Wednesday, October 9

Our morning work task today was:
I added two decimal numbers together to make exactly 4.  What might the two numbers be?


Challenge:  What might the numbers be if you added three decimal numbers together to make exactly 4? 

This led to some review from grade 5 as well as great new learning.  We know that:
- when adding decimals we need to make sure the decimal places are lined up.  We can add a zero if need be to fill in a place after the decimal if the numbers do not go to the same place (one is to the tenths and one is to the hundredths).

We discovered today as we were finding equations where the sum is 4 (or any whole number), that:
- when adding numbers to the tenths place, the digits in the tenths place add up to 10
- when adding numbers to the hundredths place, the digits after the decimal add up to 100
- when adding numbers to the thousandths place, the digits after the decimal add up to 1000 
- no matter how many zeroes you add after a decimal, it doesn't change the number

Students shared some of their other strategies for finding numbers to reach the sum.  One student recorded one number such as 2.453.  He started at the ones and knew the sum was 4, and knew that he would be carrying over a one from the other columns, so knew that the number he recorded for the ones needed to add up to 3.  For the tenths and hundredths, he knew they needed to add to 9 since one would be carried from the columns to the right.  The thousandths was the place that needed to add up to 10.  He was able to determine the number to add would be 1.547.

Another student did a similar strategy, but started at the ones.  They knew that the ones needed to add up to 10 and when they carried the one over, they added the one to the number they had and then figured out how many more they would need to equal 10.  The final step was to figure out how many they needed to get the whole number part of the sum.  

All students had a chance to practice the two strategies after the sharing and were successful!  Ask your child to show you tonight.

We met as a large grade 6 group to begin Social Action.  We read the story One Hen.   It is set in Ghana and tells how a loan to buy one hen made a difference for a boy and his family and eventually his town and his country.   

Our day finished learning about what tree rings can tell us.  Ms. Steeves gave us a sheet with 5 things tree rings can tell us and we tried out our Sketchnoting skills in our notes.  We think it was pretty successful as students found that their notes were more interesting than just writing notes and they felt it would be easier to remember and find information quickly if they needed to.  They liked combining words and visuals.  It is great to see the different ways that students Sketchnoted.

Reminders:
- Return Friday Journal
- School picture orders due Oct. 11.  Orders can be made online or brought to the school
- No school for students Friday, Oct. 11 (PD Day) or Monday, Oct. 14 (Thanksgiving)
- Return ADmazing coupon orders

Tuesday, October 8

Our morning work today was completing our reflections from our Island scenario yesterday.

In math, we continued with the penny problem we started last week.  Some students had solved the 1000 pennies and were working on numbers such as 1742.  

We are working at explaining our mathematical thinking and the steps we took to solve a problem in words.  We are also working at students not erasing their work if they change their thinking, strategy or make an error.  Students are encouraged to write 'oops' if they make a mistake and note what their error was and they can write abandon if they are abandoning a strategy they are using and include the reason why they are changing their strategy.

Some students shared the strategies they used to solve the initial problem and then we had the chance to determine how tall a stack of 1000 dimes or quarters would be individually.  

In social, we began our look at democracy.  We talked about what we think we know about governments, why we need rules and who makes the decisions.  We began to discuss the different types of governments and some of the democratic principles in Canada.

We learned to draw people (peeps) today for our Sketchnotes.  We will be putting our Sketchnoting skills to use very soon.

Reminders:
- Return Friday Journal
- School picture orders due Oct. 11.  Orders can be made online or brought to the school
- No school for students Friday, Oct. 11 (PD Day) or Monday, Oct. 14 (Thanksgiving)
- Return ADmazing coupon orders

Monday, October 7

We had time to finish up some of our stickies today instead of starting a new morning work task and were then off to music and gym.

During snack, we looked at the following cartoon from the Calgary Herald last week after the big snowstorm.  A hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration used to make a point or emphasize something.  Hyperboles are a form of figurative language that we have all used, but didn't know they were called hyperboles.  

We were presented with a scenario which provided the intro to our work around democracy and how decisions are made. 

Your class is going on an end-of-year trip across the ocean. Your flight encounters a bad storm, and you all become stranded together on a remote island. The teacher and other adults have decided to venture off to find help. It will be several weeks until you are rescued and the class must figure out how everyone will try to live together and survive.
Ms. Steeves sat back and watched as we communicated and worked with each other to come up with a plan.  It was a bit loud and chaotic at times, with many people trying to talk at once.  It was great to see some students taking on a leadership role and trying to organize the group.

We started mostly as a large group and then broke off into smaller groups with different identified jobs that would need to be done.  It was great to see some groups using Sketchnoting to record their ideas.  After each of the small groups had shared their thinking with the large group, we responded to the following questions:
What worked well with the large group?  
What didn't work so well?
Did any leaders emerge?  Who?  How did they show leadership?

What worked well with your small group?  
What didn't work so well?
Did any leaders emerge?  Who?  How did they show leadership?

We had a few minutes, so watched and practiced some typography to help develop our Sketchnoting skills.

Our day finished with a fall walk in our schoolyard with our grade 1 buddies.  We were looking for signs of fall and also had an opportunity to share some of our knowledge about trees with our buddies.

Reminders:
- Return Friday Journal
- School picture orders due Oct. 11.  Orders can be made online or brought to the school
- No school for students Friday, Oct. 11 (PD Day) or Monday, Oct. 14 (Thanksgiving)
- ADmazing coupon orders were due today.  Return them ASAP is you still have them at home.

Friday, October 4

Mrs. Fatica was in with us today while Ms. Steeves was supporting in the office.

Our morning work task today was:
Ms. Steeves bought 583 bags of chocolate bars with 12 chocolate bars in each bag.  Mr. Lee bought 397 bags of chocolate bars with 18 chocolate bars in each bag.  Who has more chocolate bars?  How many more?

Many of us thought that we needed to divide as we have been working at division.  It is important to always read carefully and think about what makes sense for the task.

We did Thank You Friday, Friday journals, read some more Ugly and had some time to catch up on unfinished work.  

Reminders:
- Return Friday Journals
- School photos coming home.  Orders due by October 11
- Bring in leaves to add to our pile for composting

- ADmazing coupon book orders are due Monday, October 7! $10.50 from each book sold by individual students will go towards reducing your cost of Outdoor School in the spring.  
- PD Day Fri. Oct. 11- No school for students
- Thanksgiving Mon. Oct. 14- No school for students

Thursday, October 3

Our morning work task today:
Choose and solve one of the following in as many ways as you can.  Make sure to check your answer.  

Mark collects keychains and wants to hang them in rows of 12.  He has 643 keychains in his collection.  How many rows of keychains will he have?  Will there be any keychains left over?  If so, how many?


A toy factory packages 36 video games in each case.  They make 4529 games each day.  How many cases will they need to package the video games?  Will there be any video games left over at the end of the day?  If so, how many?

In math, students worked in small groups to solve the following problem:

How tall is a stack of 1 000 pennies?  

Your group has been given a bag with between 50 and 60 pennies.  You may use some or all of the pennies in your bag to solve the problem.  Please record your answer in a sentence and make sure you show your thinking and explain the steps you used to find the solution.

We continued with Ugly.  Robert grew up in the 1970's and was called many nicknames throughout his time in elementary school.  Today we read his top ten list: Toothpick Legs, Flat Nose, Pinocchio, Go-Go-Gadget Rob, Ugly Face, Retard, Transformer, Stumpy, Cripple, Toe Nose.  These names affected Robert in different ways.  We reacted quite strongly to some of these names and could understand why they would be hurtful.  He shared his thoughts on each name including the: Origin, Originality, Hurt Factor, Laugh Factor and How he got over the name.  We learned Toe Nose is the name that was the most hurtful and the one name that has never ever got over.  We talked about how our words or the name we call someone may be the one thing that stays with them until they are an adult and will be something that they never really get over.  It is important to always be kind with our words and our actions.

In partners, we read one of two more articles related to e-scooters in Calgary.  Each group shared highlights from their article with the other half of the class.

We are reading articles as we will be writing our own newspaper articles this year.  Also, the articles that we have read this week deal with local issues or services in Calgary and relate to our municipal government which we will be learning about this year.

We finished our day learning about Sketchnoting.

Here is some of our practice work from today.

Reminders:
- We are still waiting for a couple Friday Journals to be returned
- Bring in leaves to add to our pile for composting

- ADmazing coupon book orders are due Monday, October 7! $10.50 from each book sold by individual students will go towards reducing your cost of Outdoor School in the spring.  
- PD Day Fri. Oct. 11- No school for students
- Thanksgiving Mon. Oct. 14- No school for students

Wednesday, October 2

We switched up our morning work today.  In partners, we read and discussed an article from the Calgary Herald and answered some questions individually.

What do you think this article was written?  Why do you think this?
What were the 3 most important pieces of information for you?  Why?
What vocabulary words were you unsure of?

In Science, we looked at the nutrient cycle and the roles of producers, consumers and decomposers.  We created our own nutrient cycle with definitions for the different roles in our Creative Journals.

We checked on our celery experiment that we started yesterday.  We recorded our observations, what we thought and what we wonder.

Observations:
the leaves with the blue water are very blue
on the outside of the celery curve, you can see lines of color like the water
The red water celery has gone pale and it is turning red
The purple water has not changed as much.  It has speckles of blue and has become a bit darker
There are tiny dots on the blue leaves
Some leaves on top of the red celery are green and dried out
The blue jar has the least water now 
The blue celery looks a brighter green than before we put it in the coloured water

We think…
blue color was more dominant in the purple water and that is why the leaves are a dark blue and aren’t changing as much
the leaves on the red celery were dead or dying before we put them in the water so the coloured water didn’t travel to them

We wonder…
- if we changed back to regular water, if the normal celery color will come back
- what would happen if we changed the celery to a different color of water
- what the inside of the celery looks like
- how they leaf would look now
-  if we put a new piece of celery in the purple water if it would turn purple
- why the purple celery really isn’t purple

- what would happen if we put tree leaves in coloured water

We then looked at the leaves and cross sections of the celery under the microscope.  We found that it was easier to see some of the internal parts of the leaf such as the veins.  These are the best pictures we could get through the microscope.

We decided to switch one of the blue and red celery stalks to see what will happen and will then put them into normal water tomorrow.

We finished the day with Ugly.

Reminders:
- We are still waiting for a couple Friday Journals to be returned
- Bring in leaves to add to our pile for composting

- Sell ADmazing coupon books! $10.50 from each book sold by individual students will go towards reducing your cost of Outdoor School in the spring

Tuesday, October 1

Our day started with reviewing all that we had learned yesterday at the Dare to Care, Take the Time Day.  Some key points were:

- everyone has a story
- difference between rude, mean and bullying behaviours
-rude- unintentionally doing something unkind to someone

       examples- budging in line, stepping on their foot, bragging about getting the best score on a test 
- mean- intentionally doing something unkind to someone once or twice
        examples- name calling, pushing or hitting on purpose, telling someone you are smarter than they are
- bullying- intentionally hurtful behaviour to others that goes on for a week or more, imbalance of power, often lack of regret or remorse

Students wrote a personal reflection on the day with specific details to support their ideas.
Some questions they considered when writing their reflections included:

• What were the highlights for you?  Why?
• What did you learn?  
• How will you share what you learned with others?
• How will you make a difference in our Bridlewood School community?

In science, we began an experiment today relating to How Trees Drink Water, initiated by a student in the class.  We are using celery, food colouring and water.  We have three colours (red, purple, blue).  We have included a larger celery stalk as well as a smaller one.  As we were setting up the experiment, some student questions that arose were:

• Can the celery suck up water without roots?
• How is the internal part of the celery like a tree?
• Do the leaves on the celery have the same parts as the leaves from trees we looked at?

We spent time looking at a cross section of the celery as well as some of the leaves using microscopes and magnifying glasses.  The leaves we looked at do have the same internal parts as the tree leaves.

We read a story, When I was Eight, and watched a video relating to Orange Shirt Day.  

Reminders:
- Scholastic book orders due tomorrow
- Return Friday Journals
- Bring in leaves to add to our pile for composting

- Sell ADmazing coupon books! $10.50 from each book sold by individual students will go towards reducing your cost of Outdoor School in the spring