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!