Thursday October 31st, 2019

Highlights: 

• Today we had Mrs. Palamar's class join our room and we worked on the "To Do" list of projects/tasks/assignments to complete.
• The podcast (audio-story) has lots of suspense and leaves you wanting to listen to more.  We listened to a few episodes and discovered that the story has a few characters who are not showing the Seven Sacred Teaching of Truth or Honesty.
• We had the opportunity to be leaders and teach our buddies how to play compound games.
• For Evidence and Investigation, we discussed the various jobs/roles that the police department has.  We watched a video that showed training for the police force.  Science concluded with 'steps that are taken to solve a crime' and fingerprints.  We will investigate this further next week. 
• *** We need Volunteers!!!  Our upcoming field trip to Youth Links (Calgary Police Interpretive Centre) is on Thursday November 21st.  Please email Mrs. Wagenblast if you are interested in volunteering for the field trip.  It is a great one!!
• Have a Safe & Happy Halloween!!!😁

Upcoming:

• Non-Instructional Day - Tomorrow (no school)
• Trees & Forest Test - Wednesday November 6th
• Remembrance Assembly - Friday November 8th
• Remembrance Day - Monday November 11th (no school)
• Youth Links (Palamar/Steeves) - Wednesday November 20th
• Youth Links (Wagenblast) - Thursday November 21st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 22nd (no school)

Wednesday October 30th, 2019

Highlights: 

• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was "Love"
• We continued with the podcast (audio-story)
• Day 2 of our final Literacy stations and we had a mini lesson about writing paragraphs and starting sentences in a variety of ways
• Our observation skills as "detectives" were tested this morning by watching some videos.  Here is one to see how you do ...

• We also talked about how to look at things objectively (not letting your opinions, bias or stereotypes change the facts/evidence)

• *** We need Volunteers!!!  Our upcoming field trip to Youth Links (Calgary Police Interpretive Centre) is on Thursday November 21st.  Please email Mrs. Wagenblast if you are interested in volunteering for the field trip.  It is a great one!!

Upcoming:

• Orange and Black Day - Tomorrow!!!
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 1st (no school)
• Remembrance Day - Monday November 11th (no school)
• Youth Links (Palamar/Steeves) - Wednesday November 20th
• Youth Links (Wagenblast) - Thursday November 21st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 22nd (no school)

Tuesday October 29th, 2019

Highlights: 

• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was "Truth"
• We started a podcast (audio-story) which was exciting, mysterious and had lots of suspense.
• We started observing the world around us through the eyes of a detective or forensic investigator.
• *** We need Volunteers!!!  Our upcoming field trip to Youth Links (Calgary Police Interpretive Centre) is on Thursday November 21st.  Please email Mrs. Wagenblast if you are interested in volunteering for the field trip.  It is a great one!!

Upcoming:

• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 1st (no school)
• Remembrance Day - Monday November 11th (no school)
• Youth Links (Palamar/Steeves) - Wednesday November 20th
• Youth Links (Wagenblast) - Thursday November 21st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 22nd (no school)

Monday October 28th, 2019

Highlights: 

• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was "Wisdom"
• In Math we started a journal page about Multiplication (definitions, strategies, examples) with pictures, words, graphs, diagrams showing what we know
• Tomorrow we will start the last rotation for Literacy Stations
• We started Evidence and Investigation for Science by completing an online pre-assessment for our Field Trip
• ** We have an upcoming field trip to Youth Links (Calgary Police Interpretive Centre) on Thursday November 21st.  Please email Mrs. Wagenblast if you are interested in volunteering for the field trip.  It is a great one!!

Upcoming:

• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 1st (no school)
• Remembrance Day - Monday November 11th (no school)
• Youth Links (Palamar/Steeves) - Wednesday November 20th
• Youth Links (Wagenblast) - Thursday November 21st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 22nd (no school)

Friday October 25th, 2019

Highlights: 

• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was "Courage"
• Math adding and subtracting decimals again
• Looks like we need one more day of Literacy Stations.  We will rotate to the new station on Tuesday.
• Student were excited to have Mrs. O cover in our class while Mrs. Wagenblast was in a meeting.
• We ended our day with Thank You Friday :) and organizing our desks

• *** We have an upcoming field trip to Youth Links (Calgary Police Interpretive Centre) on Thursday November 21st.  Please email Mrs. Wagenblast if you are interested in volunteering for the field trip.  It is a great one!!!

Upcoming:

• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 1st (no school)
• Remembrance Day - Monday November 11th (no school)
• Youth Links (Palamar/Steeves) - Wednesday November 20th
• Youth Links (Wagenblast) - Thursday November 21st
• Non-Instructional Day - Friday November 22nd (no school)

Thursday October 24th, 2019

Highlights: 

• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings were "Honesty" and "Respect."
• Another fun day of Math adding and subtracting decimals.  We also worked on our Tree Project.

• Literacy Stations today and we have one more day before we switch to the next station.
• We watched a video about Visual Note-taking and enjoyed applying the skills in our v.j's at the end of the day.

• Halloween Dance Tonight - Please be on time for selling Pizza and Glow Sticks

5:20 - 6 J.M & A.S
6:30 - 7 V.R, R.W, E.M, P.W, J.W, D.L
7 - 7:30 P.G, C.C

Upcoming:

• Halloween family dance Tonight.  
• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st

Wednesday October 23rd, 2019

Highlights:

• We started the morning reflecting about WE DAY. 

• We had music and gym today.
• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was writing about "Humility."
• Math was fun as we discovered various ways to add decimals.  

• We watched the Ted Talk video about Robert Hoge.  Robert is the author of the book titled "Ugly" that we read as a class.  We continued creating our visual journal page about the book sharing the summary, connections, transformations and questions.  

Upcoming:

• Halloween family dance Tomorrow 5:30-7:30.  Please remember your volunteer time 5:20-6, 6-6:30, 6:30-7:00, 7-7:30
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Tomorrow lunch
• Healthy Hunger (Subway) - Tomorrow
• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st

Tuesday October 22nd, 2019

Highlights:

• We started the morning discussing the election results and wrote in our morning workbook sharing what we know about government and citizen participation.  

• We had music and gym today.
• Our focus for the Seven Sacred Teachings was adding to our visual notetaking page about "Honesty."
• WE Day took place in Edmonton today.  We gathered in the Learning Commons and created a visual journal page as we watched "WE DAY."  

Upcoming:

• WE DAY - Today! 
• Halloween family dance Thursday October 24th 5:30-7:30.  Forms and payment MUST be handed in tomorrow as space is limited!!!
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Thursday October 24th lunch
• Healthy Hunger (Subway) - Thursday October 24th
• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st

Monday October 21st, 2019

Highlights:

• We had gym in the music room because our gym was being used for the elections.
• We had buddies today and helped them login to the computers.
• We did some brainstorming about the Seven Sacred Teachings and started a visual notetaking page about "Humility."
• We checked the election tracker to see what the projections looked like for the election.  Students can also follow the results through the following website, - https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2019/results/

Upcoming:

• Elections Canada - Today
• WE DAY - Tomorrow 
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Tomorrow
• Halloween family dance Thursday October 24th 5:30-7:30.  Forms and payment due by October 23rd.
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Thursday October 24th lunch
• Healthy Hunger (Subway) - Thursday October 24th
• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st

City of Calgary Tree Website

https://maps.calgary.ca/TreeSchedule/

Friday October 18th, 2019

Highlights:

• Today the students voted in the Student Vote for the candidates running in the Bridlewood riding.  Students performed various jobs/roles in the process such as: set up, handing out and initializing ballots, validating and checking names from the lists.  Results will be shared after the election.
• Guest teacher yesterday and today.  Thank you for being a great class while I was away! 

Upcoming:

• Elections Canada - Monday October 21st
• WE DAY - Tuesday October 22nd 
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Tuesday October 22nd lunch
• Halloween family dance Thursday October 24th 5:30-7:30.  Forms and payment due by October 23rd.
• Choir Grades 4/5/6 - Thursday October 24th lunch
• Healthy Hunger (Subway) - Thursday October 24th
• Orange and Black Day - Thursday October 31st

Wednesday October 16th, 2019

Highlights:

• Today was the first day for the new Literacy Stations. Students read the tasks that they will be doing and started goal setting. 
• Music and gym today
• We learned about the candidates in the Bridlewood riding and how they answered questions  asked by students around Canada. Researching information about the candidates will help us make informed decisions on Friday for when we vote. 
• Guest teacher for the afternoon 

Upcoming:

• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - Thursday October 17th
• Student Vote - Friday October 18th 
• Elections Canada - Monday October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school
• We Day - Tuesday October 22nd 

Tuesday October 15th, 2019

Highlights:

• Today was the final day for Literacy Stations.  If groups need additional time - they will be given more time when all the Literacy Stations are complete.

• We had our third day of Social Action with the other grade 6 classes.  Today we learned about "We Day" which will be in Edmonton this year (October 22nd).  We researched the 5 pillars and will make a decision about the pillar that we will be focusing on this year.
• The class was eager learning about government today.  We will be doing the Student Vote on Friday October 18th.  We created visual notetaking pages about a few different types of governments.  Visual notetaking makes it fun to record information in a creative way.  The notes look amazing!  Learning about Typography added to our notetaking today.

Upcoming:

• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 17th
• Student Vote - October 18th 
• Elections Canada - October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school
• We Day - October 22nd 

Thursday October 10th, 2019

Highlights:

• Please initial/sign/comment the Friday Journal communication book and return after the long weekend.
• A few students continued our math project about the trees around Calgary using the city of Calgary website.  Others practised 3 digit by 2 digit multiplication with the teacher.  We will continue this until we find the strategy that works well for us individually.
• Today was day 6 of Literacy Stations.  Most groups indicated that they need another day to ensure that they are completing their best quality work.  Hopefully, students will switch to new stations on Wednesday.

• We had our second day of Social Action with the other grade 6 classes.  We looked at the website Kiva https://www.kiva.org/ and made three donations using Ms. Steeves's account.  This was an exciting process!!!
• We ended our day with Thank you Thursday as we will not have school tomorrow.  Also, we discussed things that we are thankful for!  Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the long weekend!!!

Upcoming:

• PD Day - Tomorrow - no school!
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 15th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 17th
• Elections Canada - October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school

Wednesday October 9th, 2019

Highlights:

• A few students did a quick presentation to the Grade 4/5 classes about Dare to Care.
• We continued our math project about the trees around Calgary using the city of Calgary website.  Today we contacted the Arborist who forwarded us to further our research to find a local nursery.  The nursery was able to provide us with values for the 3 trees that were missing their value.  Students took screenshots of the area that they are calculating the values for.
• Today was day 5 of Literacy Stations.  We are tentatively planning on switching to the next station on Tuesday.  Our mini-lesson for Literacy was about Hyperbole as the class was very "literal" yesterday.  They are encouraged to use hyperbole in their writing during literacy stations if possible.

• We had our first day of Social Action with the other grade 6 classes where Ms. Steves read us the book titled, "One Hen."  Ask your child what the book was about, questions they had about it and possible connections.
• We ended our day with the Social Challenge and today students were more successful than yesterday.  Ask - Why it was a more successful day solving the challenge?

Upcoming:

• Dare to Care for Grades k-5 Tomorrow
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - Tomorrow
• Picture orders need to be returned by Tomorrow
• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 15th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 17th
• Elections Canada - October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Tuesday October 8th, 2019

Highlights:

• We had music and gym today!
• We continued our math project about the trees around Calgary using the city of Calgary website.  We discovered that some of the trees do not have the value listed so we needed to phone 311 for information regarding the missing value.  Tomorrow we will need to contact an Arborist to determine the value of those unknown trees.  Any estimations?
• Today was day 4 of Literacy Stations.  We touched base discussing specifically what we like about Literacy Stations and at what stage we should be at as we will be rotating to a new station hopefully early next week.  
• We continued with our page about Ugly using the Visual Note-Taking skills we learned yesterday.  We watched a quick video showing us how we could organize our work.

• We ended our day with a Social Studies Challenge where the students had to work together to come up with a plan on how to survive on a remote island.  We will continue with this task.

Upcoming:

• A few students will be doing quick presentations to the Grade 4/5 classes tomorrow about Dare to Care
• Dare to Care for Grades k-5 on October 10th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 10th
• Picture orders need to be returned by October 11th
• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 15th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 17th
• Elections Canada - October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Monday October 7th, 2019

Highlights:

• Our morning started with some Yoga for morning workbook.  Nice calm start for a meditation Monday!
• We started our math project about the trees around Calgary using the city of Calgary website.  We need to pick a street and add up the number of trees on that street and categorize according the type of tree that they are.  Then we need to add up the cost of the trees for each category and find the total number and value of all the trees together.  
• Today was day 3 of Literacy Stations.  Our mini lesson was talking about how to put information that we have read in our words.  It also came up about what we can do when we read information multiple times and still having difficulties understanding the text because it is too complex.  Students were introduced to a website called rewordify to help them.   https://rewordify.com/  
• We learned about Visual Note-Taking today and will be creating a visual journal page based on the novel titled "Ugly" that we read in class using the visual note-taking skills.
• We ended our day with our Grade 1 buddies.  We went for a walk around the field looking at signs of fall and the trees before they are covered in snow.

Upcoming:

• Grade 4/5/6 Choir tomorrow at lunch
• Dare to Care for Grades k-5 on October 10th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 10th
• Picture orders need to be returned by October 11th
• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 15th
• Grade 4/5/6 Choir - October 17th
• Elections Canada - October 21st
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Friday October 4th, 2019

Highlights:

• Friday Journal was our morning workbook activity and we organized our binders and desks.
• We explored the trees around the city of Calgary on the website which raised several questions.  (Why do some neighbourhoods have more trees than others?  We found some trees that were over $100 000.00.  What makes these trees so expensive?  Why are some communities bare and have fewer trees?)
• Literacy Stations continued and students are making progress at their stations by finishing a few of the tasks.  We discussed how to look for important information when reading and talked about re-reading information multiple times to ensure we are gathering all the necessary details.  We also looked at how to efficiently search for information on the internet and that we should double check our resources to ensure that our facts are accurate.
• We ended the day with "Forgiveness Friday" where students wrote down apologies that they need to get off their chest.

Upcoming:

• Pictures went home today - need to be returned by October 11th
• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Thursday October 3rd, 2019

Highlights:

• We had lots of fun exploring the trees in Calgary on the city of Calgary website. 
• Day 2 of our Literacy Stations - excellent focus and productive time!  😀 The mini lesson for Literacy was reading an article about the snowfall last weekend. Students highlighted important information and this discussion will continue tomorrow. Hopefully students will be able to transfer this skill during their literacy station when gathering important information. 
• We continued with Dare to Care brainstorming various ways they can make changes to improve themselves and those around them. 

Upcoming:

• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Wednesday October 2nd, 2019

Highlights:

• Students were introduced to the City of Calgary website exploring specifically the Urban Forest.  We will be continuing this work focusing on various Math concepts.  https://maps.calgary.ca/TreeSchedule/
• We started our Literacy Stations with goal setting that students will monitor throughout the process. We discussed effective use of class time, focusing during work time and how to research efficiently.  The stations include the following:  Researching Tree Cookies, Reading/Summarizing/Questioning Legends and Creating a Visual Vocabulary.  
• We did a trip to the Learning Commons and took out books. 
• We finished the book, “Ugly” and will be continuing discussions and reflections about what we read. 

Upcoming:

• PD Day - Friday October 11th
• Thanksgiving Day - Monday October 14th
• Students are encouraged to sell the ADmazing coupon books!  These funds will be put towards their Outdoor school. 

Literacy/Science Websites

Tree Cookie Station:

·      starting at 6.30 to 8.35. Methuselah Tree

Annual Growth Rings: https://www.theforestacademy.com/tree-knowledge/annual-growth-rings/#.V_zyIrwrIy5

Seasons: https://www.theforestacademy.com/cycle-of-life/#.V_zycLwrIy4

(Explore all 4 seasons and how the effect branches, root and trunk)

About Tree Rings: http://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings