I hope you all had a relaxing break. We’ve officially started back and are wasting no time in getting right back into our studies.
A quick note for Grade 6 Parents...
A few quick reminders:
· Aftercare invoices for the month of December have come out and are due Wednesday, January 15th, 2020. Any questions can be directed to Ms. Chiappetta at echiappetta@stjudesacademy.com
· Ski trip forms and waivers were due back. If you have not sent them in, please do this as soon as possible. Without these forms handed in, students will not be able to attend our ski trips. Our first ski trip is Wednesday, January 22nd.
· Crawford Lake trip forms and payment ($27) are due back as soon as possible. This trip is taking place next Thursday, January 16th.
· Speech packages and letters were sent home today for students to read and work on. Please have a read through the letters and sign them (let me know if you have any questions).
· Re-registration packages are due back by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, February 18th. After this, registration will open to the public.
Inquiry into Language – Today, students sat with me one-on-one to discuss their speech topics. Then, they began working on developing the reasons that support their topics. They will need to come up with 5 reasons that support their topic and then provide examples of that reason that are real and practical.
For example, if the topic is students should not have homework, a possible reason could be that homework takes away from time needed to relax and de-stress. Then, a relevant example would be finding a scientific study that shows how much time the average student needs to relax to ensure they can work at their maximum capacity.
Tomorrow, we will be working on testing the quality of these reasons and students will choose their best reasons to go forward with so they can begin researching next week for their topics.
Music – Then, the students had music with Mr. Oliver, which you can read about on his blog (https://mrolivermusicclass.blogspot.com).
French – After this, the students had French with Mme. Stella, which you can read about on her blog (https://stjudesfrench-stella.blogspot.com).
Inquiry into Explorers – Today, we continued looking at origins of different explorers. The focus today was on looking at more possible people who discovered America. The focusses today were on Asian explorers, Polynesian explorers, and Irish explorers.
We started by looking at Asian explorers:
Then, we watched a video to learn about Polynesian explorers. Here is the video:
Tonight, students will read an article about possible Irish explorers and add to their “Discovering America” charts.
Also, here is a timeline explaining BC, BCE, AD, and AD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNH4G9iacw
Inquiry into Math – We started by taking up the homework from yesterday on stem-and-leaf plots.
Today, we started looking at line graphs. A line graph is used to show change over time. We use a break in the graph when the interval is small, but the starting numbers are large in the scale. In a T-chart, the left column is the x-axis and the right column is the y-axis.
The x-axis is the independent variable and y-axis is the dependent variable. Since time is independent, it is represented on the x-axis.
After this, we graphed a chart showing Canada’s population. Remember: a graph has a title, labelled axes, and appropriate intervals.
Here is what we interpreted from our graph:
· The graph goes up to the right, so as time passed, Canada’s population was increasing. The line segments in the 2ndhalf are steeper than those in the first half, which shows that the population was increasing more quickly then.
· The steepest line segment occurs from 1951-1971 and tells us that this was the greatest increase in population.
After this, we extrapolated data from the graph regarding what the population would be like in in 2021.
Bar graphs show individual snapshot moments in time, while line graphs show a change over time.
Homework:
We do our best to complete work in class. In the event this is not possible, it will go home for homework.
As always, please feel free to email me with any questions.
Mr. Conte
