Volunteer

Since my email is misbehaving, I am trying to reach out to you here:

I am really in need of some volunteers. I am hopeful that someone might be able to come and help us with some props. I will have students there to help you. Please let me know if you can help.

If you would like to drop in on Thursday to see the Haunted House, please feel free to come in anytime. I am sure we could use some extra hands first thing in the morning as well. We will be conducting tours throughout most of the day otherwise.

The Snowsuit drive has begun. If you have gently used snowsuits to donate, please send them to the office for now as our donation bin is not yet in the lobby.

Please also remember that there is a Halloween Math Freaks event on Wednesday evening to help promote math and community. This event was well attended last year and was a fun way to engage in some math together.

Tiiu Tsao
Churchill Alternative School
Grade 5/6
www.room310churchill.blogspot.com

One Million Hours

Hello!

The Junior teachers have been getting together to talk about math. We have decided on a common template that we'd like to use to help you all solve math problems. We are going to us NWTT or Notice Wonder Think Therefore.

To demonstrate, we made up this question:

Then we modeled how to solve the question.

In class, we tried a question. We tried "Is it possible to live to be one million hours old?"

Most of us solved it in one of three ways. Some of us used multiplication to find out how many hours are in a year. Then we kept adding this amount until we got to 1 000 000. 

Some of us used multiplication once we found out how many hours are in a year to see how many hours old an older person would be. Some of us used our grandparent's age, some of us used a fact from the Guiness Book of Records, some of us used Tiiu's age and then promptly got sent to the office. 

Another group used division. These people divided 1 000 000 by 24 to see how many days is equal to 1 000 000 hours. Then they divided that number by 365 to see how many years is equal to 1 000 000 hours.

We talked to each other and decided that the division method was probably the most efficient. We thought it was efficient because it took the fewest amount of steps to land on a more exact answer. This doesn't mean it was the best method. If division is hard for you, this method would not work for you.

IXL

I am hoping that many of you are enjoying the Home Missions. I have not heard very much feedback so, if you are doing the Missions, perhaps you could comment here and let me know how they are going?

I wanted to remind everyone that you can do IXL at home. I think it will be very helpful for all of you to continue practicing your operations and facts at home. If you are forgetting your username and password, you can send me an email and I will send it directly to you.

Are you checking in on our Global Read Aloud Zone on Edmodo? Many of Mrs. Rodriguez's class are now on and wanting to talk about Melody and the book with you.

Please remember to bring in indoor shoes and your photo orders.

Updates

We have decided to invite Shauna's class to help us put together this year's Haunted House. Now we just have to plan a theme and get started.

In ECLIPSE, we've added a third activity. This one is called Reading to Someone. Here we are sitting EEKK (elbow elbow knee knee) and checking with each other for understanding.

We have also already connected with one class for our Comparing and Contrasting Communities project with Instagram. Our first month's theme was "School Meals". We met with a class from Iowa using Skype. We found out they all eat in the cafeteria. They have one student who has a peanut allergy in their whole school! They have cards they scan to pay for their school meals. They also have a law that limits the kind of food they can serve but it also effects the kind of snacks they share on their birthdays. We picked next month's theme together which is going to be "Physical Activity in School". 

 Here we are doing a Mystery Skype. This class is from Hull and we are going to do some activities with them throughout the year and then try and meet with each other live and in person!

 We are doing our second entry in our Reflective Math Journals. This one is on Place Value.

 We have started our Global Read Aloud. You can read more about it here. Most of us are really enjoying this book about a girl named Melody who has a lot of obstacles and gifts in her life. We are looking forward to connecting with some global classroom partners to discuss the book.

Indoor recess antics.

This Thursday we are going to the Parliament Hills to participate in the Rolling Rampage. 

Look at the amazing gift that Katie shared with Tiiu! She cried. For reals.