As our journey into math began this year, students completed a fun activity to help reacquaint themselves with the various math manipulatives within the classroom. It was also a time to remember that math can be fun and creative! Here are the characters students created:
Hello families and students! Welcome to a new school year at Mundy’s Bay! This classroom blog is a space for our class to showcase our learning. Posts will be added weekly so be sure to check back frequently. Students will also use this blog to write and respond. They love to see comments about our posts so please take a few moments, when you can, to give us some feedback and ask questions!
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Cindy Hackett
We had a very energetic math lesson today! We started out with a look at a probability line and discussing the meaning of these probability words:
impossible, unlikely, equally likely, likely, certain
Students debated the likelihood of various scenarios to demonstrate their understanding of each probability word. Oral language skills were put to good use as students argued their points of view.
Then, students were given the task of rolling 2 dice 30 times and recording the sum. They worked in pairs to collect their data.
The next task was to choose an appropriate graph to display their data. Some students chose to create a stem and leaf plot with the reasoning that it was quick and easy to do.
But then, our discussion lead to the conclusion that this was not the best way to display the data as it was difficult to answer questions about the data. Students concluded that a bar graph or a line plot were better choices.
We discussed the similarities in the shape of the data and discovered that the sum of 6 has the greatest chance and the sum of 2 and 12 have the least chance. We created a frequency chart as we investigated the possible dice combinations and students made observations about patterns! It was a very rich discussion!
Lastly, as one group had mistakenly recorded differences instead of sums, we turned the mistake into a learning opportunity and we compared their graph to the rest only to discover a similar shape in data!
It was an extremely fun, learning inquiry in math today!
This art project started out with a social studies lesson courtesy of the Simcoe County Museum:
The Wendat believed that everything in the world around them, from trees to
lakes to rivers to animals, possessed a soul or spirit, called an oki. Different okies
could bring good or bad luck in different human activities, from travel to war to
hunting or fishing to farming to gambling to relationships.
• Wendat people enlisted help from a particular oki by carrying a charm dedicated
to them. These charms could be highly valued and could be passed on from one
generation to the next. Charms could be made or could be found in the woods,
where it was believed that they had been lost by the spirit that made them.
Charms could also be obtained through trade from the Algonquins, who were
such good hunters and fishermen that they were considered very lucky people.
• Wendat people carried their good luck charms around with them. If they needed
help from their charm’s oki, they would speak to the charm and offer it beads or
pieces of tobacco as presents. They could also hold feasts for their okies to
make them more powerful.
• These charms will be made from clay. Clay was one material that the Wendat
used often to make important items like pipes and pots. They could embellish
clay objects by drawing designs on them using wooden sticks.
Then it was on to creating our own okies! Students learned how to start with a ball and use a pinch method to form features. They learned how to use slip to repair/prevent cracks. Students discovered that while an artist may start with one idea for a sculpture the project may turn into something completely different as the clay starts to form.
These charms are wonderful!
Students combined their knowledge of colour, using water-colour paint, body shape and proportion to create this project. After having created foil sculptures students had some background in creating movement in a figure, thinking about body parts and joints.
The final projects are fantastic!
For this art project students explored:
Elements of Art:
Form: a three-dimensional object that has height, length, width, and depth.
Principles of Design
Balance: an equal distribution of weight through the sculpture. In this lesson it’s literal balance, in
which the sculpture has a solid base and won’t tip over.
Movement: the use of the elements of visual arts to draw a viewer’s eye from one point to another
in an artwork. In this lesson, it’s “implied” movement which draws a viewer’s eye from one point to
another.
Positive/Negative space: the object and the area around it. In this lesson it’s the figure and the
space around it.
Proportion: the relationship of parts to the whole. In this lesson, it’s body parts in proportion to
the body
Students first watched a demonstration of how to turn a flat sheet of foil into a figure. The steps were written so students could follow the directions independently when creating their own project. Students had to think about a sequence of steps. They used themselves as real-life models to explore the shape of body joints, using observation and connecting skills. Once the figures were formed, students used a flashlight to explore the shape of shadows and then drew and coloured a shadow of their figure as they considered point of view. They named their sculptures as a final step.
Students had a lot of fun with this “sweet” art project. It began with a look at the artist, “Wayne Thiebaud”. Students identified the subject of his paintings and discovered why he is called a Pop Artist. They looked closely at some of his paintings and identified the techniques he used – exaggerated colours, heavy shadows, and bold outlines.
The students started out with some read donuts for inspiration. They looked at them from different perspectives and had a go at sketching a bird’s eye view and a side view.
Next, they used oil pastels to colour both a wall and a table in large coloured sections. Then they painted over the pastel and used cardboard combs to pull through the paint and create texture. The next step was to create their donuts, thinking about a side perspective. They drew, coloured, glittered, and cut them out.
Everything was then assembled and some masterpieces were created!
We first read the book, “Jumanji” by Chris VanAllsburg. Many students had seen the movie but hadn’t read the book. We discussed the writing strategy of “stretching the moment”, and “show-not tell”. Students chose one moment from the book and wrote more about it as if they were the character playing the game.
Here is the collection of writing the students created: Just click on the picture below
