May 2018

May 4, 2018 - May the 4th be with you!

This week was intense! Between getting ready for our tdsbCREATES musical and decorating our door for next week's Earth Day, we were very busy getting creative with the Arts.

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to present our musical to 3 other classes as well as watch Ms. Ranger's class perform. It was amazing! The students were in character and excited about sharing their work with others. They also learned quite a bit about inclusion by watching the musical by the students in Ms. Ranger's class. At the end, one student even mentioned creating another musical next month. It's been a great 3 weeks and who knows what might happen!

Today students started creating "infomercials" related to early societies. After researching, the goal is to create an artifact that will highlight features of their early society and compare them to another. I'm always amazed by the creativity of the students and I know that I will be blown away for sure. 

Students participated in a multiplication and division breakout to consolidate the learning we have been doing over the past few weeks. Next week, we will be moving into Spatial Geometry as we continue in Math.

That's a wrap for a fantastic, Arts-filled week. On Monday, we will be having a variety of Eco activities to engage our students in thinking about their impact on the environment as well as our Community Clean-up. We're looking forward to it!

May 11, 2018

This week in Language and Social Studies, students continued their research and the creation of their infomercials or presentations about an early society. Some are working on websites, videos and creative ideas using Google Slides. I can't wait to see what they come up with. Next Friday, we will be presenting.

In Math, we started a new unit on Geometry, specifically looking at geometric concepts and where they may be found in everyday life. We explored Kandinsky's works of Art and identified different concepts used in his pieces as well as taking the time to research and find out more about some of the concepts. Next week, we will be starting to create our own Kandinksy inspired works of Art using at least 10 of the concepts we identified and are learning about.

In Science, the Grade 5s have been hard at work creating models and presentations for their inquiry questions. We will be beginning presentations with peers next week.

In French, we continued our vocabulary work and we will be starting our playwriting next week. There are great ideas coming to life so stay tuned!

This week we got back to working on the solutions to our bugs with our Kindergarten Buddies. We were using found materials, wood and hand tools as we were creating. There was such excitement in the room as students worked and it was great to see our buddies learning new skills, problem solving and collaborating with us. 

At the end of the month, we will be having a field trip to the Fairview Toronto Public Library for a performance of Mistatim. Permission forms will be coming home during the week of May 21st. Remember to take a look at our What's On At Shaughnessy page to see what's coming up over the next month and a half. Where has the school year gone?

May 18, 2018

What a week! From Rethink The Box to Coding with Dash, students were engaged in a variety of activities that got them collaborating and problem solving.

On Wednesday, 5 students compete at the Elementary Rethink The Box Challenge at Don Mills Collegiate. For the last 2 weeks, they were coming up with a problem and researching possible solutions. They came up with the Waste Be Gone. A solution that collects debris from bodies of water. Their goal was specifically to help the salmon populations in Lake Ontario. It was an amazing day and the students brought back their solution and shared it with the class. Hopefully we'll have our very own challenge sometime in June.

In Math, we continued with our Kandinsky inspired Art and our geometric concepts. Using Google Drawings, we practiced creating a work of Art with a partner and then moved into creating our own works using paper and pencil. The grade 4s were out on Thursday with Scientists in Schools so the 5s continued working on their geometry by creating different triangles and irregular polygons and coding Dash to follow the path. It was a great application of the work we have been doing with angles and shapes.

For Drama this week, we took some time to take a look at some Harris Burdick pictures and try to act out what was happening before, during and after. Students came up with some very interesting ideas and it was amazing to see them in role.

In Language and Social Studies, students compared 2 early societies to each other and then also compared the society that they were working on to current day life in Canada, using Venn Diagrams. They also continued their work on their infomercials. Hopefully they'll be all done and ready to present soon.

In French, we started to write our dialogue about items in the house and rooms. The students came up with great writing ideas and we will continue our modeled writing activity next week.

In Science, the building of models, websites and slides presentations continued.  They're close to being complete and I can't wait until they all get ready to share their learning with each other.

Today we were building again with our Kindergarten buddies. Amazing solutions are coming to life and it's refreshing to see the grade 4s and 5s in a leadership role as they work with the younger students. There isn't much time left to the end of the year and I hope well have enough time to finish building and get testing.

Next week, permission forms will head home for a performance on the 31st. Pizza lunch forms are also due on the 23rd. It's also a short week next week so have a very happy & safe Victoria Day Long Weekend!

May 25, 2018

The month is almost finished! 

This week we finished up a lot of our projects. From Social Studies to Science, students were hard at work putting the finishing touches on their presentations and trying to get ready for the big reveal next week. 

In Math we continued to work on our Kandinsky Art pieces and are almost finished. We also started doing activities online related to angles and next week we will begin a search for angles in our own city. 

On Friday, we read a text about an interesting new treat - crickets - being sold in grocery stores and students were tasked with creating their very own tasty - and perhaps unusual - treats to pitch to me. They're working on creating their packaging and slogan ideas in Media Literacy. 

We continued our work with our Kindergarten buddies and some groups are almost finished their solutions and they are fantastic!

With only a little more than a month left of school, we're taking a couple of trips to end the year. Please check out our What's On At Shaughnessy page to stay informed as to all that we'll be up to!