Today, Division 2 #mysteryskype'd for the first time outside of the United States and Canada. We skyped with a class in Zapopan, Jalisco which is on the west coast of Mexico. We learned a lot about Mexico during this brief visit! We learned that Mexico is in North America, it has states, and students speak both Spanish and English.
At first, we were a little thrown off by the fact that the class was not in the United States (as they usually are) so we had trouble narrowing down the correct state from all 31 states. We are always at a disadvantage when it comes to narrowing down states because Canada only has 10 provinces and 3 territories! Luckily, we quickly found our footing and were able to rule out some states. We persevered and cooperated really well together for this difficult #mysteryskype.
Next time, hopefully we will be able to Mystery Skype with a class in another continent!
Make sure you check out our pictures on the Twitter feed!
monday, May 11th, 2015
A huge thank-you to all the teachers, parents, students, and the YMCA for a successful camp experience! We wouldn't have been able to attend camp this year if it wasn't for all the generous donations! Here are just a few pictures from our time at camp last week.
friday, april 10th, 2015
Our introduction to Innovation Fair started with students getting into groups to create their own Confetti Launcher using every day items. The items were paint stirrers, plastic cups, duck tape, elastic bands, and cardboard. The groups all used various techniques to create their launchers. Some groups made a slingshot-type launcher while other groups used the force of their hands to throw the confetti up in the air. We took them out to test them and learned that the wind really affected how well the confetti launchers worked. Check out photos from the design process and a video of their first prototype!
thursday, april 2nd, 2015
This morning, Division 2 played around in the LOGO computer programming environment on the Playground in Turtle Academy. Students had to create their own scalene, isosceles, and right angle triangles using the correct programming jargon. Once they had mastered the language, they even attempted creating their own name. This experience was a lot different than simply writing their own names because they had to think about which direction to turn and how many degrees to turn their virtual "pen" to write their name. Check out some pictures below!
tuesday, march 31st, 2015
Division 2 concluded their study of Ancient China with a debate to see which dynasty was the best (Qin, Zhou, Shang, or Han). They created flags for their dynasties, talked about how the emperors ruled China, the contributions, as well as responded to questions from opposing teams. Good job, Division 2!
monday, march 30th, 2015
Division 2 had a busy second term w filled with a visit from a secondary school math teacher to introduce us to the Fibonacci Sequence, a trip to Newton Wave Pool, Basketball Play Day, a Chinese New Year Celebration and much more. I hope everyone had a restful Spring Break.
That last week before Spring Break, we went to Stave Falls, Guildford's new aquatic centre, and the Grade 7's attended the BC Lion's presentation at Guildford Park Secondary.
We're into the last term of the school year and it's going to be a busy one with activities including Innovation Fair (stay tuned for more information), a new Read Aloud (Wonder - RJ Palacio), and an individual research assignment on an ancient civilization or culture. The Grade 7's will also be attending the camp in about one month! So much to look forward to!
monday, january 26th, 2015
Division 2 has been spending time learning about Integers and today, they used the iPad App, Explain Everything, to create their own videos to show the class what they know!
Division 2 has been busy creating their own animal masks to represent the different animals in the Chinese Zodiac. On February 19th, Division 2 will be taking part in the retelling of the Chinese Zodiac Animal Race with their animal masks. Stay tuned!
monday, January 12th, 2015
Taking a page out of the Worst-Case Scenario Handbook, students in Division 2 are in the process of creating their own manual on how to overcome their worst-case scenarios. The students did a quick brainstorm what their ultimate "worst-case scenarios" are. A lot of them had to do technology such as forgetting to save a game when you had just reached a level and not getting any likes on an Instagram picture.
The focus for the assignment was to practise writing in the present tense as well as including a beginning, middle, and end to their writing.
We will be posting our Worst-Case Scenarios outside our classroom in the coming weeks.
friday, january 9th, 2015
Brainstorming about what we're passionate about for the beginning of Genius Hour! The students in Division 2 are excited to use a portion of their week to research their passion projects for Genius Hour. The only guidelines are that they must have a driving question, must involve research, and must be shared globally.
Friday, December 19th, 2014
The last week of school before winter break was busy with a lot of activities in Division 2.
Division 2 Mystery Skyped with classes in Wisconsin, Delaware, and Connecticut. The class rotated their jobs and we learned that not only do we need to be focusing on finding out where the mystery class is located but also making sure that we are answering their questions correctly. For instance, are we east or west of Hwy 1? Mystery Skype is not only teaching us a lot about the world but also about our own city.
We are also getting to know our friends in Mrs. Kim and Mrs. Marasa's class since we will be going swimming together in the new year. They are in Grade 3 and 4 so we will be making sure that they are safe in the pool and having fun.
Another highlight was Winter Day with Mr. So's class of Grade 4 and 5 students. Thank-you to Lucas' mom for helping us make our Oreo Reindeer Pops. We also made snow globes and our own commercials. What a fun day!
The winter concert also took place this last week and our version of Do You Want to Build a Snowman was a hit! Head on over to Justin's website to stream or download the video.
On the very last day of school before winter break, we had a mini class celebration with video games and food! We deserved it after this busy week!
tuesday Afternoon, december 9th, 2014
Last week, Division 2 helped their little buddies in Mrs. Cole's class write letters to Santa. They described why they had been great helpers around the classroom and at home. They also asked Santa if he could bring them something special or if they could make one wish come true. They received their letters from "Santa" today. Check out their reactions in the videos below!
tuesday morning, december 9th, 2014
Division 2 took part in the Hour of Code to introduce them to computer science and demystify code by teaching them that everyone can learn the basics. The Hour of Code is a global event reaching tens of millions of students in more than 180 countries. At Ecole Riverdale, five classes took part in the Hour of Code on Tuesday. Each class completed the Frozen Code Activity. In the activity, students had to write code so that they could get Anna to skate the pattern of a complex snowflake. Once the students had completed the challenge, some of them tackled the Flappy Bird Activity where they learned to code their own game. It was very exciting to see how simple coding can be and fun at the same time!
Read our thoughts on the #hourofcode at our twitter site, @riverdaleroom6
wednesday, december 3rd, 2014
A huge thank-you to Mr. Tong, the culinary arts teacher at Fraser Heights Secondary School, for organizing the field trip and Mr. Cortan, Lucas' dad, for accompanying us today. Division 2 had a blast at Granville Island with their buddies. First on the itinerary was a photo and video scavenger hunt of Granville Island. The list of items included some team building exercises and more challenging tasks which involved interviewing vendors about their food and shoppers about what draws them to Granville Island. Check out our photos in our gallery below.
tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
As part of our Global Read Aloud project, Division 2 connected with a group of students in Kenora, Ontario and Shawnee, Kansas to discuss their ideas of a sequel to "One for the Murphys" as well as answer each other's questions. It was such a neat experience to hear the other class' reactions and to get a chance for other students across the continent to hear our thoughts. We hope to make even more connections in the future!
monday, december 1st, 2014
Division 2 created artwork for the Surrey Christmas Bureau. It is a non-profit organization providing the community's low-income families with toys, holiday gifts, stocking stuffers, and grocery certificates each Christmas. The artwork that the students created will be on display at Guildford Town Centre. After learning about how the Northern Lights are created and watching a National Geographic video, the students used chalk pastels to create their backdrops. Then, on grey paper, the students drew their polar bears. Lastly, the trees were painted in the background and the bears were glued on. It was a quick lesson but the result weas highly effective! Great job, Division 2
friday, november 28th, 2014
Skating at North Surrey Recreation Centre today was great! Division 2 joined Mlle Tebbutt's class for some skating fun! It was the first time skating for some of us and after the hour, we were already improving! The seasoned skaters were great helpers and gave the newbies tips like "push off the ice and glide" instead of "walk on the ice". Next time, we will be even better!
WEdnesday, november 26th, 2014
The Free the Children team at Ecole Riverdale raised $114 for Movember Canada! Thank-you to the students in Division 2 who are participating with the team and raising awareness for men's health issues. Check out our photos below!
monday, november 24th, 2014
The Mobile Dairy Classroom came to our school today to teach us about how we get milk from the farm to our fridges at home! Wow, what an experience! We learned about how much milk a cow makes daily and the equipment that the farms use. It sounds like a lot of work!
thursday, november 20th, 2014
Division 2 has been busy creating their Mesopotamian innovation trailers! They did a great job of using iMovie to illustrate their understanding of how much ancient civilizations have contributed to society today! Take a look!
wednesday, november 19th, 2014
Free the Children team has been collecting cans for the past three weeks to SCARE HUNGER! As a school, we collected 590 cans that weighed a total of 575 pounds. That's the weight of a large black bear! Way to go, Ecole Riverdale and the Free the Children Team for supporting the Surrey Food Bank.
tuesday, november 18th, 2014
It's always a good idea to get in your daily physical activity! In Division 2, we've been taking brain breaks in many different ways. Sometimes, we do intense cardio workout, we dance to Just Dance on YouTube, we go outside and play Manhunt, or we get to work on skill development in the gym. We are really lucky to have such a large playground with a beautiful view of the mountains!
Friday, november 14th, 2014
This was a very exciting day for Division 2. We have spent the last week talking about Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada's voting history, what makes a good mayor, and the mayoral candidates in Surrey. Today, we participated in the Student Vote and exercised our democratic right! Our thoughts on the vote will be on display outside of Room 6 in the coming weeks!
wednesday, november 12th, 2014
Division 2 went to Fraser Heights Secondary School to meet their Big Buddies in Mr. Tong's Grade 11 and 12 Culinary Arts Program. Together, they prepared the ingredients to make pizza, baked, cleaned up, and ate their delicious creations. A huge thank-you to Mr. Tong and his class for all of their hard work and support! We had a blast! Also, thank-you to Mme. Berron, Mrs. Turnbull, and all the parent volunteers for making this field trip a success!
friday, november 7th, 2014
We #mysteryskype'd with a class in Alabama today! It was our first attempt at mystery skyping a class outside of Surrey, BC. Division 2 did a great job at working together and building on their map reading skills. Ms. Loos' class in Alabama taught us that we could also ask each other if they were "land locked" or "boarding a province" to narrow down the search. Thank-you, Ms. Loos for this great opportunity!
thursday, november 6th, 2014
Check out our "Brain Dump" before our Mesopotamia Quiz on Friday! After completing the Brain Dump in four groups and then circulating to read and add to another group's "dump", we played Jeopardy. The Grade 6 girls got the most points! Good job!
wednesday, november 5th, 2014
We looked at Georgia O'Keeffe's artwork which is a perfect tie-in to our study of Ecosystems in Science since her artwork is highly influenced by nature. In her paintings, she focuses on a magnified imagine of partial pieces of nature. We really enjoyed looking at her series of Poppies and then, were inspired to make our own.
tuesday, november 4th, 2014
After reading K'Naan's book about how his hit song, "Waving Flag" came to be, Division 2 launched a discussion about war and children's rights. We looked at the UN's Freedoms and Rights of a Child. The students agreed that the the most important right was Article 6 ("The right to be alive"). They were astonished to find that these rights are not necessarily universal. We acknowledged everything that our Canadian soldiers and veterans have fought for us to have. With that in mind and with Remembrance Day coming up, we paired up with Mrs. Cole's Grade 1 and 2 class to write our own somber poem:
Poppy, poppy what do you say? Wear me proud on Remembrance Day. Poppy, poppy what do you tell? Too many soldiers fought and fell. Poppy, poppy what should we know? Our love for our heroes will always show. Poppy, poppy what do you say? That I’m the symbol of Remembrance Day. Poppy, poppy what do you tell? Stories of how the soldiers fell. Poppy, poppy what should we know? To remember all the soldiers who left to go. Poppy, poppy what do you say? Today is a day to mourn not play. Poppy, poppy what do you tell? Soldiers fought for us to be free and well. Poppy, poppy what should we know? That peace on earth should grow and flow.
monday, november 3rd, 2014
The Global Read Aloud is now into Week Four and Division 2 has been hooked on "One for the Murphys" and Carley Connors' ups and downs as she tries to find her place in a new foster home. We've been tweeting with the hashtag, #GRAMurphys.
Today, something amazing happened... the author, Lynda Mullaly Hunt, tweeted us back!
Friday, october 31st, 2014
Division 2 celebrated Pumkin Day with M. Montali's class, Mr. Hopps and Mrs. Turnbull's class!
In M. Montali's room, we learned some new French words, sang C'est l'Halloween, and calculated circumference using pi! In Mr. Hopp's and Mrs. Turnbull's room, we got our hands icky counting seeds and hypothesizing whether the size of the pumpkin and the number of seeds there were inside it were correlated. In addition, we learned about chemical reactions with the oozing pumpkin experiment. Lastly, we drew their own portion of a jack-o-lantern with oil pastels as though we were looking through the magnifying glass.
In our room (Ms. Loh's), we practised our estimation skills while guessing the height, weight, and circumference of the pumpkin. Once we found the actual measurements, we estimated our height in pumpkins and the distance we could roll their pumpkin down the hallway. It turns out that once we have the circumference of the pumpkin, we can just count the rotations to figure out how far we rolled the pumpkin! Wow! Ms. Loh got her's 14 meters but that wasn't the furthest! One student got it 16 meters! In addition, we researched pumpkin facts and found out the largest pumpkin was over 2000 pounds and it would be approximately 24 times the average Grade 6 student. After we found out the pumpkin facts, we listened to the Smashing Pumpkin's hit song 1979 and tried to write our own song using our pumpkin facts. Lastly, we looked at spooky pictures by Chris Van Allsburg's Mysteries of Harris Burdick and wrote our own scary paragraphs.
It was a fun and educational day! Thank-you to all the parent helpers for spending the day with us!
wednesday, october 29th, 2014
The secret has been unveiled! Division 2 has the opportunity to become pen pals with Mr. Tong's Culinary Arts program of Grade 11 and 12 students at Fraser Heights Secondary School in Surrey. We could not be more excited! We are going to start the conversation by writing letters to our big buddies to practise our letter writing skills and to get to know them better. In the future, Ms. Loh and Mr. Tong have some events in store to help launch a conversation about healthy living, food and nutrition, as well as building community. Thank-you for reaching out to us, Mr. Tong!
tuesday, october 28th, 2014
Check out our new art in our classroom! Division 2 studied Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers and created their own interpretations of the famous portrait.
monday, October 27th, 2014
Division 2 had their first #mysteryskype session today with Ms. Polubinski's class at Forsyth Road! The classes both successfully narrowed down their guesses down to Surrey, BC and then, it was a race to see which class could guess the specific school first. In the end, both Division 2 and their mystery Skype class learned some critical thinking skills and came up with new ways to ask questions. For example, they went on to the Surrey School District website and asked "Does your school name start with the letter E?" What a great achievement, Division 2!
friday, october 24th, 2014
For the provincial professional day, I attended the Vancouver Art Gallery's workshop on their latest exhibition, Forbidden City. It was a great experience to learn even more about ancient China and see artifacts in person. I learned about how to expand student's visual literacy by the use of questioning to appeal to the six different multiple intelligences. It was the first time that I had heard about using this form of questioning when looking at famous pieces of art work. For a portion of the workshop, I even got a lesson in calligraphy! In the afternoon, I visited level four to view the Landon Mackenzie & Emily Carr: Woodchopper and the Monkey exhibition and Mrs. Mackenzie was even there to tell us how she curated the show. What a great experience to have the artist tell you about her own pieces of art!
thursday, october 23rd, 2014
Check out our spooky door decorations!
Friday, october 17th, 2014
The BBQ and Meet the Teacher Night was a success last night! Thank-you for coming out with your parents to see the classroom. If any parents did not get a chance to visit the room, please feel free to drop by after school any day except Fridays (when I head to SFU for school) or you can send me an email.
wednesday, October 8th, 2014
Mystery Skype! As we start talking about local, national, and global news stories, we are going to gain a better understanding of the world around us and how we are connected by Skyping with another classroom in a "mystery" location. In conjunction with our current events unit, we will be taking part in Mystery Skype. The goal of the game is to guess where the other class is by asking a series of "Yes" or "No" questions. It is a cross-curricular approach to learning math, science, and social studies. Students will be learning how to strategically ask questions and interpret answers about time zones, climates, physical and human geography.
tuesday, october 7th, 2014
A Day at Lonsdale Quay! Check out our reflections from the day here!
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 2014
Today marked the start of the Global Read Aloud Project! This year, Division 2 is reading "One for the Murphys" on the same schedule as many different schools all around the world. We will be making predictions, connections, and inferences as we read together.
We have linked up with another classroom of Grades 5, 6, and 7 students to discuss our thoughts on the novel and share any concerns or questions that might come up as we embark on this exciting adventure. In order to collaborate with the other class, we will be Skyping, KidBlogging, and Tweeting... maybe even some Padleting.
Division 2 has spent the week working collaboratively on problem solving in math as well as in art on a mural of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night!
Friday, September 26th, 2014
Welcome to Division 2! After recess, we got into our classes and welcomed everyone to the room. We have a great group of twenty-three Grade 6's and 7's. I am really excited about this year and cannot wait to get started on some activities with the class. I can already tell that we have a great group of students who are helpful, engaging, and respectful.