Beyond The Desk – Page 115 – The Class Blog for Mr. Hancock's Grade 5/6 Class

Why Did Coyote Howl at the Moon?

March 2, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Interesting title to today’s blog post, I know. However, it deals with what we were learning about in Science today. We were talking about how the constellations were created by humans to help them become familiar with the night sky. Just like we look at clouds and imagine shapes, figures and animals from them, humans, over the ages, have shaped stars into patterns to help locate, guide and make the unfamiliar into the familiar. Though most of these stories and shapes of constellation came from the Greeks and Romans, the First Nations also had their own legends. Today, the students heard the story of how stars were put into the sky and how coyote was not able to finish his constellation because of his selfish behaviour. It was a very neat story and it was nice for students to hear a different perspective from our native canadian heritage.

On Weds, students are participating in the World Maths Day. If you haven’t had a chance to take a look, got to the World Maths Day site and have some fun.

Students!!!! Keep practicing hard!!! You are doing a great job!!!

Here is the spelling list for this week:

Spelling N 4

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Want to practice your spelling words????? Want to earn a free point on your spelling???? Want to have fun??? Click on the Spelling City picture below and play some games while practicing!!! Bring in your report with 100% on it to get a bonus mark!!!!

Our memory verse for this week is:

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

A Neat Video

February 28, 2009 eoin24 Comments 2 comments

Saw a neat video this morning from Ted Talks! If you don’t know about TED yet, it is a great site where thinkers and various industry people get together to share ideas and new concepts on everything from technology to science to language and everything else under the sun. This is the site where I learned about the new Microsoft World Wide Telescope program before it was out.

Most of the videos are for adults in terms of understanding the presentations but there was a really neat video on a thing called “Siftables”. Take a look.

Can’t wait to get my hands on some of those!!!!

I have seen that a number of students have already tried out the World Maths Day site. At least 15 have been on already since yesterday!!! Great job and keep practicing!!!

World Maths Day Is Coming

February 27, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Today, I had an exciting announcement for the students. Our class will be competing in the upcoming World Maths Day on Weds, March 4th.

This online competition unites students, classes and schools from around the world in displaying their knowledge of their basic facts in Math. It looks to be a very exciting time. Today, I gave students their username and password so that they could go on to practice. The website (World Maths Day) is already open for students to go in and practice. At the end of the day today, I took the students through the site so they would be somewhat familiar with the site. However, they may still need a little help. Their username and password are on a sticker in their planner under today’s date. We are also looking for other classes to come and compete with us.

It should be fun!!!!

Its Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas . . .

February 26, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Wow! It’s Thursday already. I haven’t written for awhile. It was a bit of a tough getting over the fact that there was no snow day but we soldiered on.

I didn’t get a chance to write about our field trip on Monday. The students behaved very well. I was very proud of them. We had a great time at Granville Island albeit a little short. The orchestra was a lot of fun and we got to hear a nice mix of composers and musical styles one of my favorite being the Aaron Copland piece, “Fanfare for the Common Man”. Copland writes such quintessential and beautiful music that brings pictures to life.

I created an animoto of our day which you can view below.

In Science today, we saw a neat site as an introduction to constellations. It was a nice guide to how to find Orion’s belt and the north star with the Big Dipper as a guide. It also started talking about Cassiopeia but we are going to wait a bit until we learn about some of the other constellations. The site is called “The Night Sky”. The students found it fun finding the constellations in the sky. Give it a try. We also made star finders but did not get a chance to learn how they worked. Once that is done, I will put the website on the blog so they can download and make their own! Once we have learned about a few constellations, we will be having a constellation party but I am not giving any details about that away yet!!! Ah yes, more SUSPENSE!!!!!! Bu-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

For our problem of the week, we had a bit of a toughy. The question was “A number multiplied by 3 gives 21. The same number added to 21 gives . . .” A.B worked it out though with her usual aplomb and confidence. Here is how she worked it out.

As you may have noticed, there was no spelling list this week and there was no memory verse. Those will be starting again next week. However, we will be having our Mad Minutes. If you would like to practice you can download some pages from the Box.net widget or here (adding) and here (sub).

Starlight, Star – Oops, No Star Tonight!!

February 19, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

One of the students asked a good question today about how our Sun could ever destroy the Earth as it is so far away. Luckily, I had just found a news article about a star that is just now in the process of dying. Well, it’s not actually dying right at this instant, as it takes so long for light to reach us from that distance. We are just now seeing the light from that star.

The dying star is actually fairly close to the constellation Orion, which we have been learning about, though the star is further out than the stars that make up the Orion constellation. The star, name Te Leporis, is about 500 light years away. As it dies, it is actually getting bigger. Down below you can actually see what this means. You can see the comparison of the size of the dying star compared to the distance of the Earth from the Sun. The splotch of light underneath is an actual photo of the dying star with the comparison to our Earth and Sun above it.

Amazing!!!

A reminder that Monday is the field trip to Vancouver for the symphony and Granville Market. We will be leaving here at 8:15!!! Students need to wear Full Dress uniforms.

Starlight, Starbright, First Star I see Tonight . . .

February 18, 2009 eoin24 Comments 4 comments

Tomorrow is the last day of school for this week. Today was a busy day. Students are continuing to write amazing paragraphs with ly words, becauses and who/which to add interest to their writing. In social, today students worked on “grid maps” to reinforce that concept. We have also finished up multiplying by 10’s and 100’s. We have completed the times tables now and will be having a times tables test later on next week. Students can be practicing their times tables up to the ten times tables. We will soon be multiplying multiple digits which can always be a little confusing to students as it not only takes a knowledge of the times tables but also a little organization to make sure the numbers all line up properly.

As you can see, I have added a massive graphic to the side which gives an interesting, yet, humourous look at our atmosphere and the space beyond. A little tongue in cheek, but lots of fun.

In math today, we also did a problem of the day. Later on in April, students will be participating in an International Math Contest hosted by a group called Mathmatica. To prepare, we take one problem from past tests and work on them as a class. One student gets to display their solution using artpad.com. Today’s problem was a tricky one. You can see it in the solution presented by one of the students in our class, D.B.

Science Tomorrow!

February 16, 2009 eoin24 Comments 2 comments

Looking forward to science tomorrow. We will be continuing our talk about the atmosphere and what it is made of as well as how scientists look for evidence to learn and explain things.

Here is a video to help prepare you for learning more about Space!!! The video is not actual real video but a computer simulation. However, it is still really cool!

As this is a short week, we will not be doing a spelling list or a memory verse. As well, I thought the memory verse would be a little much with the Speech Meet trials tomorrow. Those students who are hoping to participate, will be doing there verses in front of the class tomorrow. From those students I will be picking two students to recite their poems and two students to recite the memory verses.

I also have a box set of Geronimo Stilton books which came with the book orders today but which I don’t remember ordering. If your child came home with new books and one of them was not the box set which you are sure you ordered, please let me know. Otherwise I will add it to the collection.

A Mathterpiece!!!

February 11, 2009 eoin24 Comments 2 comments

In math today, we looked at an interesting problem. The problem was unlike any we have seen before. However, that did not stop the students of Grade 3!!! Oh no, they rose to the occasion. One of our Ben’s came up with the correct solution and used a neat site called Artpad to draw it out and decorate for us to show you!!

Here is the final piece:

So, once he finished his final piece, we hung it in our art gallery! Here it is surounded by other Mathterpieces!

You can click either one of them to make them bigger!

Some other announcements:

We are starting to get ready for the Speech Meet which is happening March 6th in Abbotsford. As you can imagine, lots of students volunteered to participate. However, only four students can do a poem and only another four can do a memory verse. As I have to have the names to Ms. Evans by the 16th, we will have to do a little in-house trial to see who can go. Therefore, if your child has volunteered to try out for the Speech Meet, they will be coming home with a memory verse or a poem to memorize. We will do the trial here in class on Tuesday.

Valentine’s Day: We will be allowing students to wear play clothes with white, pink or red colours on them (not including the pants) on this Friday. We will have activities Friday afternoon on a Valentine’s theme for some fun.

Music of the Week

February 10, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

Our music of the week is the incomparable artist, Bobby McFerrin. He is an incredible artist and does almost all his music without instruments. Here are some videos with him, including my favorite, “Blackbird”.

A Strange Sight On Mars

February 9, 2009 eoin24 Comments 0 Comment

So, I was looking through the new Google Earth the other day, especially at the new Mars section they have there when I noticed something really interesting. I think that Google Earth is the coolest program ever (though WWTelescope is right up there as well) and I was so happy when they added the Google Mars and Moon sections to it. So I was spending quite a bit of time looking around at all the pictures that they already have of Mars, when I found this strange site. You can see it below. Click on the picture to make it bigger. Do you see anything strange?

Now I always thought that my family was a little alien but I didn’t realize that they had actually moved to another planet!!

Anyways . . ..

Today, was a good day. Mondays are always exciting because it is the start of a new week and the students are always refreshed and ready to delve into new ideas and topics. For science today, we used Stellarium and WWtelescope to look at the constellations in our sky today as well as learn some new things about Space. One thing that we learned was that a supernova is a star that has gotten too old and died, exploding into many different pieces.

One supernova exploded in 1987 and we didn’t see it until the year 2004! That was amazing. Here is a picture of a supernova:

Here is a video showing an animation of a supernova happening. This is a really cool video though it is just an animation. However, it does give some idea as to what happens.

Here are the spelling words for this week:

Spelling N 3

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You can get to the Spelling City List using the link below. Just click on the picture.

The memory verse for this week is:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Have a great day!!!

Students!!!! Keep practicing hard!!! You are doing a great job!!!

A reminder that Monday is the field trip to Vancouver for the symphony and Granville Market. We will be leaving here at 8:15!!! Students need to wear Full Dress uniforms.

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