Week 15 in Portable 2

Friday, December 14, 2018

We just finished week 15 in portable 2. Here is a glimpse of what we’ve been up to:

Harmonica Presentation – Mr. Hogg is an amazing musician and volunteer who works with some of the classes at our school. We are very fortunate to have him volunteer at our school. Some of his volunteer time is spent teaching grade 7/8 students how to play the harmonica. Our class got to listen to Mr. Hogg (playing his guitar) and the grade eights (playing their harmonicas) this past week. It was an excellent performance and we really enjoyed it.

Measurement – We explored the relationship between centimetres and metres.  One way that we did this was by measuring the height of each student in our classroom. Then, we discussed how our height can be represented in different ways. For example, if John was 1m and 40 cm tall, we could represent that same height using only centimetres (140 cm)  OR using only metres (1.4 m). The decimal ignited a lot of curious math talk. We compared the different representations on a chart.

Data Management – We learned about a double bar graph this week and how it can help us display/compare two sets of data. We made our own double bar graph to further understand this. Our double bar graph will display/compare two sets of data once it is finished. The first set of data is each student’s height that we measured on Dec. 11, 2018. The second set of data will be each student’s height that will be measured on June 11, 2019 (six months later). The students have six months to grow. Then, we will measure again on June 11th and finish our double bar graph. The students are excited to see how many centimetres they will grow in six months.

Reading and Social Studies – Our Read Aloud of the Week was a poem called, I am Canada. The poem was written by Heather Patterson and each page was illustrated by thirteen different Canadian illustrators. It is a poem that invites Canadians to celebrate our country’s cultural diversity as well as the diversity of our landscapes and seasons. The poem also reminds us to be grateful for our freedom to explore time and space, knowledge and beauty. We were inspired to create our own artwork (thanks to this book). That art work will be shown at another time. Here is a picture of the front cover:

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at julie.pragnell@granderie.ca OR call me at school: 519-443-8942.

-Mrs. Julie Pragnell