How The World Works

We've begun our new unit: How the World Works.  Our central idea this unit is: Electricity is a natural phenonemon that can be harnessed.  We've been hard at work unpacking this central idea and rewriting it in kid friendly language and our mother tongue!

Yesterday we began looking into static electricity and found that it is a single, sudden transfer of electrons from on place to another.  Lightning is a form of static electricity!  And when we get shocks from doorknobs or the metal screws on the slide of the playground! 

We did our first lab experiment.  We built up an electric charge by rubbing balloons on our hair or on the carpet.  The rubbing makes the balloons pick up electons from our hair or the carpet, giving it an electric charge.  We then tried to see if different bits and pieces of paper would attract to the balloon.

Take a look:

What kind of charge does the balloon have after we've rubbed it against our hair?

What charge do you think the paper had that stuck to the balloon?

Why?

Invitation to Math Workshop

Elementary School Mathematics Workshop

Mark your calendars for the morning of Wednesday March 2nd.   We hope to build on the success of last year's math day.  So please join your children in their classrooms for our second parent –student math open day.

You are invited to participate in one of our regular math workshops sessions. During the session we will play some of our interactive math games on the computers and the whiteboard. This is an opportunity for you to deepen your understanding of our constructivist approach to mathematics as your children move through the school. We hope to do this in a way that will be informative and fun for you and your children.

We will offer two sessions. The first will be from 9:00-9:40, when prep, grade one and grade two will be open for parents. The second will be from 9:45 - 10:25, when grades three, four and five will be open for parents

For parents who arrive early or who finish the session early we will be serving coffee in the foyer from 9:00-10:30.  This will be a good opportunity for you to socalise with other parents. Please check out our in-house television screen over your coffee. You will see some of our budding mathematicians demonstrating their learning.

 We look forward to seeing you there.

Teresa Coffey

 Deputy Principal

Data Handling

We have been using our class Google account to create surveys about technology.  With a partner, we created surveys about our two inquiry points:

• The ways in which technology influences our lives, and
• Our school’s increasing dependence on technology

We've collected data from 4.2, printed our results and analyzed the data.  Some our our results were displayed as pie charts, bar graphs and line graphs – The results from Google surveys are automatically presented in the form that highlights the aspect of data that you are looking at in the most efficient way.  For example, we looked at how pie charts are an efficient way to show percentages. 

 

Next we collected data on the same survey questions from the other 4th grade classes and we compared the results of that data to the data that we collected from just our class.  Some of our data really changed!

We decided that analyzing data thoroughly is a very important part of data collection and that we can always use our data to help us create more questions and improve our surveys.

In order to answer our second inquiry point in more detail, we started going to other grades to complete our surveys.  We are wondering how this will change our data...

Why do you think our data will change once we ask different grades?

Parent Letters

Please take note....

All parent letters from the school will now be posted on the separate tab called 'Parent Letters'. All of the letters sent home since the start of the school year have been posted there for your reference.

A Word from Mrs Coffey

Dear Parents,

As you know, we have changed the format of the report cards. Please click on the link below where you will find information about the changes.
The report cards come home with the children on Friday January 28th. and the Parent/Teacher conferences will be held on Thursday February 3rd.

Regards,

Teresa Coffey

http://voicethread.com/share/1641679/

Persuasive Writing VoiceThreads

We have spent some time publishing our final drafts of persuasive writing pieces and using VoiceThreads to talk about what makes a good persuasive writing piece.  Take a look at some of our persuasive writing accompanied by voice recordings of what 4.2 students think makes a good persuasive writing text.

http://voicethread.com/share/1609481/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609493/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609488/

http://voicethread.com/share/1638791/

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http://voicethread.com/share/1609489/

http://voicethread.com/share/1638796/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609474/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609473/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609506/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609485/

http://voicethread.com/share/1609505/

German News from the Intermediate Group

Students have been reading independently, for example in the Lesebaum, Graf Ortho and Quiesel series, and are close to a total of 100 book quizzes completed on the website of the Antolin reading program.

Students have edited written work themselves and provided feedback to peers on adding more detail to work and improving spelling.  Students have been using dictionaries to find correct spellings as well as developing other strategies to improve.

We are at the halfway point in our current chapter in the Deutschmobil 1 textbook about our daily routines and school subjects.  The next chapter will be about celebrations.

Thanks for reading.  Please allow me to wish you and your families relaxing, enjoyable holidays.