More busy days at Beachy Cove Elementary

The morning was taken up by Spring Concert practice again today, which seems to be shaping up nicely. I have been trying to sit in on the last 20 minutes or so each time, just to see the progress and the excitement of the students involved. The parts from our Earth Day Assembly have been reassigned, and several exciting new elements have been added. The end result is a more detailed, coherent presentation that provides entertainment and information about water supply and conservation.

Because the students missed their gym class to practice, Ms. Tapper was kind enough to take all the grade 4 students outside after recess. This left enough time to go to the library, then lunch! After lunch, we did manage to get lots of good work done on fractions, health and social studies in particular.

To evaluate this unit on Summer Safety, I will be asking students to create a pamphlet on some element of staying safe in summer. This will require them to pay attention to formatting, content and composition of an informational text, something we have spent plenty of time on this year. Each student will have to discuss an activity, then outline possible dangers, preventative measures, examples they are familiar with and other important details. I will also be asking them to include pictures and diagrams as they see fit. More information will be sent home on this in the coming weeks.

As the playoffs move on, the disparity between the leaders and the rest of the pack (where I find myself) is growing larger. It is still causing some excitement, and stirring an interest in math which was the idea. I'm getting over the loss of my beloved Habs day by day, and am somewhat consoled by the fact that Ryan Kesler has started to accumulate some points for me.

Here are a couple links to sites that have ideas for activities and experiments related to the properties of sound. I mentioned last week that there will be an assignment requiring students to create a project that demonstrates the principles of sound in some way, so this might be a good starting point. Most are relatively inexpensive, straightforward and tidy (something I know is valued), and results are usually easy for students to see. Let me know if you try any at home!

http://homepage.eircom.net/~kogrange/sound_experiments2.html#tablethunder

Enjoy the rest of your day!