June 10 to 14

Reminder that our health unit begins on Tuesday.  Please return your form ONLY IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE!  

LA

This week in LA we continued working on our Greek myths. We incorporated information on what life was like in Ancient Athens and our knowledge of what makes up a myth. Here are two examples of our own Greek myths:

Greek Myths, Why Volcanoes Were Created.

Hades was a fair god when Persephone was in the underground, but the six months she’s away, Hades is quite the opposite. While Persephone was away Hades had a very short fuse, and would get mad at anyone or thing that wanted to see him during that time and would lash out at them. His anger would so powerful that even Ares, the war god, wouldn’t dare to go near him for a while. One time while Hades was getting mad at a spirit for entering his castle, he got so angered that he started throwing him around and broke the top of the castle and his mountain, his anger went away after he saw molten rocks coming from the mountain. The mountain had a hole through the middle and hades quickly patched up the bottom part. The spirit of which was there that day was punished to be inside one of those for the rest of time, if a volcano explodes it is one of the people being punished trying to escape. Something to take away from this is, don’t be a person stuck inside a volcano.

Trident

Long ago, above the clouds lived poseidon. The god of the sea. He sent waves of water to keep the world living but he always thought about how much more he could do with his own trident. His brother zeus already had a staff and his other brother hades had a underworld. Poseidon was always jealous of his brother and other gods and goddesses. So one day poseidon went over to zeus gold and purple throne to ask him if he could touch the water of athens to form his own trident. Zeus agreed but zeus reminded him that they had to asked Athena for permission to have some water from athens.

Social Studies

While the grade 6’s have been writing PATs, the grade 5’s have been working on their own project. They are researching a National Park in Canada and creating a brochure! Some of the national parks students chose are: Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, and Pacific Rim National Park (my personal favourite). Students have to research the terrain, landforms, wildlife, among other topics. I am so excited to see the finished product!

We also continued working on our Civilization Project. Students were required to choose one of the forms of democracy we learned about this year, e.g. Canadian, Ancient Athens, Iroquois Confederacy. Students had to include gender roles, law/order, organization, laws, and policies on education. 

Science

In order to prepare for Monday’s science PAT, we continued learning about sky science. We reviewed the phases of the moon. We labelled a drawing and coloured in the phases. We also learned about how sundials work.

Get some rest this weekend everyone! It was a busy, busy week!

June 3 to 7

We can't believe it is already June! The next 3 weeks are going to fly by and we will be so sad for the year to end. Next week is going to be busy for the grade 6's! We have 4 PATs!! Please look at the following website for PAT sample questions! https://questaplus.alberta.ca

Math

This week in math we learned how to calculate the volume of rectangular prisms. Just a reminder that the volume of a rectangular prism is length x width x height!

Here is a link to a Math Live video/activity that can help us remember the formula: http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/Math5.html 

The grade 6s began learning about the relationships between ratio, decimal, percent and fractions this week. 

This is a great video to help review the concept of converting percent, decimal and fractions: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/pre-algebra/pre-algebra-ratios-rates/pre-algebra-percent-decimal-conversions/v/representing-a-number-as-a-decimal-percent-and-fraction

We also learned about slides, turns, and flips. We looked at tessellations on Friday. We created some amazing tessellation art!

http://www.nelson.com/mathfocus/grade6/student/default.html

This website is an excellent resource for quizzes on math concepts and websites with games and activities.

LA

We continued working our free writing on the computer. The writing will be due on Monday! Please share it with me as soon as you are finished! Don't forget to add pictures and review our rubrics. I can't wait to read them! I know how hard everyone has been working.

Social

As a review for Social Studies, the students are creating a new civilization! This new civilization could be under water, in space, underground, or wherever else we can think of! Students are required to include a form of government that we have learned about in their new civilization. They can choose from democracy, Ancient Athenian democracy, or the Iroquois Confederacy. We have to include the positives about our form of government, and the negatives as well. For example, in Ancient Athenian democracy, women could not vote or be a part of the Council of 500. We are so excited to read about the new civilizations!

Science

Room 14 and 22 had an excellent conversation about sky science on Friday! I was so impressed at the thoughtfulness and curiosity from all the students! We talked about stars, supernovas, and black holes. We also learned that the nearest black hole (which was very recently photographed for the first time in history) is 27 000 light years away! This being our last science unit to review, I was so happy with the level of student engagement. We also reviewed the moon phases. Ask your children to explain “waxing is the right thing to do!”.

https://www.natgeokids.com/au/discover/science/space/the-phases-of-the-moon/

May 27 to 31

We had a great week in Room 22! We had a great whole school field trip to Bowness Park with the students from Belvedere Parkway School! It was wonderful for the students of Ranchlands to meet some of the students at Belvedere Parkway School. Not to mention the beautiful weather. We are so impressed with how Room 22 behaved during the field trip.

We also had a fire drill this week. I am so proud of how Room 22 proved to be leaders of Ranchlands! They were silent and reminded younger students to not talk.

The lockdown on Wednesday went very well too! We are so proud of you, Room 22!

Math

This week in math, the grade 6s began learning about ratio and percent. For example, if there are 2 teachers in room 22 and 23 students, what is the ratio of teachers to students?

The grade 5s continued working on geometry. We looked at parallel and perpendicular sides of 2D and 3D shapes.

LA

This week in LA, we began writing our own Greek myths. We discussed the elements of a Greek myth, which include:

-       gods and goddesses are central characters

-       gods and goddesses have special powers

-       A natural phenomenon, occurrence, or event is explained by the myth

-       A lesson is taught or a cultural or moral value is explained through the myth

-       Gods and goddesses interact with mortals

Ask us to tell you what our myth is about
We also continued working on reading comprehension!

Science
This week in science, we looked at Trees and Forests. We learned about how everything in a forest is interconnected, i.e. how everything depends on everything else. We also discussed food chains and food webs. Ask us about primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers.

Social
This week in Social Studies, we began reviewing the Iroquois Confederacy. We learned that this form of democracy was very different from the Ancient Athens model. Ask us some of the important differences between the two.
Here is a link that shows a Mohawk village from about 1600.
http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/iroquoisvillage/

We have a busy week next week getting our Grade 6s ready for their PATs!