Math Nifty-ness!

We've been working on 2-dimensional geometry in class for the past few weeks.
While working with angles, Richard came up with a cool little "animation" with his hands to represent right angles. This goes hand-in-hand (no pun intended) with the Math Lab we did on angles, as well.



Furthermore, when we were looking at the relationships among the angles in triangles, Riley came up with what we thought was a neat theory on how to calculate the missing angle in a triangle. We tested his theory many times and have proven it to be true of any triangle! Very cool!

We can make math pretty fun in here!

Prejudice Is Something We Can Do Without :: a poem by Rita Joe

Scroll through our thoughts on this poem by the famous Mi'kmaq poet, Rita Joe.

Our Skype Call with Students from Saskatchewan!

This morning we Skyped with a Book Club at a school in Regina, Saskatchewan. The students were grade 4,5 & 6 students. Shayde thought is was "interesting." Lainee thought it was "cool, fun and cool hearing everybody's thoughts." Sidney thought it was "awesome!"

Thank you, Mrs. McMurtry for setting up the Skype 'date' with us! We hope we can do it again sometime!

Reading Buddies @ Rankin School of the Narrows

Reading Buddies @ Rankin School of the N - slide show

Grades Pr-6. Every week. Enjoy.

Our Great Canadian Mail Race!

Where did our letters go? Who's going to win the race? Stay tuned... The Race is on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
View Our Great Canadian Mail Race Destinations in a larger map

Chapters 3 and 4 :: Tuck Everlasting

We have just read chapters 3 and 4.

We are intrigued with this man in the yellow suit.

• Tyler -- "I think he is trying to scheme something..."
• Zoe -- "I thought he was going to kidnap that girl, Winnie!"
• Logan -- "I think the guy in yellow is going to help in some way..."
• Jessie Helen -- "When we saw the yellow guy... in the suit... he was asking lots of questions, so I thought he was going to do something..."
• Mikayla -- "I think he might be a spirit..."
• Jon -- "I think he might be looking for information."
• Richard -- "What if it's [the man in the yellow suit] Tuck?!?!?"
• Sarah -- "I thought maybe he lived there before them, and maybe his house had burned down or something.
• Shayde -- "I think he's evil!"
• Neve -- "I think he was just hungry!"
• Matthew-- "I think he might be an elf because when he was leaving he was humming the song/melody"

 And... about that song...

• Tyler -- "It reminded me about Mae Tuck's music box."
• Jessie Helen -- "I didn't really understand it. She said she remembered it. How would she remember it? How are they connected?"
• Mikayla -- "I think the man in the yellow suit is Tuck because he heard the music before..."
• Logan -- "I think the music box is Mae Tuck because she said she was going to walk through the woods."

Questions for other classes reading Tuck Everlasting:

1. Who do you think is the man in the yellow suit?
2. How do you like the book so far?
3. What is your favourite chapter so far?
4. Why do you think the mom is always so mean to Winnie?
5. How are you keeping track of what you're reading? 

Starting the Global Read Aloud 2011 :: Tuck Everlasting ::

Today we started the book Tuck Everlasting as part of the Global Read Aloud Project.
We've read the Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2.


Our thoughts?

• Mikayla -- "I've figured out why it's called 'Tuck Everlasting'! They've looked the same for 87 years!"
• Logan -- "I think the book is going to be pretty awesome... and Hi!"
• Lainee -- "I think the book is going to be very interesting!"
• Emily -- "It's a very interesting, good book!"
• Jon -- "Pretty Good book!"
• Neve -- "It's creepy"
• Jessie Helen -- "It's scary; the woods are scary!"
• Zoe -- "Tuck is weird."
• Shayde -- "It's awkward..."

These are our initial thoughts. Please stay tuned as we blog about the rest of the chapters!

(If you are participating in the Global Read Aloud, could you please leave us a comment? Thanks.)

First day, first post of a new year!

Welcome back to school!
What could we have done that was blog-worthy on the very first day of school?


Today we got into the routine of our silent reading time each day. As a follow-up to our silent reading (where you could hear a pin drop, and students were asking for more time to read!) our crazy teacher handed out baggies that contained play-doh, a pencil, a piece of lined paper and a piece of unlined paper. We were given a number and if we had the number 1, we had to write about what we read:

If we were given the number 2, we had to draw what we were reading about:

And finally, if we were given the number 3, then we had to create something that showed what we were reading about:

And, as their teacher, I just have to say... these kids are impressive! LOL! Right from the first day!

Hope you all enjoyed the day! Welcome Back!

Mira Provincial Park Field Trip

On June 9th, we went on a field trip to Mira Provincial Park. This day of activities and informtaion booths was set up by the Department of Natural Resources. Our tour guide, Tracey, works for Dept of Natural Resources in Halifax, and had never been to Cape Breton before!

Thankfully, we didn't require the services of CB Search & Rescue!

Ready. Aim. FIRE!

Here are some snapshots of our trip:

Our first station: Geocaching!

These firefighters were leaving on June 13th to fight the wildfires in Alberta. They told us about "Mountain Money"!

The race is on!

Nope. This wasn't lunch.



Learning about tents & tenting



It's all about place...

A quick lesson on reading directions, led to a lesson on knowing one's mailing address...which led to a lesson on filling out forms... which led to a lesson on creating one's own business... which led to a lesson on creating logos and business cards... which led to this picture being taken. The business cards were awesome! If you ever need to make cute, professional looking, personalized business cards, you can check out: www.degraeve.com/business-cards/

This photo was the one that Andy was using for his business "kickflip" -- a skateboard accessory company.

And this one is Riley's image for his company:

Rockin' the Lip Sync at School with a Message

Here we are performing "Loser Like Me" from Glee as part of the Spring Fling Lip Sync afternoon!
We picked this song because it's fun and it has a good message. The message is that it's not ok for people to call others 'losers', but in the end, those that do are essentially "losers" themselves.

No, we weren't robbed!

These two characters were among the many that came to our classroom this week. They weren't robbers... more like "Robbers Munsch".

We've been reading and re-reading and exploring Robert Munsch books as a way to improve our understanding of how authors use words and punctuation to engage the reader. Each student read a variety of his books and had to pick a favourite book to share with our grade 2 reading buddies, and also had to prepare a presentation on the book.

The presentations were so well done that I ended up laughing, groaning, and even had tears in my eyes as the students gave their all to present their favourite books. The two characters in the picture above are from Robert Munsch's book "Boo!". 

I'm so proud of you guys for doing such a fabulous job with your presentations. It is a teaching moment I will remember forever, and something I will surely do again in the future!

Thank you for making my job fun!

Blog Posts about the Books We Read in Guided Reading

The following 3 entries are about the books we read in groups for Guided Reading.
Maybe you will enjoy them...
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blog post  -- by Lily, Andy, Emerson, Breagha

In the last couple of days we have started guided reading. And it tells us about health facts.

By: Jeff Szpirgals

Illustration by: Alisa Bald

Title: *That’s gross*
Summary

This has some gross and some cool things in it like…

1) did you know that when you sneeze a thing called mucus comes out and it FULL of germs ( that’s why to must cover your mother)

2) Also…When you chew your food your mouth full up with saliva.

3) And another thing is.. When you get hurt or get a scrap there are little thing in your cut called cells. That with only a microscope.

4) One last thing is. There are thousands and thousands of mites on your pillow when you go to sleep. When you are asleep they eat all of the thing that are in your hair

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Camden, Rochelle, Shazia, Zach M, Dayna

Getting It All Done


By: F. Romall Smalls

This report was about young children that have a very busy schedule. It talks about how kids need to learn to manage their time. According to studies children have less free time than kids did 20 years ago. It talks about managing your time by using a book to write things down in, this is helpful. Some kids cut activities that are less important. Prioritizing is very important in managing a busy schedule. It also talks about getting the proper sleep each night.

Things to help you stay on track:

• Take notes

• To-do-list

• Most difficult first

• Study in a quiet place

• Make a check list

• Prepare for things early.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Logan, Mikayla, Ailig, Jon, Tyler, Zach C
Keeping fit
By: Peter Winkler

This book is about ways to keep fit and live a healthy life style here is some things that we thought were interesting in the book!

Facts:

• The USDA food guide is the best food guide in the world because it shows you what you should consume in a day.

• Every kid should have at least 20 to 30 of physical activity a day.

• Stretching exercises help build flexibility. If you have flexibility you can bend, twist and turn your body easily.

• Muscular endurance is the ability for your muscles to work over a long period of time.

• Your body must intake water every day.

 • Your body must contain 13 vitamins and 22 minerals a day to stay healthy.

Our Entry in the Teach with Techonology Contest

How do we use technology in our classroom? Well, let’s write a blog post about that…




That’s right. Blogging on our class blog is one of the ways we use technology in our grade 5/6 classroom at Rankin School of the Narrows. Our blog “Class Act : Rankin Files”  tells all about our forays into the world wide web and beyond.


Since September, we have worked to open our minds and classroom walls to areas outside of our rural community. Through our twitter account http://www.twitter.com/ruralteacher we read a book in a “Global Read Aloud” project, with other classes all around the world. We shared our ideas and predictions about the book through tweets and blog posts. Through this one project, we have made connections with other classes and have engaged in ‘conversations’ through blog posts with these students.


Weather is a big topic in our class. We love our storm days, but they also provide us with a chance to explore technologies used to inform meteorologists and weather reporters. Using tweets from twitter, highway web cameras, and radar imagery, we tracked a recent snow storm. Our tweets were so exciting for others to read, that CBC NewsWorld caught our tweets and mentioned us on air! We literally put our community on the map!


Because we are a rural school, we use technology to help put faces, words, thoughts and feelings of others into our thoughts. We use technology every day. Be it using the internet, writing blog posts, using the classroom computer for research, checking out something neat on Youtube, we find as many ways as possible to log in and connect!

Family Literacy Day -- January 27th

January 27th is literacy day in Canada.
We will be celebrating this special day all morning in our classroom.

The theme for Literacy Day 2011 is: Play for Literacy

What are some things we will be doing?
-- having an Alphabet Loop scavenger hunt around the classroom
-- discovering the fun in word games such as crosswords and word searches
-- playing a board game, or two, or three
-- reading to find out how to do origami and really creating stuff
-- picking one thing to share with our families Thursday evening to engage them in literacy, too!

We'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post them on here!
Please check this link for more info on Family Literacy Day!

Weather / Storm Predictions

We researched weather/storm predictors that happen  or are talked about in our families.
Here are some of the sayings/ predictors that we think can be tested to be proven right or wrong:

• Red skies at night, sailors delight. Red skies at morning, sailors heed/take warning.
• To test this theory: keep track of the sunset colors and the colour of the sky in the morning.
• Calm before the storm.
• To test this theory: When there is a forecast of a storm, watch the sky/environment to see if it's calm. Then see if there's going to be a storm.
• If the wasps' nests are high in trees, there is going to be a lot of snow.
• To test this theory: In the summer, watch to see if their nests are hig in the trees or not. Then you'd have to wait to see how much snow came that winter.
• When a storm is going to come, you can hear the sea or the lake.
• To test this theory: Listen outside on a winter's day.
• When the cows lie in the pasture, rain is coming
• To tests this theory: Pick more than 1 farm/pasture to watch. (because cows lying in a field could just be a coincidence) If the cows are lying down, see if it's going to rain.
• Birthmarks/Scars get really red or change color when a storm is coming.
• To test this theory: First, find someone with a birthmark/scar. Then, make sure you're watching the birthmark/scar to note any changes in colour. Do the colour changes align with the weather changes?
• The TV goes fuzzy when a storm is coming.
• To test this theory: Note when your TV is turning fuzzy when you're watching it.
• Hamsters will start to shake when a storm is coming.
• To test this theory: Watch your hamster; make notes.
• Seagulls on the land is a sign of a storm.
• To test this theory:  Make note of land near water. Are the seagulls on the ground?
• If the frost on the trees is sparkling, it is going to rain.
• To test this theory: Note when there is frost. See if it sparkles. Wait.
• Little snow (flakes), Big snow (lots of it).
• To test this theory:  Look at the snowflakes. Make note of their size. Then note how much snow actually fell and for how long. Alternative: If you see small snowflakes. In 2 hours go check how much snow has fallen. On another day, if you see big snow flakes, check in 2 hours again to see how much snow has fallen. Then compare which has more.

Made on  http://www.wordle.net/

Gr 5/6 Storm Watchers make the news!

Hey, guys!
Hope you're enjoying the snow day!
I received  tweet this morning from CBC NewsWorld saying they were going to mention us on their Weather report this morning, for our storm tracking yesterday! I recorded it for you, in case you didn't see it!
Here it is:


Here is a http://www.twitvid.com/SC309 sent us in a tweet as well.
We put Iona on the map!
Enjoy!

Thanks, CBC!

Tracking the storm...

We spent time thsi afternoon tracking the pending snow storm for Atlantic Canada.
We collected information (data) using:

•  tweets from Twitter
• radar imagery from Environment Canada
•  highway webcams from Nova Scotia

Here are some of the cool tweets we received today:

It's fun learning about weather live and online like this!
We also research homework to do about weather sayings, folklore and indicators of stormy weather.


(And we may be wearing our pjs inside out and putting spoons under our pillows, too... maybe ...)