Tuesday September 25, 2018

Tremendous Tuesday!

This week there are many activities taking place at SJA. The bake sale and casual day is tomorrow, the Terry Fox run is on Thursday (please bring in your donations and wear your gym clothes) and Friday is orange shirt day, where we take the time to remember those who were forced to attend residential schools.
Our Terry Fox event is just around the corner. This is an annual event here at SJA. As we have done every year, we are asking donations. Pledge sheets have been sent home, and will be due by Wednesday, September 26^th. As a school, we have raised over $1000...lets keep the fundraising efforts going! The class with the highest amount of money collected will win an ice cream party! Thank you in advance for your donations!

Winter uniforms begin Tuesday, October 9. Please ensure that all students have all of the pieces are worn on a daily basis (grey skirt/pants, navy blue socks, black dress shoes, long sleeve button up white dress shirt, navy blue sweater/sweater vest, tie [academic Monday-Thursday and house colour tie on Friday], and a blazer). Students will be required to wear all the pieces during morning announcements, field trips, and during transitions if going from one classroom to another. Please see Ms. Alpa for any uniform requests or inquirers.

After school activities forms and payments are due tomorrow.

**Please note that students doing any after school activity, soccer, karate, yoga, etc. will be charged until 4:00 PM in aftercare, when they will be dismissed to their program with their coach!**

Soccer Practice Times

Elementary Girls and Boys – Tuesday and Thursday 4-5PM

U12 Coed and U12 Development Program – Monday and Wednesday 4-5PM

Tomorrow is the last day to order October hot lunch. The site will close on September 26th at 3:00 PM, so please get your orders in before then, as the site cannot be re-opened. October hot lunch payments are due by October 10th. Please ensure you are ordering under the correct grade and teacher. 

Caribou Math Contest is an online mathematics contest that is held 6 times per year. Last year we did a trial run with a few students from Grade 6 and above. This year we are going to offer it to students in Grades 3 and up. This is something that will be done on a student’s own time. This will not be a focus of our math program. That being said, Dr. Kaur and Mr. Lee-Guide have offered to run a math club on Wednesday morning beginning at 8:00 AM for those who are interested. There is a $15 annual fee that must be paid online at registration and the test times begin at 7:15 AM. Committed students will write the tests on:

Wednesday, October 17^th, 2018

Wednesday, November 14^th, 2018

Wednesday, January 16^th, 2019

Wednesday, February 13^th, 2019

Wednesday, April 3^rd, 2019

Wednesday, May 1^st, 2019

Permission forms were sent home. Please follow the instructions at the bottom of the page to register your child and pay the fee and return the permission form to me. 

Don't forget about Polar Expressions Publishing! The poetry deadline is November 16^th, 2018 and the short story deadline is November 23^rd, 2018.

Important dates/items:

Wednesday, September 26 – Bake Sale, Casual Day, Terry Fox pledges due, after school activities forms and payments due & October hot lunch orders due

Thursday, September 27 – Terry Fox run – please wear gym uniform

Friday, September 28 – Orange Shirt Day to remember those who were sent to residential schools

Math Test

Monday, October 1 – Golfing trip 

Tuesday, October 2 – Electricity Test 

Thursday, October 4 – International Day

We began the day taking up our homework from last night and then learning about scatter plots. We watched a video first and then did some examples as a class about how to create a scatter plat. We discussed the difference between using a scatter plot and a line graph: 

a line graph is good for tracking changes over time 

Scatter Plot

a scatter plot is used to find out if there is a relationship between two variables

A graph of plotted points that show the relationship between two sets of data. 

For example, does working more hours result in making more money? We would use a scatter plot to see if there is a relationship or a correlation between working more hours and making more money. If we saw that the trend was moving upwards and that the dots were fairly close to one another, that means there is a positive correlation between the two variables; as a result, we could conclude that working more hours does result in making more money. 

Here are some more examples: 

Students then worked on plotting coordinates on a grid to better understand how to create a line graph and a line graph. Then we worked on some questions related to scatterplots.

Next, we had French with Mdm. Stella.

After first recess and lunch we got into our literature circles and fulfilled our specific roles within our groups for chapter 4.

Then we reviewed our understanding of static electricity. Ms. Jaskolka is really impressed with our understanding of atoms and how we are applying this knowledge to static electricity!! Here is a link the students were interested in trying out to see static electricity in action. Using this link, you are able to see how the sweater, the balloon, and the wall have no charge but once the balloon rubs against the sweater, the electrons travel from the sweater to the balloon and then the balloon tries to stick to the sweater because the electrons on the balloon are attracted to the protons on the sweater; opposites attract! 

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/balloons-and-static-electricity/latest/balloons-and-static-electricity_en.html

another example: 

We continued to explore this concept using magnets.

We were broken up into three groups and we each investigated how magnets work. We also learned about electromagnets (Electro – electricity). So, electromagnets are magnets powered by electricity. One of the groups created an electromagnet using an iron nail and copper wire and then using the battery the electromagnet was used to pick up paperclips. 

Another group explored a compass and used the compass as another way to create an electromagnet. Another group investigated magnets and their two poles and how opposites attract where the south end of a magnet is attracted to the north end of a magnet and that the south end repels the south end and the north pole repels the north pole. We also got to see how magnets work by picking up different metals! Magnets are a lot of fun to explore!! 

Videos on magnets: 

Magnets: How do they work?

How do magnets work? BBC Earth Lab

Then we watched another video about how to build an electric car. Here are two more videos the students can watch to help them in designing the thumbnail sketches for their car. 

Another Paper Car

Popsicle stick car

After second recess and lunch we had gym.

Homework:

1.    Read Daily

2.    Cursive 2 pages

3.    Novel study – chapter 5 literature circle role

4.    Math sheets – scatter plots

5.    My Challenge Science Fair

6.    Thumbnail sketches for electric car due on Friday 

7.    Electricity test next Tuesday

8.    Math test Friday 

9.    Bake Sale tomorrow

10.  Casual Day tomorrow

11.  French homework