Grade 5 & 6 Class Blog: 2014

Monday, 15 December 2014

Door Decorating Contest--Merry Christmas

Christmas time is just around the corner! We started all the festivities and decorating at BCA with our annual door decorating competition. Our class had a bit of a rough start. We realized after we had done all of our planning and gotten all the supplies, etc., that we had the same idea as the Pre-K class. Since they have the "cute factor" going for them, we didn't want to compete with that!! We reconvened Monday morning to come up with a new idea. You can see the result of our vote and the sketch of our idea below.

Our door started off with great vim....but not without a HUGE mess!!

This is a bit of the work in progress....You can see the gradual stages of the work.

We worked hard--Monday with glitter! Yay!!--all week until Wednesday at 3:30 when the judges arrived.

Well.....most of us worked.....Some of us clowned around and made faux beards instead of snow and icicles!

Here we go! Here is a hard worker--the winner in the argument for who got to run the vacuum.

And another hard worker under the direction of Miss Dingwall.

This was the competition across the hall in the 3/4 classroom.

SO proud of the finished product!!

Each little snowflake had a different student's picture on it.

Jack with our super cool snowman.

Here you can see the full effect of all the pieces together.

AND the bonus of all this?....We won first prize in the competition!! Our class won donuts and thoroughly enjoyed our little victory party! The students should be very proud of all their work and team effort. We had a great time and enjoyed using everyone's special talents to their fullest.

A special thank you to our judges who gave up time to look at all the doors.

--Miss Leonard

November--Student of the Month

Congratulations to Silas--our November Student of the Month

Silas is a fantastic student! In addition to being a positive, happy, and smiling face in the classroom; he is a super hard worker and a friend to everyone.

Silas deserved this award because he overcome some problems at the beginning of this year; but despite a few setbacks, Silas showed all the characteristics of a good student.

Silas, I am very proud your hard work and your success! Keep up the amazing work!

-Miss Leonard

Remembrance Day in Retrospect

Well, it seems that I am getting a little behind in my blogging all the fun things we do. In November, we spent a lot of time on things for Veteran's Day. All the BCA students entered a poster contest held by the legion. Before the posters went off to be judged, we had our own school contest. Our class had several winners: Anais, Bethany, Gabe, and Jed.
On the Friday before Remembrance Day, we had our Yearly BCA Veteran's Day assembly. At the assembly, our class sang a song called "Standing Silently". It is a great song about the reason behind the traditional moment of silence, which is typically held at these events. They kids sounded great, and I was so proud of them.

You can check out a recording below.

A big thank you to all our Veterans and currently serving service men and women. We appreciate your sacrifice for us.

--Miss Leonard

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Today we got the privilege to hear (and sing with) the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Bramwell Tovey. The Orpheum Theatre itself was breathtaking with the ornate gold trim, chandeliers, and "bathrooms covered in marble". Here we are posing for a brief class shot.

As you can see Jonah and Silas took time for some "chillaxing" in all the grandeur. Don't they look right at home!

Inside the Theatre, it was even more beautiful!! Once we found our seats, there was an infinite amount of things to see and food for the imagination.

Here we have our relaxed gentlemen again. This was directly before they broke into an ear wrenching rendition of "Oh, Canada" full of enthusiasm and patriotic verve......not a hockey game, fellas!

Yes, we waited long enough to get a bevy of pictures, but when the concert started, all was quiet, and we listened to the amazing compositions of Beethoven, Mozart, Gershwin, and even a segment from the Opera "Carmen". It was hard to pick a favorite, but among the ones I heard talked about were "The William Tell Overture" and Beethoven's 5th.

In addition to the beautiful sounds, talented musicians, and riveting conductor, another great thing about the music today was that the students recognized almost every piece. There were lots of over the shoulder smiles to Miss Leonard and whispers of "We know this!" or "The Five Browns play this!" It made me very proud of them!

After the 1 hour concert, which we all decided was not that long at all, we hustled out of the theatre to beat the hordes of "bus students". Unfortunately, we didn't get to look at the wall of composers on the way out--this discovered by the bathroom frequenting crowd just before the concert began. It would have been a great place to explore, but not with a full house of 500 other students!!

On the way home, we stopped at McDonald's for a quick lunch....generally these lunches consisted of a lot of ice cream and french fries....delightful treats before they hit the playland area. "Yes, Miss Leonard! We are allowed in here! It says 3 to 12! We are 12!"
And so they played.....

I think a good time was had by one and all. It was a wonderful day away from our normal learning environment with some wonderful music and new experiences. After all....how many kids can say they sang with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra!!

Thanks to our volunteer drivers and Miss D for their help. You all were great!!
--Miss Leonard

Thursday, 23 October 2014

Gallery Wall

Every day after lunch, I read to the students. Since the beginning of the school year, we have been reading the Keepers of the School series. Everyone is really enjoying them--we even got Preston to laugh on Tuesday!

While I read, the students like to keep busy with doodle challenges or other art projects. One of their latest favorites are complex color-by-number pictures. Here you can see some samples on our new "Gallery Wall" outside the classroom. Feel free to come up and take a closer look if you are in the building!

--Miss Leonard

Friday, 10 October 2014

Fall Tree Art

Our first painting project of the year was 3-D fall tree activity. Here Emily and Gideon are painting their leaves.

Sharon is also working hard on her tree leaves--mixing just the right colors.

This is Preston's Curious Concoction....It didn't seem to affect his final product! Here is Preston's finished tree.

And this is Jisca's finished art project. It think they turned out great!!

--Miss Leonard

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Wheel Day! --Student Blogger

Silas Roller Blading

Jonah on a borrowed scooter.

Last week on Thursday the 25, the Grade 6 students organized a "Wheel Day" for the school. Students brought $2 to bring bikes, scooters, rip sticks, etc., at school. Fun, right? The grade 6s used that money to fund-raise for our grade 6 grad trip. Miss Leonard put Zack, Jack, Bethany, and me in charge of the day. In the morning, the students gave their 'wheels' to us, and we stored them in the space under the stairs, so they wouldn't get stolen by greedy people. I call that the 'Wheels Rush'. Whooo, Big Job! At recess we lined the bikes against the wall. Then when the kids came out, Bethany and I collected the money and gave them stickers to signify that they paid. The 'Wheel Rush' happened at lunch, too.

The grade 5/6 class had PE at the end of the day. We did races with the bikes, scooters, rip sticks, and skateboards. During the scooter race, I had a wipe-out, but I'm still alive, so all is well that ends well! Right? Anyway, after PE we put all the 'wheels' out so the kids could grab them when they came out of school. Ah, such a good day, and such a relief that all that work is over!

--Anais

Some Skate Boarders

Ella on her bike.

The Whole Group

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Student Council

BCA Student Council elections were a great hit! We had four excellent candidates that campaigned from our class. Anais is seen here giving her speech.

Ella handed out campaign buttons and gave a very confident speech regardless of being the only grade 5 in the running!

Bethany also gave a nice speech with many campaign promises.

And then Super Man showed up....or is that Joey?...Yep. That is Joey.

AND THE VOTES ARE IN!!

Newly Elected Student Council Member for Elementary...

JOEY

Student Blogger--Bethany

This year we are having a group called the Student Council. The high school students were voting for President, Vice President, Treasurer, etc. The Student Council needed a kid from the Grade 5/6 class for an Elementary Representative. Everyone in 5/6 voted for a classmate they thought would be the best representative for the elementary students. Eight were chosen. Four stepped down, and four ran for the office: Ella, Joey, Anais, and myself.

On Monday we started campaigning. We hung posters and handed out slips saying stuff like "Vote for Bethany as your Representative". ON Friday, everyone in Elementary came into the 5/6 classroom to listen to our speeches. After that, we all voted. Joey won by one vote!

--Bethany

Congratulations to Joey. And thank you to all who ran and campaigned hard! Good job, everyone.

--Miss Leonard

Thursday, 18 September 2014

Relief Maps of Canada

Salt maps....I remember making a salt map of West Virginia when I was in grade 4. What a great idea for teaching the major land forms of Canada! We started with amazing parent participation. Everyone sent in 2 cups of Salt. THANK YOU!

The students had previously traced the outline of this very complexly shaped country onto a pizza box (Very kindly donated by Panago). The pizza boxes were then spray painted by each student, covered in an economy sized garbage bag as a smock--don't want a bright royal blue on those uniforms!!

Miss Leonard supplied the flour, and the next step was to make the dough. It was a bit of a messy process (upon reflection, I would cover the entire room with a drop-cloth next time!), but we managed to get it all mixed up without any major damage!

The next step was to start filling the outline with dough. It is not as easy as it sounds and took some of the students a LOT longer than they thought!