Friday, December 19, 2014

The Last Week of 2014

This is our last blog post for 2014.  We will continue the blog in January 2015. It is a very busy week, because of: the Winter concert, secret Santa, bake sale, singalongs, and all the practice practice practice for the winter concert.   And, we have a lot of work making and collecting what we need for props.

The last day of school is Friday December 19th 2014, the same day as our secret Santa.

We wish Ms. Hughes, our favourite French teacher, a happy birthday on January 2nd.  Unfortunately we will not be in class to wish her on the actually date.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  School will be open again on Monday January 5th 2015.


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Busy Day

Today is a bit of a crazy day in the middle of an exciting week.  We have been writing a skit based on the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and making props.  We have also been learning to code using code.org. On Monday we listened to a game developer named Jenn.  She told us about designing and producing games and how long it takes to make a game.  She also answered some of our questions like: do you like Minecraft? and why wouldn't people want girls to code?  She told us how she became a developer and encouraged us to learn to code.

Today is an awesome day for the grade 5's because they are going to see a program at Stephen Leacock on bullying.  Some students are jealous because the grade 5's will be getting to eat pizza for lunch for free. Meanwhile, the grade 6's from Mrs. Panopoulos' class are spending the day with us.  We are going to have to learn to share our space because there are more students in our room than usual.

Tonight is exciting because it is Kearney information night!  One step closer to going to Kearney!  There will be translators at the meeting being held in the library.  We hope as many parents as possible can attend so that everyone will come to Kearney!  It starts at 6:00pm.

In Other News:

  • The Winter concert is just over a week away!  (December 18th)
  • Bake sale at the concert (Miss Colby is planning on making Minecraft cookies for the sale)
  • Next week is the last week of school
  • Slide Show December 19th
  • Secret Santa December 19th: students are only allowed to spend a maximum of $10.00

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Hour of Code

Next week our school is participating in the hour of code.  At this point we are planning to use code.org for our learning.  We have a lot of questions about what we will be able to do, and some of us are already making plans for what we want to accomplish.

We are also looking forward to hearing from software engineers about their work through Canada Learns Coding.

Below is a video about what coding is and why it is important to learn:


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The day Forest Valley Came to Us

On Monday November 24th we were suppose to go on a trip to Forest Valley.  Unfortunately, because of the strong winds, Forest Valley lost Hydro and they had to cancel our trip.  Some people were frustrated.  Others were disappointed, but most of us were excited again when we found out that they were going to come to our school for the day. Even better, we found out we were getting another day to visit them, to make up for the day we missed. 

Richard, from Forest Valley, told Ms. Colby that this was the first time, in the 18 years he has worked at Forest Valley, that they have taken the program to a school.

We were painting the landscape outside behind the school (like impressionists).  Until it started raining, ruining our work.
Painting our colour wheels.
In class (out of the rain) practicing the skills Richard and Melissa, from Forest Valley, taught us.

In Other News:
  • The grade 5's are going to a bullying presentation at Stephen Leacock on December 10th
  • PARENTS: On Wednesday December 10th there will be an important Kearney informational meeting for all parents of grade 6 and 5 students at 6:00 pm at the school.
  • The junior department of the entire school has been invited to a holiday concert at Stephen Leacock on December 11th 
  • Winter Concert Thursday December 18th 6:30pm

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

New Inquiry: Whose voice is heard? What does is it mean to be fair?

In our school we are looking at a new inquiry question, which is: Whose voice is heard, and what does it mean to be fair?  Our last question was: Do societies need empathy?

Some of our thinking so far:

  • teachers and parents are heard
  • children's voices are heard when talking in a group of other children
  • I think it has to do with power
  • depends on where you are
  • fairness is when everyone is treated equally
  • equity
  • fairness is that no one is treated better than others
  • it's not fair that some voices are not heard that need to be heard

In Other News:

  • We have a field trip to Forest Valley on Monday November 24th 2014.
  • There is a drama presentation coming to our school on Friday November 28th 2014.
  • Our music project is due Tuesday November 25th 2014.
  • Our writer's portfolio is due Thursday December 18th 2014.
  • Our Winter concert is on Thursday December 18th 2014.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Impressionist Art



What Kind of Art is This?

It is impressionist art. 

How Do We Know?

We know it is impressionist because we used primary colours and short brush strokes.  Also it looks like we painted it as it was happening; and we know that impressionist painters usually painted real life things while it was happening.  

Before we painted we researched impressionist art, and asked and answered questions about the artwork we saw.

How We got the Idea
Miss Colby went to a Paint Nite event with Mr. Gulamhusein, Ms. Gupta and Ms. Hutchinson and learned to paint a very similar painting.  She made changes to the task to make it fit with what we were studying.  She changed the colours to primary (fall) colours.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Week End: Ticket out the door!

What we discovered this week:


  • learned that a straight angle is 180 degrees
  • we learned how to make a measuring tool that looks like a protractor, but made out of paper
  • lunar eclipses happen more than solar eclipses
  • Doug Ford is Rob Ford's brother
  • We are starting the We Scare Hunger Campaign 
  • More about Empathy: examples and characteristics and you can treat people with empathy
  • We learned about reflex angles (they are greater than 180 degrees)
  • an acute angle is smaller than 90 degrees and an obtuse angle is greater than 90 degrees
  • Ebola is only spread only through bodily fluid and not spread by casual contact.
  • We learned about Caitlin and her positive post-it campaign
  • Import and Export (take and give)
  • there are three types of triangles, but we can't remember their names...yet.  (The grade sixes know).
Next Week:
  • There is a Health presentation on Tuesday October 21st on what we drink
  • Field trip on Friday!  We get to meet with our mentors!

Friday, October 10, 2014

International Day of the Girl

On Saturday October 11th is the International day of the Girl.  This is an important day because it raises awareness for girls who do not have a voice.  One reason this day is important to us is because we learned about girls education last year and wrote speeches to turn their voice into our voice. Our voices spoke their message.  As girls who have the right to go to school, we stand up for those who don't.

We are excited to hear that Malala won the Nobel Peace prize almost 2 years after being shot and one day before the International Day of the Girl.  Her confidence in her belief that all girls should have an education teaches us that even through the worst times you can persevere to the end.

NEVER GIVE UP!

For more information about International Day of the Girl check out: http://dayofthegirl.org

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Scientist in the School

On Monday October the 6th we had a visit from Scientist in the School.  the scientist who worked with us was Nadja, a zoologist.  There were microscopes, and people were fascinated by the bones she brought.  Some people thought that it was a lot like art, but disgusting.  But others thought it was interesting finding cool bones, and insects in owl pellets.

We learned: 
  • owls eat animals whole
  • owls have more than one set of animal remains in a pellet  
  • they throw up what they cannot digest in the shape of their throats
  • owls have no teeth, and they throw up 2 times a day
  • a raccoons skull is identical to a skunk but a bit bigger. 
  • a raccoon is an omnivore 
Students looking through microscopes at bones, and a bug head.

We dissected owl pellets. 
Figuring out what animal each skull belongs to.
A skeleton build.
We sorted bones to make a skeleton.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Our Google Classroom

Near the end of June our class was able to explore the beta for Google Classroom.  We even had a space that students could access in the summer if they were bored.  
This is a screen shot of our class in June.














We are very excited to be able to use Google Classroom again this fall.  We have found that the classroom space helps us to organize our work and helps our teacher track what we have handed in.  

Some of our classrooms.  We might create more as we need them.


Thursday, October 2, 2014

Classical Music Can be Cool

During our Music period we have been listening to music from different composers.  We have listened to Claude Debussy, Bach, Vivaldi, Gershwin, and others.  We have been listening for the types of instruments,  dynamics of the music, and different genre.  We thought is was going to be boring and old, but it turned out to be a bit fun.

What really got us excited about what we were listening to was The Piano Guys.  We had never seen anyone play instruments like they do before.  And we thought the cellos in the videos below were very cool.
This was the first Piano Guys video we saw

We watched this next.

We were blown away by the piano playing and the locations for this video.  

The Piano Guys have a lot more music videos that we wanted to watch.  In fact, the reason we decided to write this post was that we wanted to watch these, and the other videos, when we got home.  Here is a link to their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePianoGuys

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Scholastic!

Our Scholastic order has been shipped and should be here soon!

Monday, September 29, 2014

This Week (September 29 - October 3)

We have a busy week ahead of us.  Here are some of our upcoming events:

  • 3 of our students are going to We Day with the grade 7/8 class
  • Thursday is Pajama Day!
  • Thursday is Pizza Lunch!
  • Recognition assembly on Thursday (we will be singing a song)
  • Miss Colby will be away at professional development on Tuesday
  • We are starting a new Math unit
  • Wednesday is the first day of October
  • October's character trait focus is on Responsibility
Coming Soon:

  • Scientist in the School October 6th!
  • Literacy Night October 15th

Friday, September 26, 2014

Respect

We are working with Ms. Laidla's grade 2/3 class to present a song about respect to the school Thursday October the 2nd.

Here is the song:


What Happened this Week in School

Lots of stuff happened this week in school.  Miss Colby was absent along with some of our classmates.  We had two supply teachers and took the CAT4 test.  On Wednesday September 24th we participated in the Terry Fox run.  The school building raised over $200.00 for cancer research.  One of our students celebrated a birthday this week.  This was also Ms. Pang's last week at our school as our office administrator.

We also learned a few valuable things this week.  Here is a list of some of the things we discovered:

  • sit properly on chairs (or you could fall off)
  • we reviewed how to put periods and commas in the right places
  • the importance of not wasting our resources (sticky notes)
  • characteristics of a narrative
  • what a personal narrative is
  • we learned that negative numbers are not the same as decimals
  • how to use a plot diagram
  • how to connect decimals to percents, and thinking about decimals like cents
  • rubies are the second hardest mineral
  • Uranus is closer to the sun than Neptune
  • Uranus is 19x further away from the Sun than the Earth
  • Saturn is so light it could float in water (if you could find a tub big enough for it)
  • wrote about impressionist art
  • learned about the solar system
  • the Sun will consume the Earth in 130 million years
  • learned about different forms of energy
  • energy is never destroyed only transformed


Friday, September 19, 2014

This Week at a Glance

Memorable things that happened this week:

  • Picture day!
  • Curriculum Night
  • Seeing the cover for Mr. O'Donnell's new book
  • Reading chapter 6 of Descent into Overworld
  • Community circle
  • Pizza Lunch forms (due on the 24th)
  • Finding out about the Kids Lit Quiz competition
  • We Day draw: 3 students from our class will get to go
  • Asking questions about why Canada should be involved with other countries
  • Doing Math with Mr. Biglands

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Space Submission/ Our Society Needs to Study Space

Our class, along with the grade 6's from Highland Heights Jr. P.S. received an email about a contest to participate in an Education Outreach Event on Friday, October 3, 2014, titled the "International Student Zone" being hosted by the International Space Education Board.  We were asked to respond to the prompt below:

“Studying the relationship between Earth and Space has allowed humans to learn about the ways that Space exploration can benefit our society (Grade 6, Science, 1.2, p. 122). How does your Grade 6 Class believe that Space exploration can benefit our society (such as in Canada, in Ontario, in Toronto and in TDSB Schools and Classrooms)?”

Here is what we wrote together:

We believe that space exploration can benefit our society in many ways.  Society could benefit from the technology developed for space, studying the stars, and handling climate change, and many other reason we could not include at this time.

There are a lot of dangers in space travel, one of them is the temperatures, from freezing cold darkness, to the burning hot sunlight of space. If you want to go out into space you need special equipment for the heat and cold, like a space suit.  These suits need to be made by people.  Making them is important to society because it gives people jobs.  Also these suit could also help people on Earth, like firefighters.  They would benefit from this type of suit to protect them from the extreme heat of fires. Scientists who work in extremely hot and/or cold place like; the Antarctic, Arctic and who research volcanoes, could benefit from them as well.

We also think studying stars is important to our society.  That is because the Sun is a star and scientist might want to study stars to learn more about our Sun, because the Sun is a star, and the Sun give us energy and heat. The Sun basically provides a source of energy to use like energy solar power panels which the sunlight activates them.  The Sun also give us heat. The thing about the Sun is that it is our most use energy source.  Studying the star’s will help us to see the birth of a star and the end of the star.   All this will help us to find better ways of using the Sun's energy.

Finally, we think it is important to know about space because you will know how the atmosphere works.   We think the ozone layer is very important for our planet.  But the hole in the ozone layer because of climate change which is bad for the environment.  Being in space can help with studying the earth.  It is a good idea to explore space because we could find new planets to live on if our planet dies.  For example, if climate change destroys the planet we could find a new  planet that has the same characteristics of Earth.

In conclusion, space is important because we are living on one of the planets in space.  We must find out more information about our surroundings and outer space.  The reasons above; technology, stars and climate change are not necessarily the most important things that can benefit our society, but they are important and concern our future, and safety of our people.



Monday, September 15, 2014

Wanna Take a Survey?

Students! Please take a moment to fill out this reading survey.


Important Date for the week of September 15th 2014

There are some important events happening this week at the Jean Augustine Girls' Leadership Academy:

Curriculum Night is on Wednesday September 17th, at 6:00pm. Parents and/or guardians will get to meet their children's teachers and see their classrooms.  There will be a prize given to a family who attends.

Picture Day is on Friday September 19th.  Be sure to fill out the picture form you will be receiving this week.

Scholastic Orders are due Friday September 19th.

Remember: Any forms from the first week of school are due to the office as soon as possible.

Upcoming Events: Terry Fox Run on Wednesday September 24th.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Ticket out the Door Sept 12th

Here are few of the things we learned about this week:
  • Decimals and fractions
  • 3 types of rocks: sedimentary igneous and metamorphic
  • Capitalization rules
  • Impressionist artist mainly used primary colours in their art
And we set learning goals for Language in the Oral, Reading and Writing strands.
(Originally written at 3:08pm)

Greetings!

This is the first post of the grade 4/5/6 JAGLA class blog.  This public blog is for parents and students to see what we are learning in class.

You can also follow our school's Twitter account: @TDSB_GLA

Most of our entries will be written by students.