Friday, May 29, 2015

Winding Down?

Often people think that June in school means that we are winding down the years activities, but that is not true!  We are still moving full steam ahead.

Here are some of the events we are planning and attending in June:

PanAm School Games: We are planning and hosting the event at Highland Heights Jr. P.S. on June 17th.  We have a lot of ideas and we are already planning what we want to do.  Here is the Padlet we worked on.  (Ms. Smith's 7/8 class also contributed ideas).

Track and Field:  Almost half the class is on the track and field team.  They are training during morning recess and lunch.  The track and field day is on June 8th at Birchmount Stadium.

Parenting Centre: Some students want to take on more responsibility and further develop their leadership skills by volunteering in the Parenting Centre.  We are creating a schedule for students who want to volunteer during morning recess.  Students will volunteer Monday to Thursday until the end of the school year.

We are so excited for June!

Thursday, May 21, 2015

A Day Outside

Wednesday May 20th

It was a cold and windy morning, but the sun came out, and warmed us up a bit.  We spent almost the whole morning outside participating in our schools' track and field day.  Many students had fun at the Just Dance station; which wasn't a real track and field event, but helps us keep warmed up for the others.  It was hard work and it was difficult to keep warm outside.

In the afternoon it had warmed up quite a bit, but it was still really windy.  This was a challenge because we had Visual Arts outdoors.  Our Art period was inspired by Jackson Pollack, who we have been learning about in our Abstract Art unit.  Some students dripped paint onto their 'canvases' with their hands, while others flung paint onto their work with elastic bands, and paint brushes.  Many used more than one method of getting paint onto their paper.  It was very messy, and the wind made it difficult to keep our art in one place.  Although one student said that her after her painting was flipped over onto the grass it actually improved her artwork.

It was super messy, and we got a lot of paint on the doors, wall, bathrooms, and ourselves as we brought in our work.  Mr V. (our custodian) could have gotten super angry at us, but he chose not to, and was very patient with us.  He helped us clean up our mess, and gave us spray bottles and rags to clean our hand prints off the school, and laughed it off.  He said the important thing was that we had fun.  We are very thankful for Mr. V!




Upcoming events

  • School based Pan Am Games on June 18th
  • Track and Field day (TBA)
  • Class Pot Luck lunch June 25th 
  • EQAO has been postponed
  • 5 weeks left of school
  • Last day of school for students is June 25th


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The Busy Month of May


STEM fair and Novel Museum

Some of projects at our Novel Museum
We worked very hard last week to prepare for our STEM fair and Novel Museums.  Two groups from our class are finalist for a STEM fair prize.  Their inquiries were: "Why do people like chocolate?", and "What would happen if there was no gravity?" After the STEM fair we set up our Novel Museum outside of the library for the whole school to see.  Some of our classmates were disappointed that their novel museums were vandalized by other students.  A small number of students from the building took artifacts from the displays; mostly food items, and some of the artifact descriptions.

Science: Kites, Bridges and Toys

A grade 6 student's plans
We are coming to the end of our units on Force.  The grade 6's are designing, building and testing kites.  The grade 5's are going to begin designing bridges today, and will be testing them next week.  The grade 4's are almost ready to begin work on making a wind up toy.  Almost everyone is excited to be building something.






Upcoming Events

  • Sports Day and Pizza lunch May 15th: wear your favourite team/sports gear 
  • Track and Field day May 20th 
  • Taking IT Global presentation May 21st (some students will be participating in sharing our work around child marriage)