Classifying Figures

Day 9

Grade 6s began their day attending French and Gym class.

Our class day started with math. We took up yesterday’s homework. We then reviewed concepts students should be familiar with to be successful in today’s lesson on classifying figures. This was time well spent as many students were hazy or had forgotten these concepts. Parents, please help your child review by asking them to explain the following terms: polygon, regular figure, irregular figure, concave polygon, convex polygon, scalene triangle, isosceles triangle, equilateral triangle, quadrilateral, trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus, and the number of sides, vertices, and angles in a pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, and decagon. We used a Venn diagram to sort figures. Students have been challenged to use higher level thinking skills when doing this. What I mean by that is that students should not choose attributes that are mutually exclusive, e.g., quadrilateral & triangle to label the loops on the Venn diagram.  We practiced doing this so that everyone understood what I mean, i.e. choosing attributes so that some figures will be outside the loops, some will be in the left or right loop, while some will be in the overlapping loop. Students are asked to complete practice questions on p. 88 & 89 of the MMS textbook. They have a copy of the figures needed for question 3 and square dot paper for questions 6 & 7. Today’s math lesson took an extra-long time to get through. I think it was worth the time, as everyone felt they learned something they didn’t already know or understood concepts better.

Students who have not completed their slideshows used their first recess to work on them. Students need to bring their devices to school tomorrow to present their slideshow.

It was then the noisy, messy time of day next where everyone was working on their electric cars. Before everyone got started, we reviewed the next few steps in the engineering design process.

·         Testing – students test their cars, measure distance travelled, observe type of motion, identify problems, and improve their design. This step needs to be repeated at least 3 times.

·         Procedural writing – students will describe the steps they took, in detail, to build their car. Upon reading their procedure, someone should be able to build an exact replica of their car.

·         Post-construction drawing – a detailed, labelled drawing of the final version of the car

Some students made great progress today – we now have 12 students in the testing phase of this project. Yay! A couple of students started building again from scratch. Hang in there, guys! Friday is the last day class time will be allocated to building the car. After Friday, first recesses will be used to complete the project when possible. The Grade 6s stayed in both recesses today to work. They did this with a great attitude too. Thanks, boys and girls.

Parents, please take time to complete the SJA self-study survey by Friday, October 21, 2016, by clicking on the link: SJA Self-Study Survey or by copying the address into your browser https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XCHTHN8.  Thank you to parents you have completed the survey.

Parent Guild movie night tickets are coming home today.

Homework & Reminders

·         Parents, please complete the self-study survey: SJA Self-Study Survey It takes about 5 minutes to complete.

·         Math

o   MMS p. 88 – 89

o   Geometry sets need to be returned to school daily

o   Geometry unit test on Friday, Oct. 28

·         Slideshow

o   Devices – needed tomorrow if you have not completed your slideshow yet

o   Email me or share your slideshow with me

o   All presentations need to be made tomorrow

·         Read for 30 minutes and record your reading in your log

·         Science Fair:

o   Tell your parents about the progress you made on your car today

o   Think about what you plan to do tomorrow

·         Thursday, October 20 - Music

·         Friday, October 21

o   French spelling test

o   Reading logs due

o   Parent Guild Movie Night, 6:30 – 9:30 pm

·         Tuesday, October 25 – Bake Sale

·         Wednesday, October 26 – Casual Day, Bake Sale

·         Thursday, October 27 – Picture Day

·         Friday, October 28 – Geometry Unit Test

·         Monday, October 31 – Halloween/Harvest Spirit Day

·         November 21 – Curling Trip

·         November 23 – Curling Trip

·         November 24 – Science Fair