Ms. Swinton's Class

Happy Winter Break!! We had a fun day leading up to the break, playing Prodigy for the first half of math class, followed by the choice between finishing up multiplication colouring sheets and Sudoku from earlier this week or playing another game of SNAKE. Phys. Ed. brought more parachute play. We had Circle time to share about our lives as well as to support one another in concerns we had. We almost finished chapter 7 of The Boundless  in Language Arts, and will come back to that after the break. This afternoon brought our final carolling time, with a special visit from a festive version of Harry the Hawk and another handbell performance. We ended the day with a movie and snacks for our Positive Choices reward. Report cards are coming home today. Please read through the report card, and then sign and return just   the envelope , which will be used again for Term 2's report card. If your child was absent today, the report card can be picked up from the office during the...

It was fantastic to see so many students dressed up for Sleepy Santa today! The overall mood of the school was very festive! This was compounded by today being our first carol singing time, along with an opera singer and one of the handbell groups performing. Our second and final carol singing time will be tomorrow afternoon. In Math we worked to sharpen our logical thinking skills by solving Sudoku puzzles . In Phys. Ed. we "wrapped the present" with the parachute, sending one another for a spinning ride! In Language Arts, we finished up our chapter 6 storyboard for The Boundless  and started reading chapter 7, as well as practicing our parts of speech by completing holiday-themed Mad Libs. Social Studies provided another opportunity to work on posters about the Arctic region of Canada, either alone or with a partner. We also had a chance to explore the toys that some of the grade four students invented using simple machines. Reminder: Tomorrow is our Positive Choi...

Today in Math, following our usual number sentence warm-up, students practiced math skills by playing the online game Prodigy , and by completing colouring sheets based on basic multiplication facts. Students are encouraged to practice basic multiplication and division facts over winter break to prepare for our upcoming multiplication and division unit (which involves 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication and 3-digit by 1-digit division). I've shared some links for practicing basic facts on a past blog post, but will post those again later this week. Having these basic facts be relatively automatic will make the more complex multiplication and division significantly easier. In French, we played Quizlet Live to practice our Noel vocabulary . Then, in Language Arts, we wrote reflections on our December quote . In the afternoon, following a brief quiet reading/unfinished work period, we had the privilege of hearing former Hawkwood School student, athlete, and Amazing Race Canada ...

Welcome to the last week of school before winter break! We have a lot of fun and exciting things happening this week! In Math today (after our usual number sentences) we played a fun whole class game called SNAKE. Students created a game board with five columns, each headed by a letter in SNAKE. For each column, the teacher rolled a pair of ten-sided dice, and the product of those numbers was the points students would receive. At any point in the column, students could choose to sit down for the rest of the column, locking in their points, which would keep their points safe but not allow them to earn any more. Once they sat down, they could not stand up again until we moved on to the next column. If at any point doubles were rolled, students who were still standing lost all points in that column. If snake eyes (double 1s) were rolled, then students standing lost all points in  all  columns. At the end of the E column, students totalled their points from all five columns, and...

Today we had our usual Circle sharing and compliments time, followed by a substantial block of quiet reading/unfinished work time. Students were encouraged to focus on overdue work and assignments with the most pressing due dates. In Math, students predicted how likely it was that their partner would throw each of rock, paper, and scissors. Then they played 20 rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors and tallied what their partner threw each time. To conclude the experiment, they compared their prediction and their results. Finally, they worked on a textbook page about conducting experiments. We continued reading The Boundless  together and working on our storyboards. We ended the day with a whole-school Literacy activity with our Grade 2 Buddies, reading a riddle to try to guess where the Elf on the Shelf was hidden in the school. After we made and justified our guesses, we created our own riddles to identify other places in the school and tried to solve one another's riddles. ...

Today we finished up our Arctic region jot notes in Social Studies. If students are not yet done gathering this information, they can finish it up during QR/UFW time or at home for homework, but it needs to be done for Monday, December 16. In Math we had a probability check in. Students were very successful on this and seem to be understanding these concepts well! In Science we had a guest speaker, Danuta (a Hawkwood parent), come in to talk to us about acids, bases, and pH . In addition to introducing these important concepts, she also led us us in a really neat hands-on experiment using red cabbage as a pH indicator to test different substances. Her slideshow has a lot of great information, including instructions on how to perform the experiment at home, and I would encourage you to take a look at it! In Art we continued working on our Monet-inspired birch tree art, painting texture on the snow, shadows of the trees, and optional background details like fences a...

Today in Math we created spinners to allow us to predict and then test the probability of landing on each colour (ie to compare the theoretical  and experimental  probabilities). We also had the opportunity to explore the "Starbooks" cafe set up by Mrs. Harms/Ms. Wadja's class in the Learning Commons today, where each student shared about a book they had read. Our class really enjoyed this cafe, so we will likely do a similar project next term. In French we continued working with Christmas vocabulary (reviewing the song and Quizlet set from yesterday as well as starting a word search), and in Social Studies we kept going with our Arctic region jot notes. In Science we explored the difference between a physical change and a chemical change , and sorted different examples into these categories, justifying our choices. We also set up our salt crystal experiment, which will be an ongoing process over the next little while. To prepare this, we used hot water to di...

Today in Science we went over the solubility experiment we began last week to ensure that everyone had consistent results. Mr. Risdon tested each material in water to confirm which were soluble and which were insoluble. He also showed us a neat demonstration where oil would not dissolve in water on its own, but with the addition of dish soap, a solution would  be formed! In Math we gathered a list of events that students had included on their probability continuums yesterday. Then, for each event, students went to a corner of the room that represented the likelihood of that event occurring (impossible, possible but unlikely, possible and likely, or certain). Students justified their positions to one another, sometimes ultimately coming to an agreement, other times having to agree to disagree. We also began comparing the likelihood of two different events, discussing how two things that are both possible and likely would not necessarily be at the same spot on the continuum. (F...

Today we started with Circle time, and then moved into our new Math unit about probability. Students identified the likelihood of a particular event occurring using vocabulary such as "certain," "possible and likely," "possible but unlikely," and "impossible." Then, working in pairs, students created probability continuums (ranging from "impossible" to "certain"), and placed events of their choosing into the appropriate spots on the line, relative to the other events. As we did not have Phys. Ed. today, we had DPA (Daily Physical Activity) time in our classroom, being active to videos from GoNoodle and then playing Wax Museum. We had some DEAR time to silent read, and then we continued reading The Boundless  together. We finished chapter three and started writing and drawing on our storyboards to summarize the chapter. In Social Studies we moved North from the Cordillera Region to begin exploring the Arctic Region o...

Today we had our regular Circle sharing and compliments time. Then we had some computer time to support our Math and Language Arts learning. Students wrote the pattern unit test today in Math, which is one way that they will demonstrate their understanding of these concepts. In Social Studies, we had our final class time to work on travel brochures about the Cordillera region of Canada. (This will now be unfinished work and will be completed during QR/UFW blocks and/or for homework.) Ms. Sheri visited us once again from CPAWS to continue the Water Rangers program we began on Tuesday. We reviewed how humans can negatively impact wetlands and began considering how we can have a positive impact instead, including restoring  riparian areas , creating man-made wetlands, planting local trees, reducing/cleaning up waste, using water responsibly, supporting/joining organizations that work to preserve wetlands, and spreading awareness. Ms. Sheri encouraged us all to take the ...

Today in Math we continued reviewing concepts related to patterns in order to prepare for our unit test, which is tomorrow ! Students are encouraged to finish and check over their unit review tonight at home (questions and answers can be found below, at the end of this post). A reminder that tomorrow morning is your very last chance to check in with me about any concepts you still don't understand before the test, so please do so if needed! Please don't wait until during the test to ask for help; that will be too late!  Our day was full of physical activity today, as we had both flower sticks for our regular Phys. Ed. time, along with our final period of inline skating with Coach C. Students had so much fun during this inline skating residency, and it was amazing to see the way their skills improved over even three classes! A huge thank-you to Coach C. and Alien Inline for running this program with us! In Science we began by exploring the properties of water. This introduce...