Good afternoon!

Today we got a lot of work done! Students were very busy. In Math today, the Gr. 4 students were practicing problem solving. We are still working with area, but today we highlighted one of the problem solving strategies that we have been using throughout the year – drawing a picture. Students were encouraged to use pictures to help solve the area questions.

Eg. Zoe bought 4 large squares of plywood to make the floor of a pen for her rabbits. She arranges the squares so that whole sides are touching. Find all possible shapes for the floor of the pen.

The Gr. 5 students are looking at capacity. Today we discussed what capacity means, and looked at the units for measuring capacity. We have started with litres (L). We are using cups as a benchmark to help us with litres (eg. 4 cups = approximately 1 L). We will be looking at milliliters next week.

In Science today the Gr. 5 students finished examining switches. They were challenged to create a switch that would still allow the lightbulb to light up using aluminum foil and paper clips. All the students did a great job! I saw a lot of creativity in how students problem solved to design their switches. This activity was especially helpful, because students are able to see that they can design a switch out of readily available conductive materials, which directly relates to the project that went home yesterday.

The Gr. 4 students finished discussing Screws. We discovered how difficult it would be to just push a screw into, or to pull out of a material (in our case a cardboard box). Instead, we had to twist the screw, following the direction of the inclined plane. A screw is just an inclined plane wrapped around a pole. This means that even though we have to travel a further distance when using screws (in the rotations it takes to put them in), they still make work easier, and are much stronger than other building materials.

Today is World Poetry Day! To celebrate we constructed some Found Poetry. In order to do this, we had to discuss something that I think is incredibly important to remember when writing a poem – anything can be a poem. We “found” a piece of writing around the classroom, and added lines, breaks, and punctuation to turn that piece of writing into a poem. Here are some of our poems:

Pain of Learning

ABCD

EFG,

HIJ

K,

LMNOP

QRS,

TUV

WXYZ!

 

Math

What time is

shown

on the clock.

Can you tell

from the clock,

if it is morning

or afternoon?

 

Math Strategies

If he has

43 all together,

And 2 are

Blue,

Then to find the

Red

I need to solve

43 = 2 + __

 

Found poetry is also a great introduction to rhythm. In order to practice this, we read our poems aloud, giving each other “snaps” if we liked the poet’s work. It was a lot of fun, and students all were very creative in finding their inspiration.

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pg. 163 #1-3

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 149-150 #1-9

                         Social: Regions Project (April 9th)

                         Science: Projects (April 15th)

                         Family Movie Night @ 7:00 pm

                         MI Permission Forms! – ASAP (March 28th deadline)

                         Book Orders – March 28th