Last week, as part of our look at the Text of the Week, we talked about the difference between optional and necessary. I loved the responses the kids came up with! The poem was all about a very unfocused soccer team and we discussed things in life that we "must do" and those that we "can choose to do".
After arriving at school every morning for a week and finding that two or three sets of brag tags had fallen from their hooks on the bulletin board, I realized it was time for an alternative way to display them. I bought these magnetic hooks a while back from Amazon and they say they'll hold 12 pounds, but at the rate my students earn tags, I'm not so sure they'll do the trick!
We've also had some fun learning about probability and patterning. Probability was one of those math units we looked at all year long. It started in September when we would talk about the weather forecast as part of our Morning Message. By the time we got to May, we were talking about things like fair and unfair spinners, along with the odds of an outcome. This part of the unit is always lots of fun!
Let's see...what else have we been up to?
On Tuesday we had a very good talk about Canada's First Nations people and how the name of our country is the result of a kind of misunderstanding between the Iroquois and Jacques Cartier. From there, our conversation evolved into the living conditions in Attawapiskat and how just a few hours from Toronto, children and families are living in appalling conditions. We discussed ways in which other children across Ontario have tried to help by holding fundraisers at their schools and donating their gently used books, toys and clothes. Again, our Focus on Faith theme was central to our conversation.
And that brings us to today: Wednesday, where we had some time to learn how to draw this great bird picture! It's called "There's always one guy" and we used some transformational geometry vocabulary (rotate your paper to draw the upside down fella) and also used our symmetrical drawing skills.
As you can see many children added their own flair to their birds. After that, I taught the kids how to use a simple body to create a cat, pig and poochie!
We've even had time for time! We reviewed our skills with a little Bingo game in the afternoon earlier this week!
