Math & Those 'Weird Looking Box Things'

In math we're finishing up our multiplication unit, and decided to use some technology with it!

In groups we created word problems that required multiplication in order to solve. On scrap paper we solved our own questions, and then took our answers to Mrs. Waters. She showed us how to create a QR code on a special website that would show our answer when you scanned it, and she printed it off for us. Next, we turned our word problem into a poster, decorated them, and glued our QR code onto our poster. 

Once our posters were finished, Mrs. Waters hung them up around the classroom, and put an iPad beside each one. We had to read the problem, solve it, and then use the QR code reader app to check if we got the correct answer. It was lots of fun!

We're So Happy!

We had so much fun making this video!

It makes us REALLY HAPPY!!

A Lesson in Multiplication!

Hello Parents! It's Mrs. Waters here with a lesson for you! We've been working a lot on multiplication in our class over the past few weeks, and I thought it might be helpful for you to actually see how we use various strategies in Room 23.  Check out the videos! If you have any questions, feel free to fire me an email! We thought using the Tellagami and Show Me apps would be helpful to teach you! Enjoy!

Mrs. Waters' Tellagami

Distributive Property

Box Method

Standard Algorithm

Giving Back

Our school is a part of the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy, which gives students a chance to learn how to play hockey when they normally might not have that opportunity.  The WJHA provides all of the equipment, ice time, coaches, and even nutrition and academic support. Some of our classmates are very fortunate; over half of Room 23 are student athletes!  We know just how lucky we are, and we appreciate EVERYTHING that the WJHA does for us!

We know that one way to give thanks is to give back to our community ourselves. We are big fans of a local lady, Althea Guiboche, and the work that she does in Winnipeg! You might know her as 'The Bannock Lady'. Every week, no matter what the weather is, Althea makes a ton of bannock, gathers things like bottled water, fresh fruit, and granola bars, and goes and feeds our city's homeless. She feeds over a hundred people every week! We think that's pretty amazing!  Doing this every week is expensive though. She gets help with some donations, but the need never ends.

Together with our friends in Mr. B's Grade 4 and 5 class, we are going to try to help her out! This week, on Thursday February 27th, our WJHA student athletes will be competing in the First Annual Heritage School Winter Classic!  It is being held at 1:30pm at the Heritage - Victoria Community Club (our local outdoor rink on Sturgeon Road).  Our entire school will be leaving classes to come support us, but in order to get their ticket to our game, they will be either bringing a toonie, or some food that Althea can use (bannock supplies like flour and baking powder, or bottled water or granola bars).  Althea will be there in attendance to drop the honourary puck for us! 

Anyone who wants to come cheer us on is more than welcome! Also, if you'd like to help us out and make a donation, some of us will be in charge of collecting food and money.

Thanks for your support! Keep your fingers crossed for warm weather!!  :)

Kid President!

Our class LOVES Kid President!  If you haven't seen his work on YouTube, please do yourself a favour and go watch some of his videos! He's a very funny kid, and always has a positive message for kids to hear. His videos make us feel good!

Recently he posted a video about what kids need to know about the world; it's like a how-to video on how to be a good human being.  Watch it here:

He issued a challenge to kids to add to his list, and so we decided to do it!

We made our own list and made a quick video!  Check out what we created!

We hope you like it! We'll be tweeting our video to Kid President! We'll let you know if we get a response!  :)  Keep your fingers crossed!

January Update!

We've been busy!

When we returned from Winter Holidays, we discovered that Santa (the school division), had delivered our iPads! Finally!

We've used them a TON already! We use them to blog and create reading materials for our class.

We also use them to practice our math skills, to research in science and social studies, and we have even used them in phys.ed class to film and analyze our basketball skills!

Group work with the iPads!

Mrs. Waters had to format all of the iPads before we got to use them

Using the iPads in phys.ed class!

We also use them with the 'poll everywhere' website. Mrs. Waters puts a question on the screen and we all answer through our iPads!

In math class we have started subtraction.  It can be tough, but it's fun. We've played some games to work on our skills. We have learned that it is the opposite of addition, so knowing our addition helps us solve problems.

Playing subtraction games!

Baby Henry returned for another visit.  We learned that he got spoiled during his first Christmas!

He was crawling everywhere; he even crawled into one of our lap's!

We weighed him and measured how long he is, and compared it to his weight and height at birth.  He is now 18 lbs. and 27 inches!  He eats all kinds of food now too!

Mrs. Lockhart talking about Baby Henry

We have all brought home forms to fundraise for the Heart and Stroke Foundation.  On January 28th, Heritage School will be hosting a Dance-a-Thon all afternoon!  There are many prizes available to win for people who bring in pledge money, such as a Samsung tablet.  Please try your best to bring in some money to support this very worthy. It's the #1 killer in Canada! Every little bit counts!

We have started Open Mic Fridays.
Open Mic Friday is a presentation that we make in front of our classmates.  We can choose our own topic, and we can bring in materials that will help us present.  It has to be anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes in length. We try to make sure we have good eye contact, speak loudly, and put expression into our voices.  Make sure you practice (in front of your family)!  As an audience member we need to make sure we listen respectfully and pay attention.  The audience also gives feedback to the presenter on what we liked and what we can improve on for next time.

It has been a great beginning to 2014!
Stay tuned for more frequent posts!  :)

More Joy!

One of our goals as a class this school year is to find joy everyday! It can be tough, especially when we are on week 3 of indoor recess... BUT we sure did have some fun this afternoon!

We got together with Mr. B's class and we held a 'Holiday Minute to Win It'! We were put into 4 teams and we had different challenges we had to do. We all had a blast!

Here are some photos of our afternoon!

Reindeer Games - we put vaseline on our noses and had to transfer red pompoms from one plate to another, using only our noses and NO HANDS!

The Cookie Crumble - Mrs. Waters placed a cookie on our foreheads, and we had to move it down our face, into our mouths, without using our hands! We could only use our face muscles.

Almost there!

The Snowman Stack - we had to see how many marshmallow snowmen we could make in one minute, by stacking 3 marshmallows on top of each other.

Extreme concentration!

Snowball Shake - we had a kleenex box full of ten 'snowballs' tied around our waist, and we had to shake all of them out of the box in one minute!

We had some great moves!

Holiday Wreath - we had to toss marshmallows through the wreath, into the Frosty the Snowman container behind. That was tricky!