Thursday, June 25, 2015

End of Year Recap

Thank you for a wonderful year!

(And don't forget that Mathletics is still active through the summer). Email me if you need log-ins. It would be spectacular to review some basics-(particularly multiplication & division- before starting a new year!

I have created a short movie with some highlights from this year. Students can log into Google Classroom and go to the E.L.A. class to find a copy of the video to share with you. 



Have a happy, safe summer full of family, smiles & adventures!

The Very Mysterious Writing of Grade 4/5

We have been writing mystery stories in class and have created a class story. Please find it below. Students have been sent home with a bound collection of stories, including their own and ours below. Enjoy!

The Case of the Mysteriously Disappearing Pencils

By Miss Foell & the Grade 4/5 Class


AHHHHHHH!

The scream rang out through the empty halls of Jack MacKenzie School one Tuesday morning. It was quickly followed by the sound of a door slamming. Miss Foell had reached her limit. For what seemed to be the hundredth time, a student had claimed his pencil was missing. Jed’s brown hair flew as he quickly tried to hide in the classroom’s corner library behind the Guinness Book of World Records. His green eyes worriedly peeked towards Molly. Her red hair was easy to spot in the classroom, as was the anger flashing in her blue eyes.

“How does this keep happening?” muttered Molly. It had been two weeks of disappearing pencils in the Grade 4/5 classroom. Their fun, energetic teacher Miss Foell had become as frustrated as bull in a ring. Molly had had enough. Her frustration was mounting and Jed could predict what would happen next. He could also predict it would not end well. He, being much more patient, tried to calm Molly down.

“Just relax. It’s not your pencil. It’s okay.” But Jed’s efforts went unheard. Molly was angry.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS KEEPS HAPPENING!” She was yelling now. Her screams echoed off the classroom walls and startled Gabrielle – who had been crying over her lost birthday pencil – into silence. The whole class, already on edge due to a screaming teacher, could barely handle this new excitement. Gabrielle froze, staring wide-eyed at the screeching girl. Her hands cradled the small metal end of an eraser, the only part of her precious birthday pencil that remained.

Jed got up slowly from the corner and timidly said to Molly, “Maybe we should go for a walk.” His voice trembled and was barely louder than a mouse’s squeak. Molly, who may have been grumpy but was not unintelligent, saw reason and agreed to cool down.

Over the next week, the pencil population at Jack MacKenzie School continued to dwindle. Pencils were becoming as endangered as the polar bear. Theories ran wildly around the school about the cause of the mysterious disappearances.  Jed heard one, in the bathroom, from a second-grader about the ghost of a teacher stealing pencils in retribution for all those pencils that were ‘borrowed’ by students and never returned. In another theory Molly heard on the new playground, a tiny leprechaun was stealing pencils to add to his pot of gold. Sales of lint brushes had also skyrocketed as students were finding an ever-increasing amount of fur across their belongings.

Whatever the reason, the pencil thievery had to stop. Not only were teachers on edge, students could no longer finish their work in any way except using the school’s incredibly slow mini laptops. Using these minis was as frustrating as doing homework on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Jed and Molly had to do something. This unlikely pair had some experience in detective work, having solved the mysterious cupcake disappearance of September ’12 (Another student had eaten it).

Sitting on top of the circular monkey bars at afternoon recess, Molly said, “Jed, we have to look into this. I can’t take it anymore. I have to keep my pencils locked up at home. I’m too worried to bring them to school.”

“But isn’t this more a principal’s job to look into?” Jed questioned.

Molly grabbed Jed by the arm and dragged him into the school while Mr. Hollinger wasn’t looking. The two crept quietly through the empty hallways, listening carefully for any teachers – or clues. Slowly, with light-feet, they trod up the stairs and into their classroom. “Spread out quickly,” whispered Molly to Jed. They both, on hands and knees, began crawling.

Molly moved quickly over to the corner of the classroom where Gabrielle had been crying. Jed, more hesitantly, crawled towards the back cupboard.

Scritch scritch screeeeccccchhh

Soft noises echoed menacingly in the back of the room. “Ummmmm, Molly?” Jed choked out. Molly impatiently stood up. For a moment, Jed was distracted. Her pants were covered in sawdust.

Scritccch scraaatccch eeeek

The noises drew his attention back immediately. “Molly… Did you ever think that a teacher’s ghost might want the pencils?”

Scrrritttttcccccch

 Jed was starting to shake. He could feel his fingers tremble almost as fast as a dog’s tail. Molly walked confidently up to Jed and grabbed his hand just as he started to run for the door. “Not a chance,” she said firmly to him. Jed, too timid to do anything else, stood perfectly still, closed his eyes and pretended he was back on the playground. Molly, brave, impatient, loud Molly, reached a hand confidently for the cupboard door. Without hesitation, she grasped the handle and flung the door open.

SCRRRIIIIIITTTCCCH! SCRRAAAAATCCCHHH!

The noise was louder now. Jed’s knees started to shake. His stomach was in more knots than the school’s basket of skipping ropes. Molly wouldn’t have told anyone, but her insides were full of more butterflies than Ms. Gilroy-Beck’s classroom in June. She slowly reached her hand outwards to pull the first cupboard drawer open.

SCREEETTTCCCCHHHHHHH

The drawer slowly began to move. She pulled carefully, her heart pounding. The idea of a ghost was now implanted in her mind. What would she find? Teachers did not like losing their pencils, she knew that much. Maybe it wasn’t unreasonable to expect a ghost…

The cupboard drawer was nearly fully extended. Two sets of eyes were glued in unmistakable terror on the shifting drawer as it moved the last few centimeters outwards.

EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!!

The noise was louder now, almost unbearable. The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Three sets of eyes now stared at each other.

“Awwww,” Jed cooed, “it’s a hamster!” A small, golden hamster stared wide-eyed, and rather guiltily, at Jed & Molly.

Just at that moment, the classroom door flung open unexpectedly. Mrs. Bryce, the Grade 3 teacher, strode into the classroom right towards the stunned pair of students.

“Oh thank goodness!” she cried. “You found Jelly Bean!”

“What?” said Molly.

“Pardon me,” corrected Mrs. Bryce. Molly tried not to roll her eyes.

“Pardon me?” Jed asked politely.

“Jelly Bean escaped from our classroom a few weeks ago,” Mrs. Bryce explained. “I’m so happy you found her! We were starting to fear the worst.”
The story spread quickly around the building as so often happens with stories in an elementary school. Jed and Molly were quickly made into brave, savvy detectives as the stories were retold with more and more exaggeration. In one version Jed heard, in the bathroom again, Molly climbed up to the second story window to get into the classroom using only a skipping rope and then repelled down using a chain of paperclips.


One thing was for sure though. Mechanical pencils became very popular in the Grade 4/5 classroom.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Weekly Recap, in Brief

Highlights of this week:

  • Bowling (Piles of fun ... or so it looked from behind my piles of marking)
  • Attempting to finish Social Studies units quickly (Maybe this isn't a highlight...)
  • Our buddy reading picnic (So lovely to see your students play so carefully and thoughtfully with their reading buddies)
  • (My personal highlight) Creating a video for next week of all the amazing things we have done this year ... and we have done a lot!

Reminders for next week: 
  • Tuesday: Mystery stories are due
  • Wednesday: End-of-year assembly; Electronics Day; Clean-up Day
  • Thursday: Movie day (Optional pjs if students choose); Swimming; Report cards issued; 2:30 dismissal

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Weekly Update

9 more school days until summer holidays begin ... but who's counting? 

As we move towards school holidays, I would like to remind students that we will continue to be working. We will be writing a mystery story next week, as well as completing health quizzes and Social Studies projects. (Side note: Review for Grade 5 Puberty quiz is here) This can be a busy time and students must be organized. With that in mind, I hope you have a relaxing (but productive) long weekend!

Important upcoming dates: 
  • June 15: Social Studies workbook check; French rough copy due
  • June 17: Health project (Grade 4) due; Grade 5 Health quiz (review here); Grade 8 Farewell ceremony (after school event)
  • June 18: French class fashion show; Grade 5 History of Confederation due
  • June 19: Bowling (pm only); Green Day
  • June 19: Mystery Stories Due
Interested in Bonus Marks? Make me a comic strip using BitStrips that shows how a bill is made in Federal Parliament.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Weekly Recap

Another lovely week here in Grade 4/5!

We've been busy this week. Here are a few highlights:

We are learning how to use quotation marks when writing. It can certainly be tricky given all the rules, but we've been using our kinaesthetic learning skills (and macaroni) to practice proper placement!

We tested our instruments & Rube Goldberg machines on Monday (videos to come shortly). There was a lot of balloon popping - which in this case was great to hear - and a good lesson about the need to practice/rehearse before presentations!

The Grade 5s have continued their Puberty unit and, this week, got to visit with a local nurse for more information.

On Thursday, we began a new unit by role-playing a sudden plane crash on a deserted tropical island (luckily no one was hurt). Students had to figure out what to do and were able to prioritize fairly quickly the essentials (water, food & build shelter) although I must admit it was fun to watch them attempt to get each other's attention to organize. We have begun our unit on Government (and its importance) which will continue until the last week of school (yay!)




And, of course, we enjoyed Menchies on Friday afternoon!

Important dates to note:

  • June 8-11: Book drive for Imperial Community School
  • June 8: Grade 5 Math test
  • June 9: Drama presentations
  • June 11: Green Day
  • June 12: P.D. Day

Friday, May 29, 2015

Weekly Recap

What a glorious week! With this wonderful weather has come more smiles, co-operation and fantastic attitudes!

We have had a busy week which seems like it will be the trend all the way to the end of June.

On Monday, we arrived at school to determine that our Literacy in Action 5B texts were missing -- the exact ones we needed to start our new unit! We found some interesting clues in the classroom and finally tracked the texts to Miss Baker's Kindergarten rooms! In other news, we started an ELA unit on Mysteries.










On Tuesday evening, I certainly enjoyed the carnival (and free face painting)! I hope you did too.

On Wednesday, we made grass heads with our Kindergarten buddies. We also started a new Health WebQuest in Grade 4. We will be helping a school cafeteria to develop a healthy eating menu after learning even more about essential vitamins, minerals and food groups. Grade 5s began their Puberty unit (with mixed levels of excitement). 




















We also introduced the idea of 'inferencing' this week. We infer when an author doesn't give us all the information about a character or event. We use clues from the text and our background knowledge (schema) to figure out what's going on (an inference). We each created 'Mystery Bags' and then determined, using inferencing, what was located in each other's. We are also practicing inferring what's going on in pictures.  

On Friday, Grade 5s helped Mr. Billy Bonka (of no relation to Mr. Willy Wonka) to determine which of his prototype spinners would be the most fair for inclusion in a new board game 'Spin It to Win It'. This allowed us to practice using the probability words likely, unlikely, impossible, possible, and certain.


 Finally, we have been working on our plays which we will present to the class on June 9. We are practicing tongue twisters to help with enunciation, playing charade-like games to help with body movement and doing focus exercises like 'Pulse'.


Important dates of note:

  • June 1: Grade 4 instruments & Grade 5 Rube Goldberg machines due
  • June 2: Track & Field Day (Rain or shine -- come prepared)
  • June 4: Music quiz
  • June 5: Bowling money due; Library books due; Menchies orders delivered
  • June 9: Drama presentations
  • June 12: PD Day