A New Math Game

We learned a new math game called T-Ball Addition.  We're not really sure why it is called that!  It was a game that helped us practice our place value skills.  To play you take playing cards from Ace to 4 (the ace is worth one).  Each player takes 4 cards and makes 2 two digit numbers.  The object of the game is to  make the biggest sum possible.  If you make the biggest sum you get one point.  The first one to get 6 tally points wins!  Some kids challenged themselves and made 3 digit numbers.Graham and Leif had the idea to add all their answers up and see who had the biggest sum overall.  They used a calculator to help them.

 

Have you ever played a math game with cards?

Art through Literature

Today in art we read a book called "The Dot," by Peter H. Reynolds .  It is a powerful story about a teacher who, through encouragement and support, helps a student feel that their art is appreciated and valued.  Next we learned about a famous Russian painter named Kandinsky.  He loved to work with colour and experiment with how colour can evoke different feelings.  Finally, we picked up our iPads and began to use Draw and Tell to create our own versions of a Kandinsky painting.  Please visit our individual blogs to see our art work!

Sports Day At Chantrell Creek!

Last Friday was Sport's Day at Chantrell Creek.  Each year our fantastic Grade 7s plan a fun filled day of activities based on a theme.  This year's theme was "Ancient Civilizations."  The day started with a bike parade.  Anyone who wanted to decorate their bike and bring it to school could.  The rest of the school formed a square around the field and cheered them on. 

Our bike brigade!

Our school mascot, Talon, even came for part of the day!

 Once the parade was over we met in our colour groups and shouted out our cheers!  Evveryone in the school is  on a colour team. There are four colour groups~ black, gold, white and purple.  Once the cheers were done we broke into our stations to try out all the fantastic activities the Grade 7s had planned for us!

We also had a special lunch provided by our Parent Advisory Committee and many of us had a picnic outside!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make our sports day so much fun.

 I wonder what next year's theme will be?   Do you celebrate Sports Day and if you do what kinds of things do you do?

Our Great School

Check out our individual blogs to see what we think is great about Chantrell Creek!

Animal Research Books ~A Long but Rewarding Learning Process!

Over the past few weeks we have been working on animal research.  We started with a class project learning about Giraffes.  We examined the layout of non-fiction books and discovered that many animal books had the same characteristics.  The information was organized under certain headings: appearance, habitat, diet, life cycle, etc. and that many (but not all) of the books also had a table of contents, a glossary and an index.  Using this information we developed criteria for what our non-fiction books should have.  Here is a chart of the criteria we developed for our books.

 Next, Mrs. Betts introduced us to a graphic organizer that we could use to record information.  She showed us how to take notes and record them under the proper headings using the information we had learned about the giraffe.

Here is a sample of our notes using the graphic organizer Shower of Stars from Developing Readers (an SD 36 resource)

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Then we were given the choice as to what Canadian animal we wanted to learn more about.  We were encouraged to visit the public library as well as the school library to find books on our animal of choice.  We also used our iPads to find videos, photos and information about our animal.  Once we  had 3-4 facts under each heading we met again as a class to learn how to put our notes into sentences.  We used our notes on the giraffe that we had taken as a class.  After a mini lesson about writing interesting sentences we met in small groups and were given one category to write a paragraph about.  Here are some of our paragraphs that we wrote.  The pictures were drawn by some of us using Draw and Tell.

Illustration by Jessica

Illustration by Melody

Once we had a clear idea of what our book should contain we began to create how we wanted our book to look.  We used the app Book Creator as well as the Draw and Tell and Skitch app.  We were given free choice as to how we wanted our book to look and how we wanted to represent our knowledge.  To illustrate our books, some of us chose to draw a picture, label it and then take a picture and import it to our book, some of us chose to draw a picture in Draw and Tell and import it to our book and some chose to take a screen shot of a picture that was in a book.  We learned that if we use a picture that someone else has taken we need to give credit to them.    Here are some screen shots of some of our pages.

As we finish our books we are hoping to put them into our blogs for all to see! Keep checking our blogs.

A Message for Moms

To all the moms of all the children I have the privilege of teaching

                     Happy Mother's Day!

Enjoy your day ~ you deserve it.

Big 4

Three mornings a week we start our day with "Big 4".  Mrs. Betts puts 4 math questions on the board and we do them in our Big 4 book.  The questions relate to what we are learning about in Math or what we have learned throughout the year.  Big 4 helps us keep our math skills sharp.  Here is a picture of one of our Big 4 activities.

Here are some of the ways we solved the problems!

 

Can you name the patterns we made?  How do you start your school day?

The Finished Product!

A few weeks ago we went to the Surrey Art Gallery and had a tour of the Gallery.  After we had the opportunity to go into the studio and learn about printmaking.  We learned how to make a print.  The workshop was called Drawing on Diversity.  The artist taught us about symbols and how they represent things.  For example, when you see a red maple leaf it makes you think of Canada!   Each of us had to think of a symbol that would tell something about us.  We then drew our symbol on styrofoam.  Once that was done we used a brayer to roll paint across our "plate" then we put a coloured paper over top and rubbed it gently.  Some of us made several prints.  Mrs. Betts kept one from each of us to put on display in our classroom and the rest we took home.  Have you ever tried print making before?

Here is our display.  Can you tell what is important to some of us?

Home School Connection

On Tuesday Mrs. Betts gave us the challenge of explaining to our parents how air, water and soil interact with each other and why they are important to each other.  On Wednesday, Ellie arrived at school and gave Mrs. Betts 2 pages.  The first page was a diagram of how air water and soil interact and the second piece explained in her words how they are important.  Ellie is just beginning to learn English!  It was so exciting for us to see and read how she is learning!

Air Water and Soil - the connection

Yesterday we wrapped up our learning on how air water and soil interact and why each one is important to living things and the environment..  We reviewed our "what we know" chart and then did a walk and talk with the Coyotes.  Our job was to share what we had learned about air, water and soil.  We have used this sharing strategy before.  Half the class are posts (which means they don't move) and the other half are walkers ( they move from one person to the next).  Each time you meet a new person you share something you have learned about the topic.  Some of the guiding questions we were given were:
Why is soil important?  Why do we need air, water and soil?   How are air, water and soil important to each other?

We shared with 3 or 4 people then each partnership got a sentence strip and a felt pen and recorded their thinking.  We posted all our thinking on a chart to share with everyone.  We had a fantastic discussion about our learning.

Here are some pictures of us sharing our thinking!

 

Here is a summary of our thinking!