Dance Routines

We have been doing a creative dance unit in P.E.  First, we learned several different hip hop moves (Ms. B sure looked funny trying to dance hip hop with her giant pregnant belly!).  Next, Ms. B put some of the steps together to form a short dance which we practiced as a class.  Finally, it was our turn to create our own group routines.  Below are the videos of our final performances.  As you can see we worked hard!  







(Note:  We aren't a all-girls class!  It's just that some of the boys in the boys' dance don't have permission to have their photos on the blog, so their video is not here).

What is your favourite kind of dance to do?

Recipe Testing and Reviewing

In Health and Career Education, we have been studying nutrition.  As part of this unit, each student has been asked to find a healthy recipe and try it out at home!  After testing the recipe, students need to post the recipe and a review of it on their individual blogs.  (Don't forget to write where the recipe came from!)  Below is an example of the type of post that would be "fully meeting" expectations.  Blog posts must be submitted by Monday, February 18 at 8:00 p.m.  Happy cooking!

Wake Up Smoothie
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups orange juice
1 banana
1 1/4 cups frozen berries (such as raspberries, strawberries or blueberries)
1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.

Total time:  5 minutes
Makes: 3 servings, 1 cup each

Recipe from:  http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/wake_up_smoothie.html

My Recipe Review

This recipe was really quick and simple to make. There are a couple of things to remember when making this smoothie:
1)  Be careful measuring the ingredients so they don't overflow.
2)  Make sure that the blender lid is on tightly before blending or you will have smoothie all over your kitchen!  
For the berries, I used strawberries because they are one of my favourite fruits.  I loved this smoothie because it tasted sort of like a milkshake, but I know it's healthy for me!  My mom and dad liked the taste of it too, and they liked that it was quick to prepare in the morning.  They also liked the fact that it was a yummy way of eating more servings of fruit.  I would definitely make this recipe again!  Next time, I might try adding different kinds of berries.


To add photos to your Kidblog post:
1)  Click on "Upload/Insert Media" near the top of the post.
2)  Click on "Select Files" in the box that pops up.
3)  Choose the folder where your photos are (On my computer I choose "My Documents" then "My Pictures", but it depends where you store your photos).
4)  Click on the photo you want to upload, and click "Open".
5)  The photo will load.  When it's done, click on "Insert into Post" button at the bottom of the page.
6)  You can then type above or below the photo to write the rest of your post.

Learning about Area

In Math we have been studying area.  Area is the amount of flat space an object takes up.  For example, you might measure the area of your living room rug.  Area is often measured in square centimetres and square metres.

To help us learn about area we did several activities in class.  We played a game with a partner where we needed to create rectangles of different areas based on the product of two dice we rolled.  The winner was the person who could fill the larger area of the square centimetre grid.

In teams, we also measured the area of our classroom by creating a newspaper square that measured 1 square metre.  (The area was about 65 square metres!)

Finally, we used square tiles to find all the possible rectangles with a given area.

Freerice

On Friday, students were introduced to a terrific on-line game called Freerice.  The vocabulary game is easy to play, just click on the correct definition for the given word from four choices.  For every word you get right, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the World Food Programme to help feed some of the world's hungriest people.  You get smarter, have fun and help others all at the same time!  Below are some videos giving more information about the game and where the rice goes when it is donated.



This video is from 2008, so some of the donation numbers they mention are much lower than they are now.




If you haven't played Freerice yet, go give it a try!

First Nations Artifacts

Last week, we were lucky enough to again welcome Richard, one of our district Aboriginal cultural facilitators, into our classroom.  This time, he came to teach us about different  tools that were commonly used by the First Nations peoples living in this area.  He brought in several replicas and we had to hypothesize about what the tool might have been used for.  At the end, we shared our hypotheses, then he told us what the tools were actually used for.  Many of our guesses were quite accurate!  Here are a few photos of us examining the artifacts.

Projectile points were used for hunting or fishing when attached to an arrow or spear.

An abrading stone was used for smoothing materials  and keeping knives  sharp.

An adze was used for scraping, cutting and other woodworking.

A biface was used as a knife or as a weapon when attached to a handle.

A pebble tool (the oldest artifact)  was used for smoothing materials and for hammering. 

A stone bowl was used for mixing or crushing plants  for food or medicine.

A maul was used as a hammer.

A drill point was used for making holes in bone, stone or animal hides.

Thank you again, Richard, for sharing your knowledge!

Click here to see the Surrey Schools Aboriginal technology file which shows more pictures and descriptions of tools.