Math Homework answers, King Henry chart for printing, uploading some Orrf inspired music and fun moment from Gym, RPFF, Booktalk art, Dovercourt food drive, wisdom from The Force Awakens

Math Homework:

I had intended to use this to help take up the homework, but the WIFI was not working in the classroom in the morning.  So, we went old school (okay, maybe about 10 years ago) and put the answers up on the board for people to check.

There was a request for the King Henry chart to be posted.  Here it is:

Videos

Regent Park Film Festival (RPFF) Trip:  This Tuesday!!!

page from the program... more information can be found at http://regentparkfilmfestival.com/

Art + Booktalks

In addition to presenting in front of the class, this assignment involved being creative and coming up with some-thing, which relates to the book that was read.  As you can see, we have some items, but more are expected.  The due date for this was set for November 16, but expect more to be handed in by tomorrow.

Food Drive

The Student Council are organizing a food drive for a local food bank. I need to sort out the details, but the food will be going to families who are in need.  If you can, please donate a can or $2 towards this important community initiative.

Wisdom from the Star Wars universe

In last year's The Force Awakens, there is a scene, just after the Millenium Falcon is stolen from Unkar Plutt on Jakku, where Finn and Rey are trying to motivate themselves to avoid the imperial entanglements of the attacking First Order Stormtroopers.

The characters of Finn an Rey from http://screenrant.com/star-wars-7-john-boyega-interview/

The short quote comes from the IMDB page http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/quotes.

I shared this with the class today.  Sometimes when we face challenging situations, we doubt that we are capable.  This does not mean doing it will look the same for everyone in the end,  but the key point is that we must do, from time to time, even when we are not feeling it.  

some sketches of me :)

Community Circle, Book Talk, a few photos and a link for information on the Beep Test

I thought we would start the week by thinking of things that we are grateful for.  I did spell it wrong on the board!

A panoramic shot of the Community Circle

The students have been doing a good job with the presentations.  A lot of effort and thought has gone into them.  

http://www.topendsports.com/testing/norms/beep.htm

We did a Beep Test in the early part of the school year.  We will do one on Tuesday and do one more before the February Report Cards.  Today, we ran 1000m or 1 km around our field.  The statistics give the students a sense of their  fitness level.  Some other data, based on the levels, can be found here:  http://www.topendsports.com/testing/beep-table.htm.Homework
Math sheet on kilometre walking in Community
Art for Booktalks

Inquiry research: Stage 2 and some notes on discrimination, classroom makeover, and homework

I made some revisions to the Investigating portion of the Inquiry.  In this phase, you have to do some thinking about the design you are thinking about for sharing the information & research from your project.

Unlike the first part, where you may have done some brainstorming and interviewed someone, you will be adding a research component to it.  I posted a series of links that might help some of you get started:  http://rumblingsfrom52.blogspot.ca/2016/11/social-studies-inquiry-phase-2.html

In this phase, you will be going a little deeper in thought.  This may mean that you have to re-interview a family member.  It will also mean that you do some research from the public library, our school library, or the internet.

I aimed to redesign the graphic below to make it clearer for some of you.  The note on the side is to remind you that you have some of this research done or should have.  Don't be freaked out, this project is not intended to be long!!

One of the sections for the Inquiry concerns the issue of discrimination. I used the definition from the Ontario Human Rights Commission (http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/iii-principles-and-concepts/2-what-discrimination).  I summarized it and posted it on the word wall:

All communities, regardless of background, I am sure, have encountered some form of hardship or discrimination.  Discrimination is wrong, but it is very real.  According to https://ontariohumanrights.net, discrimination may happen based on the following list:

As you think about the section on discrimination in your Inquiry, be sure to ask yourself and the person(s) you research, if they have ever encountered it on any of the 16 items listed.

The next section of this project will be due on November 21.  There will be more time in class for research, but please feel free to continue with your research.   The next time you go to the Library, Ms. Ling will provide you with an access card for the TDSB Virtual Library.  Here are some of the cool features of it:

Class makeover

Homework

Second portion of Inquiry due on November 21

Booktalk art due on November 16
Final groups of Booktalkers will be presenting next week

A visit from a Peacekeeper, Book Talks begin, Jahmarian's observations, Kylo Ren's billion millimetre punishment, Math homework

I will organize this post a little more, with time.

Jahmarian's Observations

Gerry O'Pray, UN Peacekeeper & Canadian Veteran's visit and talk to Dovercourt PS

Mr. O'Prey displays the flag he designed in the mid 1960s, when the  new design for the Canadian flag was being negotiated.

Mr. O'Prey spoke with the Grade 4-8 about this adventures and lessons in peacekeeping for the UN.   His travels took him from The Democratic Republic of the Congo to Egypt. 

Booktalks begin:

A group of 4 students presented today and 4 more are scheduled for Friday.  We will draw the names for the second group of 8 on Friday (tomorrow).  An accompanying work of Art (a video, painting, a drawing/sketch...) should be completed for each Booktalk).  For the first group, this Art will be due on November 14.

Kylo Ren's punishment: an excuse to use Star Wars to link to our Measurement unit

info from https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/Toronto,+ON/La+Malbaie--Pointe-au-Pic,+QC/@45.5914376,-79.2720382,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m15!4m14!1m5!1m1!1s0x89d4cb90d7c63ba5:0x323555502ab4c477!2m2!1d-79.3831843!2d43.653226!1m5!1m1!1s0x4cbfa9f1e7277215:0x2a1e5874f8d4f73!2m2!1d-70.150009!2d47.65404!3e0!5i1

In terms of some of our review work for Measurement, we had the work put on the board.  This encourages students to review what they did -- or did not do -- and make corrections.

Success Criteria for Book Talk, 1 kilometre walk and prep for the 1k run, post US election journal response

Book Talk

This is the list of items we generated from the assignment sheet for the Book Talk.

Use this, as a guide, when preparing for your presentation.  Your presentation will be marked, according to this list.

1 kilometre walk

It took 15 minutes to walk 1 kilometre.  We began in front of the school and walked  south to Hallam and west on Dufferin, and then south to the south-east corner of Bloor and Dufferin.

This was the North East corner.  We were shy 10m of our goal of 1000m

Arriving back at Dovercourt, still 1000m or 1 km away

Since we will be running the 1 km or 1000m in Gym, let's take a look at some records:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_metres_world_record_progression

This is also interesting, let's look at the "International Age Records" for the 1000m race:
http://age-records.125mb.com/

Post US Election Journal

Social Studies Inquiry: Investigating Stage, November 11 Assembly at Dovercourt, 100m World Record Track and Field time progressions and some other Math connections, prepping for the 1 km walk, Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad

Social Studies

The second phase of the Social Studies Inquiry is the Investigating phase.  This builds on the initial Exploring stage.  The layout format for the assignment will be determined by you and you begin to design your plan.

A tentative organizing plan for the next portion might look like this:

To demonstrate a variety of presentation approaches, let me show you a link to a set of assignments from the Grade 7 Geography project I did last year:  http://rumblingsfrom52.blogspot.ca/2016/01/power-of-photo-and-passport-assignment.html.

Remembrance Day:  November 11 @ Dovercourt

Track and Field:  Wikipedia  on the progression of the 100m World Records  

During Gym class, we were no where close to some of these records for the 100m (or 1 Hectometre ) sprint:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_100_metres_world_record_progression (Florence Griffith Joyner @ 10.87 m/s)

FYI, here is the race:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_100_metres_world_record_progression (Usain Bolt @ 12m/s at maximum velocity)

Although you will learn this in a subject called Physics in high school (and perhaps in more advance stages of Algebra), I came across a neat website that calculated the speed and velocity of Usain Bolt's speed for his world record time:  https://mathspig.wordpress.com/tag/speed-of-florence-griffith-joyner/

Here are some more interesting decimal statistics, as they relate to the 100m sprint of the 1996 Olympic Championship race of Canadian sprint legend, Donavan Bailey:

http://olympic.ca/2015/03/25/most-memorable-olympic-running-moments/bailey-4/

Our kilometre walk

I am uncertain of the language of origin for this video, but it provides you with a visual sense of objects in the metric system.  Having a sense of how far a kilometre is, and how long it will take to walk, might provide us with some fun facts about how long it would take to walk to certain parts of the world:

https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distances.html?n=250

Indians in the diaspora:  Trinidad and Tobago

Social Studies Inquiry: Phase 2, with some links for research; looking at some everyday objects around the class using the Metric system

Social Studies Inquiry

The TDSB Inquiry wheel looks like this:

By now, all students should have completed the Exploring/Brainstorming stage of the project; we have now moved on to the Investigating section.  This is where you will start shaping your project and doing some research.

I am going to list a series of links that I think will help some of you begin your research.  So many of you are looking at different communities and I think this is great.  Hopefully, your research at one link will bring you to another.

Potential Links for Research

- remember to record the web address for where you get your information

- take only jot notes of key items of information
- these are not the only sites out there!
- remember that all websites may contain biased information and have a particular perspective

South Asians in Canada:  http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/south-asians/

A website for Bengali Canadians:  http://www.torontobengali.com/

A Toronto Star article on Bangladeshi Canadians:  https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2008/02/28/bangladesh_on_the_danforth.html

Information on the Indians to arrive in Canada:  http://asia-canada.ca/changing-perspectives/indians

Toronto Star article on the Irish in Toronto:  https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/03/14/19th-century-toronto-irish-immigrants-a-lesson-in-upward-mobility.html

Some historical information on Conscientious Objectors to war:  http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/life-at-home-during-the-war/voices-for-peace/conscientious-objectors/

Maclean's article on Vietnam war draft dodgers:  http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/u-s-vietnam-war-draft-dodgers-left-their-mark-on-canada/

10 quick facts about Caribbean people in Canada:  http://www.newsamericasnow.com/10-fast-facts-about-caribbean-immigrants-in-canada/

Wikipedia demographics of Toronto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto

Wikipedia page on Venezuelans in Canada:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_Canadians

A Toronto Star article on the diverse Latin American communities in Toronto:  https://www.thestar.com/news/2008/12/06/the_gtas_growing_latino_problem.html

An article on the Latin American heritage of Toronto:  http://heritagetoronto.org/here-and-there-hispanic-heritage-in-toronto/

An article on Toronto's Ethiopian community: http://heritagetoronto.org/torontos-ethiopian-community/

An article on "Little Ethiopia" in Toronto: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2014/01/04/samuel_getachew_the_king_of_little_ethiopia.html

"The Early Years" of Japanese Canadian History:  http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/historical_overview.htm

From the National Association of Japanese Canadians:  http://najc.ca/history-of-japanese-canadians/

History of Jews in Toronto, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Toronto

A site with some early Toronto Jewish History:  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/toronto.html

Encyclopedia article on Chinese Canadians: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-canadians/

A webpage called "Toronto Chinatown":  http://toronto-chinatown.info/chinatown-history/

Vietnamese Association of Toronto:  http://www.vatoronto.ca/en/
Vietnamese Canadians, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_Canadians

Toronto Hakka ChineseYouth Association:  http://thccn.com/
Tsung Tsin Association of Ontario:  http://www.tsungtsinontario.ca/about_us.php
Wikipedia information on Hakka people:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people

My next phase, minus the research

I have not done any research from the links I have posted, or any other Library books or resources.  I did use my initial questions to help focus my Inquiry and provide me with a sense of direction.  Here is what I came up with:

Once the Progress Reports are done, I will do some research to model what happens next.

Metric stuff

A morning investigation began when Hannah started to ask some questions about the Math homework, from a few days ago.  It concerned the issue of mass and how we might measure certain things.  

To have a benchmark of certain items, I looked in one of my Math crates and came out with a 1000.0g or 1.0 kg.  After doing some research, we learned the approximate mass of a paper clip is about 1.0 gram, so we  took turns feeling it:

So, upon some class chatting, we looked up some interesting things that came from the homework:

https://www.loblaws.ca/search/1478268082864/page/~item/banannas/~sort/popularity/~selected/trueThe question of how bananas are sold came up.  In this case, you can see the variation in price.  This type of math is also connected to the idea of unit cost and rate and ratio, something we will explore later.  

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/facts-about-trucks/

This teaspoon is approximately equal to 5 ml.  We were trying to figure out what it might feel like to hold the mass of sugar in some Pop.  So, this site was found:

http://www.rethinksugarydrink.org.au/how-much-sugar

Measuring

A couple of shots of the measuring along with a sample of what was to happen with the measurements:

This example, I did, for the length of my desk.  After the measurement was done, you were required to convert it to another unit, using the KING HENRY conversion chart.

Measuingt Josue.

Saya's turn

In the preceding video, I used the metre stick to show how it is broken down into the smaller units of that we may find on the KING HENRY Metric chart.  This mirrors what the Grade 6s are supposed to learn, in relation to the Place Value chart:  Moving to the tenths (decimetre), hundredths (centimetre), thousandths (millimetre).