Festival du Voyageur

We had a wonderful field trip at Festival du Voyageur on Feburary 19th! Mr. Blake and Mrs. Vincent's classes joined us. Some highlights were: the Instruments of Old (a show about instruments the voyageur's used), a play at the end of the day called A Day in the Life of a Voyageur (about a girl, named Emily, who beat challenges to become a voyageur even though girls weren't allowed to be voyageurs), and time to explore, shop, and try fun activities. Check out our photos!

Arrival at Festival and Learning about the Harmonica

Playing and Learning about Voyageur Instruments

Playing Instruments and Dancing to Voyageur Jig Music

A Relaxing Snack Break by a Bonfire

An Arctic Fox named, "Arctic," Bred for and Rescued from the U.S. Fur Trade

Posing in Front of Snow Sculptures

Remembering Women's Fight for the Right to Vote and Enjoying Maple Taffy

Face Painting

Learning about Rescue of Wild Animals (this owl lost his eye when hit by a car)

Playing Checkers Like Voyageurs

Braiding Like a Voyageur

Playing Like Voyageurs and Looking at the Horse Drawn Sleigh

 A Day in the Life of a Voyageur (Some students participated in the play!)

This was a high energy, hilarious, and informative play about the challenges of voyageur life, including carrying packs the weight of teachers!

Outside Fort Gibraltar

A Closer Look at Louis Riel

Valentine's Party

We had a blast on February 12th, celebrating an early Valentine's Day! We ate yummy snacks, handed out our valentines, and played games.

Salute - Excellent Math Game to Play at Home and School

Playing Salute

Team 15 has been playing "Salute." It is a mental math game for multiplication facts practice. By the end of June, Grade 4s need to understand facts to 9 X 9 and know their multiplication facts by heart to 5 X 5 and the matching division facts, and Grade 5s need to know them by heart to 9 X 9 with the matching division facts.

This is a fun way to learn multiplication facts! We have a fantastic time playing, "Salute." Read the rules below to play at home! We wrote them together as a class! You can also change the game for addition practice. Instead of finding the product, Player 1 finds the sum, and the other two  players figure out the missing addend instead of the missing factor. Happy playing!

Team 15’s Math Games

Salute

3-Player Game

Materials

·         A deck of playing cards

·         A multiplication table/calculator to check your math (optional)

To Win

Collect all/the most cards by the end of the game.

Set Up

  

1.      Player 1 keeps the number cards, Jacks, and Aces, but takes out all the other cards in the deck. Player 1 can also keep the Queens and Kings (optional) for an extra challenge.

2.      Player 2 shuffles the deck and splits it in about half.

3.      Player 3 chooses his/her half of the deck and Player 2 takes the other half.

Game Play

1.      Player 1 has the multiplication table/calculator (optional)

2.      Players 2 and 3 each pick a card from their decks without looking at their own cards. They each hold their card face out on their foreheads, so Player 1 can see the cards.

3.      Player 1 multiplies the factors on the two cards silently. He/she might use the multiplication table/calculator to check the math.

4.      Player one says the product. For example, “The product is 20.”

5.      Players 2 and 3 have to figure out the factor on their own card by using the product and looking at the number on the opposite player’s card.

6.      The player who says his/her factor correctly first wins the cards for that round after he/she also says the multiplication fact.

For example, “5! I have 5. 4 groups of 5 equals 20.” This means that the other player with the card on his/her forehead had a four.

Special Rules

1.      If the product is zero, then that round is a draw and the players put their cards at the bottom of their piles.

2.      Switch player roles and shuffle the decks every 8 rounds.

3.      Cards that do not have numbers have special values:

Jack = 0            Ace = 1            Queen = 11                 King = 12

The Lion King Divisional Musical by Odin and Tyler

On Thursday, Feb. 4th, we had a field trip to the Lion King Jr. It was a play, but it was very fun to watch. It was very funny. Our favorite part was Timon and Pumba. They were super funny. It was very fantastic. We wish you came with us.

Three students from our school were in the musical (right)

Global Day of Play

Team 15's Day of Play on Feb. 3rd was a great success! We played, we imagined, we solved problems, and we had fun! We noticed a few things about the benefits of unstructured play when we played together and with people from other classes:

1. We had to use our imaginations to figure out what to do and keep the day fun!

2. We worked together to build forts, play games, and create art.

3. We had time and freedom to try new things and play with new people.

4. We had to be independent and figure out how to do things in a new way instead of asking our teacher what to do or how to do something.

We hope we can have a Day of Play next year! Many of us at school are hoping this will become a regular event. Please visit our blog again soon, for a post about the Divisional Musical.

Outdoor Play

What a beautiful day it was for the swings!

Fort building and more

Painting, chess, and outdoor fun

Smiles, excitement, and the power to choose and imagine

Entrepreneurial Adventure

Team 15 is beginning a new project through the Learning Partnership called Entrepreneurial Adventure! The program is designed to support our class in our own business venture. The project runs from now until end of April and a few student representatives from our class will attend a showcase in May. We are working on choosing a business idea and then we will choose a charity and donate all our proceeds to that charity.

We have been matched with our business partner, Monica Smith, who owns and runs Aunt Monica's Attic (a craft party business: http://auntmonicasattic.com/). Ms. Smith has come to meet with us once. She helped us narrow down our business ideas from eight choices to two choices. Before we met Ms. Smith, we started with about 40 ideas that we condensed to eight! Ms. Smith will meet with us regularly to help us with the project. Miss Cichosz appreciates Ms. Smith's help and her business knowledge and will keep meeting with Ms. Smith to help plan our next steps.

During this project we will learn a lot of useful skills, like teamwork, how to run a business, budgeting money, keeping track of money, and marketing. Keep checking our blog for more updates about our business adventure!

Meeting Ms. Smith

Start of February by Sophia and Avirey

Hello, this week we're going to be talking about Play Day. It's where you play all day and you're not allowed electronics or anything to do with batteries. We also had jungle gym and we'll have Library on Wednesday. We also did On Demand Writing. Thank you for reading this blog. Bye!

Working on On Demand Writing

End of January by Tipay and Walker

Hi, I'm Tipay and I'm Walker. Last week, we did our dream paintings and it was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we are getting a new student. We are all very excited! We also finished our kaleidoscopes and our periscopes. We are going to present it to the Kinders. This is a crazy week! We are learning lots at school.

We sketched and painted. The two bottom photos are our big dream painting that we're making for the Parent Council Art Sale.

Our kaleidoscopes and periscopes

Math Problem Solving

We've been learning about perimeter and area using grids and multiplication arrays. Our latest math problem was called, "Pug Pen." In this problem, we had to design different sized pens for Ruby's pugs. All the pens had to be squares or rectangles and have the same perimeter (16 m.). We also had to find out which pen would give the pugs the most space to play and then prove it. Some of us drew pens and some of us started by building pens with blocks or toothpicks. We will share our strategies tomorrow.