Math Test Friday, October 30th

We will be having a math test on Friday morning which will cover everything we have learned in our whole numbers unit. The Blendspace unit below includes everything students need to know to do well on this test. Please encourage your child to practice in Blendspace to assist them in reviewing for the test. We will be reviewing the concepts this week in class as well. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at the school.

Blog Writing Challenge today!

This week for homework we are going to write a blog post describing this scary moment! Remember to use the "Explode the Moment" technique we learned in class!

Science test Monday,November 2nd

On Monday, November 2nd, we will be having our first science test for Biodiversity. Throughout this unit, students have done a number of inquiries to learn about what makes a living thing, the importance of Biodiveristy and how to classify plants and animals. We will be reading over some study notes tomorrow and playing some Kahoot games to practice our learning and review. Here is the link to the study notes that you can review with your child to study for the test this week. The links to the Kahoot games we played are at the bottom. Try playing these games with your child to review the concepts as well!

Biodiversity Study notes

United Way Fundraising Next Week!

Next week there will be a few special days to raise money for United Way. Bring a donation to particiapte in each day:

Monday - Pyjama Day
Tuesday - Hat day
Wednesday - Senators day
Thursday - School Colours day (Blue & White)
Friday - Orange and Black day

Friday is also the day of the News Show. Parents are invited to the Gym at 1PM to watch children perform!

Sadako, Report Writing & Long Division

Today we finished reading Sadako & the Thousand Paper Cranes. It is quite a sad story. Tomorrow we will spend a little time learning about how to make paper cranes, and we will reflect a little on the story.

We also compared our reports that we wrote yesterday to some exemplars and then judged our own work. We also looked at the success criteria developed in class, and then gave ourselves a mark, as part of our self-evaluation of our work. I will be marking these as well, and giving some feedback to students about what they did well and some areas of improvement.

We will be writing more reports over the next little while to continue practicing this important text form.

In math, we learned about long division with 2 digit divisors today. Attached is a Show Me I created to help review how to do the steps of long division. This is a concept that many students struggle with, so reviewing this may be of benefit for your child.

Long Division

A Note About Picture Day Tomorrow

For picture day tomorrow, the photographer has asked that students do not wear anything green, so as to not blend in with the greenscreen background. Thank you!

Grade 6 Picture day is Friday, October 23rd

Just a reminder that the picture day for the grade 6's will be Friday this week. This is just regular pictures. Later in the year, there will also be graduation pictures with a cap and gown. I will advise about graduation photos when I know more.

Have a wonderful day!

School Cash Online

Mrs. Campbell has informed us that 63% of our student population has been registered for School Cash online, which is a convenient way to pay for school activity fees, field trips, etc. For the grade 6's, we will be going on a field trip on Wenesday, October 28th to the Canadian Museum of Nature. If you have not been able to pay your child's activity fee yet, please use this convenient service to do so if possible. In grade 6, we need to collect activity fees in order to be able to pay for the cost of the trip. Here is a breakdown of how we have used the activity fee for grade 6 this year:

Agenda: $10
French: $5
Field trip; $14.60 - (8.50 per child + tax, plus $5 for the cost of the bus)

Remembrance Day Request

In preparation for Remembrance Day, we are asking all families to consider sending in a photo of a family member (Uncle/Aunt, Parent, Grandparent, Cousin: past or present) who has served in the military. We ask that with the photo you include the name of the student affiliated with the photo as well as the name and rank or position (i.e: nurse or Corporal) of the family member in the photo.

We will be sharing these photos via a slideshow during our Remembrance Day ceremonies.

We are asking for digital photos only. Deadline for entry is Wednesday, November 4th.

Photos can be emailed to sam.robinson@ocsb.ca

Thanks!

Multiplication, Report writing & Spooky houses

Today in math we practiced what we learned yesterday about multiplication. Yesterday we solved some problems involving multiplication of larger numbers, specifically 3 digit by 2 digit numbers. We learned three ways to multiply:

1) Break apart method; 198 x 23

• 8 x 3 = 24
• 90 x 3 = 270
• 100 x 3 = 300
• 8 x 20 = 160
• 90 x 20 = 1800
• 100 x 20 = 2000
• added together 2000 + 1800 + 160 + 300 + 270 + 24 = 4554

2) Lattice multiplication: Click here for video explaining

3) Standard method: Here

I encouraged students to use whichever method works for them, but to be aware that there is more than one way to multiply. When they do EQAO, the focus is not so much on being able to multiply, but rather being able to solve problems involving multiplication, including multi-step problems that combine concepts from a variety of strands (eg. number sense and measurement). This is something we will be practicing a lot this year. 

In language, we are working on writing reports using an essay format by following an outline. Today, we finished writing a report about Great White sharks in groups using an outline at the front of the class. Then we did a "gallery walk" and looked at the work others groups did using the same outline. Students were encouraged to make comments to help each group improve their work. Tomorrow, we will be writing report individually from a common outline that I will provide. Then they will use the success criteria developed in class to improve their work, along with the bump it up wall. 

In art today, we started working on "Spooky Houses" for Halloween. Students first have to make a house and colour it black, with yellow windows. Next we will paint the backgrounds using watercolours for the sky. Here is an example of what I am hoping they will turn out like:

Tomorrow is Blue Jay Day

To support the Blue Jays, we are asking students to wear blue tomorrow. Wear blue to support our Canadian team!

Changes to Blog Platform

As you may have noticed last week, Kidblog has gone to a membership fee model instead of being free for teachers. Sadly, this means that I will have to change the platform for students to blog in. Kidblog was ideal because it kept the blogs visible only to the students in our class, and anyone else specifically invited. I will be looking at a few options for blogging with the class as we go forward. For this week, please have your child write their blog post on paper. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Prime & Composite Numbers

Today we learned about prime and composite numbers. Before learning about this concept, we needed to review what factors and products are. Here is a link to a presentation that can help students to better understand these concepts. This may be helpful to review later for a quiz. Please feel free to download, save, copy and distribute these presentations any time. They are being made to be used. The more people they can help, the better!

Prime and Composite Numbers

Mental Math & Outlining

 Today in math we studied some mental math strategies to assist us in performing operations quickly in our heads. Click the link below to see the strategies that we learned.

Mental Math Strategies

In language, we are learning how to write a detailed report using multiple paragraphs. Today, we learned how to use the facts we read about Cheetahs earlier in this unit to organize our thoughts into an outline. Tomorrow we will use some facts about an animal to make our own outlines to practice this important skill. Here is a link to the success criteria, rubric and planning sheets we will use to be successful for our reports:

Information report success criteria

Order of Operations

Another math concept we learned about this week was the order of operations, which we can use to come to a consensus about a "correct" answer when doing multiple operations. Perhaps you remember BEDMAS from school? This is what we learned this week! 

We were lucky to have Ms. Akra teach this lesson. First, we looked at a number sentence (9 + 3 x 6 - 4) and tried to come up with as many different answers as possible. We saw that there are lots of different answers we could potentially come up with using this number sentence. However, Ms. Akra told the class that the correct answer is actually 23. Was anyone able to find a way to perform the operation that would give us that answer? Of course! Then she introduced BEDMAS:

Brackets

Exponents (which we do not study in grade 6)

Division

Multiplication   ---> division and multiplication are done in the order they appear in the problem

Addition

Subtraction    ---> addition and subtraction are done in the order they appear in the problem.

Here are some videos that may help to explain this concept in more detail. We watched this first one in class:

TVO Kids Order of Operations

Comparing and Ordering Numbers

This week we learned about how to compare and order larger numbers. Before students can really be successful at this skill, they need to have a fairly solid understanding of place value. That is why we teach place value first, before this concept.

The biggest idea that students have to remember about comparing and ordering numbers, and about place value in general, is that as we go further left in a number, the value becomes larger. For example, I would rather have 1 thousand dollars than 9 tens (or 90) dollars. Even though the digit is larger, the value of the 1 is more because it is in the thousands column (it is worth one thousand).

When comparing and ordering numbers, I encourage students to "stack" the numbers on top of each other, paying close attention to keeping the columns lined up. This helps them to clearly see which digit in each column is larger. See the attached presentation for an example. In class, we did an activity in which students worked in pairs to order the areas of a number of countries from greatest to least. We used place value charts to assist us with the activity. If your child needs to use a place value chart (or the "houses" idea like we did in this post) then that is fine. Students are encouraged to use whatever tools they can to help them understand concepts.

Comparing and Ordering Numbers Grade 6

Multiples, Sadako & Report Writing

Today in our morning class we learned about common multiples. First we practiced identifying multiples and played a game called Buzz, and then we attempted to solve our challenge problem:

A radio show is having a phone in contest. Every 3rd caller gets a t-shirt. Every 7th caller gets a baseball cap. In 50 callers, how many people would get both a t-shirt and a baseball cap?

We solved this problem in partners and wrote our results on chart paper. Many students were able to find solutions to the problem by using a variety of strategies: number lines, use of multiples, listing numbers and circling multiples, and using division. We saw that while all the strategies worked, some were more accurate or more efficient than others.

We then discussed the concept of common multiples, and looked at a way to find common multiples easily. We will practice this a little more tomorrow for Bell Work.

Here is a link to our Blendspace unit that we will be using regularly to help reinforce concepts around whole numbers and place value. Boxes 10, 11 & 12 are all related to common multiples.

Multiples Blendspace

In language, we have begun reading a short novel called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. It is a story about a Japanese girl in Hiroshima about ten years after WWII, who contracts leukemia as a result of the atomic bomb. She believes that if she can make one thousand paper cranes, she will get well. I have been fortunate enough to visit Hiroshima and have been able to tell the students a little bit about what I saw when I was there, and some background information about Japanese culture. The students all seem to be really enjoying this story so far.

We are also writing reports as part of finishing up our unit on Analyzing. We will be learning about writing information reports that use an introduction paragraph, three main ideas and a conclusion paragraph. Today we read and looked at the structure of a report about Space telescopes. We will be writing a report together as a class, building a Bump it Up wall and then writing reports of our own.