April 23-26

Welcome to Room 14!

Math

This week we continued our fraction centres. Grade 6's worked on how to change improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. Ask me the difference between mixed numbers and improper fractions!

Grade 5's worked on different strategies to change fractions to decimals. Remember if you can change the denominator to 10 or 100, it is easy to find the equivalent decimal. 

Both grades did a quick review of place value including expanded notation. 

e.g. 0.234 = 0.2+0.03+0.004= 2 tenths+3 hundredths+4 thousandths

Remember that on Wednesday we will have a test on fractions and decimals and also percent and ratio for grade 6's. We need to review the learning expectations so we can practice for our test. 

Outcomes Grade 5

I can create sets of equivalent fractions.

I can compare fractions with like and unlike denominators.

I can describe and represent decimal numbers (tenths, hundredths, thousandths).

I can relate decimals to fractions and fractions to decimals.

I can compare and order decimals using benchmarks, place value and equivalent decimals.

I can add and subtract decimals to thousandths.

Outcomes Grade 6

I can describe and represent decimal numbers less than one thousandth.

I can relate improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa.

I can solve problems using ratios.

I can solve problems using percentages.

I can multiply and divide decimals with 1 digit whole number multipliers and divisors.

Remember, these sites are fantastic to do some practice questions:

Grade 5:

http://www.nelson.com/mathfocus/grade5/student/tryout.html#chi

Grade 6:

http://www.nelson.com/mathfocus/grade6/student/tryout.html#chi

Also this site has lots of interactives to try on fractions and decimals:

https://www.wootmath.com/interactive/topic/making-sense-of-decimals

L.A.

This week we talked about how to add a little more description into our writing using the technique of "showing, not telling". Ask me about this technique. We also learned how to create satisfying endings to our stories. We worked together and used the PAT scoring guide to "mark" some sample stories. 

Social

This week we continued looking the Canadian government, including the House of Commons and the Senate. We took a closer look at the roles each of these bodies have, as well as the people who work in each.

We also began our exploration of Ancient Athens. We looked at the Greek Myth of Medusa. Ask us what the lesson or moral of this myth is.

Science

This week in science we continued with our electricity and magnetism unit. Room 22 and 14 had a faceoff in a Jeopardy review game!

French
We have started a new unit. We are learning the names of parts of the human body. We have worked on a work sheet on the different body parts, like the arms or the eyes.

Special Events

On Thursday there was an Earth day Assembly presented by the Me to We group. Kids learned lots about how we can help our Earth and enjoyed a very interesting fashion show. 

April 15th to 18th

Welcome to 

FOURTEENIA's

Weekly Update

Wow! What a busy week!

Science

We saw the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere.  We were amazed at how easily it was to identify major constellations on our own after spending only 45 minutes in the Star Lab. We walked through a whole year’s rotation of the cosmos while bringing ancient myths to life. I can identify constellations such as Ursa Major and Minor, Orion, Cassiopeia, Draco, and Leo as well as identify solitary stars such as Polaris and Sirius.

We discovered aviation firsthand. We rotated through five stations to make close observations of the physics of flight: air pressure and Bernoulli’s principle, the movement of air molecules, angle of attack, principles of lift, drag and turbulence, wing shape, airplane control surfaces and motions, and the differences between shuttle flight and airplane flight. The stations made the usually invisible forces of flight visually available using smoke checks, wind tunnels, remote-control airplanes and model air molecules to bring science to life. We recorded our observations in a logbook, answered questions that encouraged us to connect our data to problems of wider significance and deduce further hypotheses from our observations.

We even built rockets! We had to think about the mass and launch them with Alka-Seltzer and water.

Thank you to all of our parent volunteers. 

We would not be able to attend these amazing trips without you.

Social

We participated in Student Vote Alberta. We set up our room to represent a polling station. All the Grade 5/6 classes took turns voting and rotating through through the various roles. The complete Student Vote Alberta results are available here: http://studentvote.ca/results/ab2019 

Math

We weren't able to fit in a lot of math this week due to all of our special activities. We worked a little bit on our fraction centres and also did some analysis of the Alberta election results. We calculated the percentages of votes that each party received in our Ranchlands student vote and compared them to the provincial percentages. Ask me about our Ranchlands results.

If you want to check out how Ranchlands or Nolan Hill/Sherwood communities voted, please go to these sites:

https://results.elections.ab.ca/wtResultsPGE.htm

https://www.elections.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019_ED8_CALGARY_EDGEMONT_PUBLISHED.pdf

https://www.elections.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019_ED12_CALGARY_FOOTHILLS_PUBLISHED.pdf

L.A.

We continued our focus on story writing this week. We worked on adding descriptions of the setting using the 5 senses and also talked about how to include character description. We read some picture books to identify similes, metaphors, personification and onomatopoeia and started to think about how we could include these literary techniques in our stories. 

Quest Theatre Performance

We saw an amazing and powerful performance about Treaty 7 and Alberta history from an indigenous perspective. Ask me about my favorite part of the play and what I learned about the history of Alberta.