What a commotion

Today was our school's Healthy Commotion day. It is a day when students are encouraged to reflect on practices that help them stay healthy, and participate in a variety of healthy living-themed activities. Today many students brought extra-healthy snacks (which we compared and sampled), and spent the afternoon engaging in trivia games and a lengthy period of dancing/walking/running around the school. Our class made a great effort, and they all kept moving for twenty full minutes of intense activity. Way to go!

We will be touching on topics about healthy living throughout the year. It comes up in our health and art curricula, and it is also something I will be personally focusing on in a variety of my in-class activities. The class already seems to be very conscious of things they can do to stay active, and most are participants in martial arts, hockey, dance or some other activity.

Our next unit in math is Addition/Subtraction, but I am taking a few classes to touch on some other interesting topics. The first was patterns, which we explored using several techniques. One way is by starting a pattern or writing numbers following some rule (adding 1, going in a circle, etc.), and then trying to pick out patterns that emerge without even trying. Another way was by starting some repeating geometric or mathematical sequences, then looking at what characteristics they share.

The second topic I touched on was graphing. Today we started a graph in each student's math book that will help them track their team's progress in our hockey pool. This is just the first such activity we will be doing with graphs; as I type, Mme Curtis is developing a graphing project to go with our weather observation data that was collected last month. If you (or your child) are ever looking for more fun games/activities to explore math at home via doodling, solving puzzles or creating questions for the class, please let me know and I can direct you to some relevant websites.

We received a very interesting package from The Rooms today, containing 40 prints from their permanent collection. It includes well-known works from artists like Mary Pratt, Gerry Squires and David Blackwood, as well as more contemporary pieces and some beautiful aboriginal art. We did an art-response activity, and I have assigned another small activity on KidBlog as well. I was impressed by the how in depth students got into their work, and how profound many of their observations were.

Students' work on their Social Studies projects (The Colonization of Newfoundland/The Beothuks) is continuing at a good pace. They have begun to work on their projects, and will have some homework relating to the project over the next week. We will send home more detail as it becomes necessary to do so.

Some housekeeping notes before I sign off:

• "Family Night" at the book fair is on Monday, October 17th. Please note that this is different from the previously announced date.
• We will be going to Cupids this Friday, but students will be able to take buses as they normally would to and from school. We have enough volunteers, so thanks to all who responded.
• Some students in Band and Strings will start bringing home extra work at night to make up for missed time in class. If this causes any issues, please let me know so I can make arrangements.
• Tutoring for Tuition is starting up again soon, so please let me know if you are interested in your child  participating. I am also considering starting a typing program if people are interested, so please let me know.

Have a great evening, talk to you all soon.