Design-Thinking

Today, Ms Elder introduced us to the design-thinking model. We know that the steps are: 

1. Discovery/Empathy: find out what the problem is

2. Define: restate what the problem is and check with the person to see if that's correct

3. Ideate: brainstorm ideas to solve the problem.

4. Prototype: build a model invention to solve the problem

5. Test: test it and make changes so it works better/solve the problem better

We read the ridiculous and silly book, Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers. In the book, the main character Floyd keeps throwing things up in a tree to knock down his kite. 

We listened to the story and learned about Floyd's problem. We restated the problem to make sure we understood it. Then, we brainstormed by drawing pictures in our visual journals. This time, we are not going to do Steps 4 and 5. Stay tuned 'til our Space unit in Science...

Here are some pics of our ideas:

Master's Art Gallery Field Trip

Yesterday, we went on a field trip to the Master's Art Gallery in Mission. We started by exploring the gallery and picking a painting that we wanted to learn more about. We learned facts about the artwork like what it's made out of by reading the information plaque beside the artwork. In our journals, we had to critique the artwork by explaining how the artwork made us feel, and what we thought was good about it. For one question, we even pretended that we were IN the painting and writing what we would hear, taste, and smell.  

 

Then, we gathered as a group, and got to listen to a real-live artist speak. Her name was Amy Dryer. Normally, in an oil painting, artists work from dark colours to light colours, but Amy usually works from light to dark. She starts by painting reds, browns, and yellows on the canvas, and after they dry, adding blues on top. She is famous for her "starry night" skies which have large, circle-ish shapes, which she hides designs in, like a constellations. Her favourite subject is the canoe. Amy said she was very inspired by a famous Canadian artist named Tom Thompson, who lived over a hundred years ago.

Amy said she started drawing when she was three years old, and her parents collected her art and put it into journals. She attended several art schools, and started working with her favourite medium: oil paints around the age of 20. Some things we liked about her art are: 

"She hides stuff in her art. She gets inspiration from other artists." ~ Viaan

"Her art style is very unique." ~ EF

"If she draws a canoe, she doesn't just do red, she puts other colours in it." ~ Gillian

"Her favourite time is night and most of her paintings are of night time." ~ AA

"I like that her stars aren't just regular stars; she put her own twist on it." ~ Wynn

"I like how she doesn't really paint small paintings, most of them are big." ~ Jackson

"I liked that in her paintings, they're not like what other people do, she does all different techniques." ~ Effie

"When she is drawing a person, she draws the head first." ~ Fatima

"I like that she's creative and not totally realistic." ~ Oliver

They gave us a big strip of paper to draw on!

"It was my first time seeing art live. It was beautiful and some were wonky." ~ AA 

"I now know that sometimes the art is historical and sometimes it's new." ~ HC 

"I liked the all the different artist's art had different shapes and colours." ~ Effie

"I liked that I got to see all the different ways you could draw things. Like the canoes, were not just red but also yellow and green and orange." ~ Gillian

"I liked that even though every painting in the gallery was different, they all kind of went together." ~ EF

"I learned that there is a painter called Alexander Young Jackson." ~ Oscar

"I liked how they make some of their art cartoony." ~ Fatima

"I liked the pin art explosions." ~ Jackson

"I liked that some of the lines make it look like there was texture." ~ Oliver

"You can hide other drawings in your art." ~ Viaan 

"I liked colouring." ~ Dima

Descriptive Writing Intro

After tackling the mighty paragraph, we are diving into descriptive writing. Can we use our five senses to paint a picture in the reader's mind?

We collaborated as a class to write the following about this picture:

The pearl white snow is swirling before my eyes. It’s drifting down from the sky. Under the streetlight it blows in sparkly wisps. Intricate snowflakes touch my nose, leaving a freezing kiss. They gently fall into my hot chocolate before melting. I take sip, burning my tongue, but in the cold weather it is nice and warm. The gooey marshmallows disintegrate into sugary sweetness in my mouth.

The snow keeps tumbling as the sharp scent of pine fills my nose. The squawking birds soaring south catch my eye. The railing is almost frozen to the touch. Small crunching footsteps make me wonder what animal is scurrying nearby. The snow falls off the tree with a soft whump right beside me.

The snow is untouched and beautiful. It feels as if time has stopped around me, almost as if I’m not supposed to be here interrupting the hush.

HOMEWORK: Prepare for Number Quiz

Students, this is a friendly reminder that you have a Math Assessment on Wednesday, December 10. You will need to be able to: 

• Count base ten blocks to 10 000 and give the numeral
• Draw base ten blocks to 10 000 to match a given numeral
• Order a set of numbers to 10 000 from least to greatest/greatest to least
• Give the expanded form to match a numeral
• Give the numeral to match an expanded form
• Solve a "number riddle" using place value vocabulary
• Write a numeral to match a number said out loud by the teacher

If you're looking for ways to practice, review the material under "Classwork" -> "Math" on the Google Classroom. You can also play the games that are explained in our past blog post: click here.

If you have any questions, please contact Ms Elder. 

Mandala Writing

After drawing personal symbols to share who we are and what we like in our manadala art with Ms. Elder (not to mention learning about radial symmetry!), we then learned how to write a paragraph with Mrs. Jamroziak.

We did a rough draft on paper, typed them up, received feedback and worked to improve our topic sentence, supporting details and sentence structure!

Here are some of our stellar topic sentences!

When you think about a mandala, do you think about learning other people's ways of thinking? - Effie

My mandala is like a puzzle. Every piece you place you learn more about me. - Jackson

My mandala is like a tree and every leaf that falls teaches you about me! -Oliver

This mandala shows how unique I am. It's like everything hidden is revealed head to toe. A photo of me is made in your mind. - Cora

This mandala will be like a compass. It will guide you through my identity. - Oscar

This mandala is like a map leading you to a treasure but instead of money or gold it is the knowledge of who I am. - GH

1. What did you enjoy about writing your mandala paragraph?

• I liked sharing what I love. - Jackson
• I liked that it was a big project so we had a lot of drafts. - Wynn
• I enjoyed sharing my likes and it was the first time in a long time that I thought about what I liked. - GH
• I liked that we could write about the things we like and other stuff. - Oscar

2. Why do you feel proud of your mandala paragraph?

• I feel proud of my paragraph because I put a lot of hard work and it was challenging which was kind of fun! - Oliver
• i feel proud of it cuz i worked really really hard on it. im proud of everything I did in my paragraph. it was really hard. im proud of my hard work. - Fatima
• I think that i am proud of myself because i tried my hardest to feel good about what i did and i feel really proud of myself now. - Effie

3. What is a topic sentence? 

• A topic sentence is a sentence that tell you what the paragraph is about - Cora
• a topic sentence is the first sentence of a paragraph and it just describes what the entire paragraph in like 5 to 10 words one of its main purpose is to hook the reader. - EF

4. What are supporting details?

• Supporting details wipe the confusion from the reader's mind. - Kaira
• supporting details are details that follow the captains order and the captain is the topic sentence so supporting details are just following the topic sentences orders and supporting details are the crew. - Viaan

Place Value

In Math these past few weeks with Ms Elder, we have been learning about the concept of Number. We have been practicing place value and Number vocabulary by: building numbers with Base Ten blocks, playing Place Value games, and doing Number Riddles.

Here are a few games we can play at home to practice:

Number Riddles

Materials: whiteboard (optional)

Instructions: 

1) One person thinks of a number (we practiced 3-digit).

2) Player 2 asks questions to get clues. Use Place Value vocabulary like: greater than, less than, odd, even, the digit in the ones/tens/hundreds place...

3) Player 1 tells them when they guess it right!

Trading Places

Materials: one set of dominoes, mat (optional)

Instructions: 

1) Flip all the dominoes upside down and shuffle.

2) Player 1 picks a domino. Choose which Place Value column you want to put that number in. Once your domino is placed, it cannot be moved.

3) Player 2 picks a domino. Repeat.

4) Player 1 picks a domino. They choose which way to put it in the Place Value columns that are left.

5) Player 2 picks a domino. Repeat.

6) Whomever has the greater number wins! You must be able to read your number out loud.

Place Value Race

Materials: one deck of cards

Instructions: 

1) Play with 2 players. Remove the 10's, Jack's, Queen's, and Kings, and Jokers. Shuffle.

2) Each player flips 2 cards over at the same time.

3) The first person to say the number out loud correctly keeps the cards. When you're finished the stack, the person with the most cards wins!

Banker's Game

Materials: one set of Base Ten blocks (could be printed or use coins), 2 dice of different colours, 1 place value mat (optional)

Instructions: 

1) Decide which colour of dice are for which place value column.

2) Player 1 rolls 2 dice. They collect the Base Ten blocks of that number.

3) Player 2 repeats.

4) Regroup when you can!

5) The first person to get to 100, wins!

Here are some pictures of us playing the Banker's Game!

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Option: Play with 3 dice all the way to 1 000!

Classifying Animals

Right now in Science, with Ms Elder, we are learning about Animals. On the first day, we got a picture of a mashed-up animal. With our group, we had to give it a name, say where it lived, how it protects itself, and what it eats. Instead of just guessing, we had to use clues from the photo of the animal's features to distinguish those answers. This drew our attention to details about animals like their colours, claws, teeth, and other body parts. 

We learned that recently there has been a real-life animal mash-up: a hybrid bird species known as a "grue jay" which is part blue jay and part green jay. Scientists think it's the first hybrid vertebrate to travel outside its range because of climate change. 

We learned that animals are named after their habitat (ex: the mountain goat), structure (ex: swordfish), or appearance (ex: blue jay).

Today, Ms Elder gave us a sheet with lots of animals on it and asked us to classify them. We could choose how many categories we used and what they are. Here are some student examples:

I sorted my animals into two groups: predator or prey

I sorted my animals into two groups: 
things I find attractive and unattractive

I sorted mine into 6 groups: reptiles, underwater animals, amphibians,
insects, birds, and mammals

I sorted mine into: big, medium, small

After, we learned about the Animal Kingdom classification system that scientists use and learned the vocabulary words: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods.