest Speaker - Graham's step father, Armin Fischer, came in this week to speak to the students about renewable energy. Armin is a Chemist who worked at the University of Toronto. He brought in a very informative power point presentation in order to educate the students. He discussed important issues such as Global Warming and how it effects us in our lives. He asked the students why they think our planet is getting warmer and how we might go about fixing the problems of global warming.. He discussed the Greenhouse Effect and the ozone layer of our earth, and he explained and gave examples of how and where the following energy sources are used today: Solar Energy, Tidal Energy, Wind Energy, Biomass and Thermal Energy. Thank you Armin for coming in and sharing your knowledge and resources with the class. We always welcome guest speakers. 

Enjoy the pictures...

 

Spirit Week - We had fun dressing up this week for Forest Hill's Spirit Week. Our Spirit Week culminated this afternoon with a school yard clean up in order to support Earth Day. The student's put on their rubber gloves and worked hard to clean up an area of the school yard. Thank you to all the students who participated in this clean up and in spirit week..

Butterflies - In just a few weeks, we will be receiving butterflies. They will arrive as 25 caterpillars in their 2nd instar. This means they have shed their skins once. They will do this a total of  5 times before they pupate (enter the chrysalis state). The students are VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS. Within a few weeks with some warmth, food and love, these will turn into Monarch Butterflies. We will release these butterflies into nature as a class. I am looking forward to this fun and exciting project for our class. We are asking each family to contribute $4.00 to the cost of the butterflies, the food and the net. Thank you very much to those families who have sent in the money and please continue to do so over the next week.

Math Currency Assignmentt - As an extension to our math unit on Money, the students were given a Math Currency Assignment this week to complete. They will require the Internet to complete this 2 sided factual sheet. The students can choose any currency (other than Canadian) that interests them and answer some detailed questions as well as draw a picture of the currency. If they have an example of their currency or some coins at home, they are encouraged to bring them in to class. This assignment is due on Friday May 2, 2014. 

• Friday Reports are due on Monday April 28, 2014
• Recorder class is on Wednesday April 30th (Day 3)

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE.

Pictures from the Director's Cut Workshop

Here are some pictures from the Director's Cut Workshop this week. Sorry that I didn't include them in this week's blog...I had some technical difficulties downloading them but managed to solve the problem!

Enjoy seeing our movie producers hard at work...

 

Kid President!

Hello families of room 205s. I hope everyone has had a good week and enjoyed your Passover celebrations. I read the students a story based on the traditions of Passover and then gave them all a piece of matzah (unleavened bread, similar to a cracker) to eat. They loved it and thought the matzah was delicious! For those of you celebrating Easter this weekend, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends. I know many of the students are excited about their upcoming Easter egg hunt on Sunday as they expressed to me in class today.

Kid President - Below is a link to one of the Kid President videos we watched this week in class. This nine year old boy, Robby Novak, is adorable! There's just no other way to put it. He's wise and witty and very funny. When you have a moment, please watch this and enjoy!

Director's Cut - The students had a great time creating movies last Monday during our one day workshop. Director's Cut brought all the necessary equipment to film a stop animation movie. The students used their Lego figurines as the characters and built sets out of construction paper to accompany their scripts. The results were amazing!! Very creative and humorous movies were made by the stars of room 205s. The movies will be mailed to us in CD form in the next week. Each student will have his/her own copy to take home that will contain all 5 movies produced in class that day.

Math test - Sorry for the confusion...the grade 4 unit math test on Transformational Geometry will be on Monday April 28, 2014. Next week, the students will spend several days reviewing the material in this unit. If they have any questions, they should ask me next week during our review periods. Thank you for your understanding.

Math - The grade 5's are continuing to work on Measurement. They have examined time and distance using SI notation so far in the new unit. They continue to solve problems and are provided with enriched activities to compliment the unit.

McMichael Art Gallery - A permission form was sent home this week for our upcoming field trip to McMichael Art Gallery on May 9, 2014. Please send in the form and the money as soon as you can. We will be taking the school bus to the Gallery and it promises to be a very informative and great experience for the students. I already have two volunteer parents to accompany us on the trip.Thank you for your support.

Grade 5 Prime Minister Poster - This poster is an in class research assignment. By now, all the students should have books and information printed out from the Internet on their specific Prime Minister. The grade 5's are given time in class every day to work on this research. I will provide them with a piece of white paper that they will use for their good copy. This poster is due on Friday April 25th, 2014.

Just a reminder that there is no school on Friday April 18th and Monday April 21st. School will resume on Tuesday April 22nd. There will be NO FRIDAY REPORTS THIS WEEKEND.The students are thrilled!

HAVE A GREAT LONG WEEKEND. ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS AND THE SUNSHINE.

Thank you for all your support.

Mrs. Mendelson

A MARVELLOUS MATH MORNING!

MATH CONGRESS FOR OUR PARENTS - Thank you to all our parents and families who were able to attend our Making Sense of Math morning on Thursday April 10th. It was wonderful to see so many of you working diligently on the Math Congress problems set up throughout our class. You did an excellent job using your rough paper to jot down notes and data. Many of you experienced just how challenging it is to solve these problems and  place the information into the 3 headings: PICTURES, NUMBERS AND WORDS. You experienced exactly what your children do in the gifted program each and every Friday. 

Thank you for your enthusiasm and perseverance. The problems were very challenging!! Your children LOVED haviing you visit their classroom. Your responses are hung outside our classroom in the hallway for all to see.

 Enjoy the pictures below taken from yesterdays event...

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND. ENJOY THE SUNSHINE!

For those families celebrating Passover next week, wishing you a very Happy Passover.

Thank you for your support,

Mrs. Mendelson

Reminders:

• Monday April 14th - Director's Cut will be in our classroom all day. Please have your child bring a lego figure or other small figures that day for the animation movie.
• Friday Reports are due on Monday April 14th
• There is no school on Friday April 18th or Monday April 21st due to the Easter long weekend
• Grade 5 Prime Minister Poster is due on Tuesday April 22nd (this is an in class assignment. Please take your child to the public library to get a book on their Prime Minister - thank you in advance for your help).

Learning from the wisdom of Mother Teresa...

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

-Mother Teresa

The above quote was given to the students this week as part of their BFYB-Quote Reflection. The students were asked to explain, in writing, what they thought Mother Teresa meant by this quote and to give an example of the love they feel in their personal lives. Many students read what they wrote and their reflections were very well articulated and meaningful. After this, we watched a short film on India. This film focussed on the life of the rich and poor people living in Mumbai. The students enjoyed watching it and viewing how people in this part of the world live. This was a nice lead in as well to our new book, Iqbal, that we began reading in class this week. 

Grade 5 Tessellations - This week, we looked at M.C. Escher, the famous artist who drew incredible images using tessellations. His work is amazing! The students in grade 5 discussed what a tessellation is and where tessellating objects are found throughout our world. The students made their own unique shape which they then tessellated on a large piece of white paper. The shapes were outlined in black and coloured boldly using markers or pencil crayons. Then the students were asked to create an image or picture using their tessellated shape and explain in writing what it represents. These are displayed in our showcase outside the classroom. This is part of the Transformation Geometry Unit in math.

Math tests - The grade 5's will have their unit math test on Transformational Geometry on Wednesday April 9, 2014. The grade 4's will have their unit math test on Transformational Geometry on Wednesday April 16, 2014. Our next unit in math will be Measurement (Unit 6).

We will spend 2 days reviewing for the test in class and the students are expected to study from their textbook as well. While studying for math, I encourage the students to review each chapter, complete the Show What You Know questions as well as complete questions from each chapter in the unit to ensure complete and full understanding.

Making Sense of Math - Next Thursday April 10th, Forest Hill will be hosting a Math Open House for all parents to attend. We hope you can make it to this fun morning in which you will be solving some of the challenging Math Congress problems presented to the students this year! They are looking forward to acting as the "teachers' and guiding you through the problem step by step as we do in class. If you have not yet returned the pink form that was sent home, please do so as soon as you can. The Open House runs from
9:00 -9:55 am. Thank you!

Reminders:

• Friday Reports are due on Monday April 7, 2014 *a link in the chain will be added if ALL Friday Reports are handed in on time!
• Please ensure your child is practicing their recorder several times a week for 5-10 minutes. Mr. Ungvary is finding that the stduents are falling behind in their skills because they are not practicing at home.

HAVE A WONDERFUL SPRING WEEKEND! 

LETS HOPE WE WILL HAVE SOME SUNSHINE AND NICE WEATHER TO ENJOY.

Thank you for all your support.

Mrs. S. Mendelson