Tin Roof Global Fundraiser

Tin Roof Global Fundraiser

The Student Council at Rick Hansen Public School is very excited to introduce our newest fundraiser - Tin Roof Global Water Challenge.  The challenges will run from Friday, April 29th to Friday, May 27th.  Our aim is to raise money to build tin roofs on schools in Uganda.  By achieving this goal of raising money to build a tin roof, the water can be collected in a huge concrete vat to be shared throughout the entire community.  Many communities in southern Uganda have to walk at least two kilometres to a water source which is often extremely dirty.  This leads to illnesses, lack of education (time taken away from class time to access water) and in extreme cases, death. Tin Roof Global has been working for years to build tin roofs on schools in Uganda.  One roof, from start to finish, costs approximately $10,000.  It is the aim of our school to raise as much money as we can to help the children of Uganda.

Challenges:

1/ Down the Hatch - Friday, April 29th

2/ Water Walk Challenge - Wednesday, May 4th

3/ Lug-A-Bucket - Monday, May 9th - Friday, May 13th

4/ Water Conservation - Monday, May 16th - Friday, May 20th

5/ Plunge - Friday, May 27th

All these Challenges mimic the harsh conditions that some Ugandan citizens face on a daily basis as they access water.

We would appreciate any help that you can give us as we try to make life better for people in Uganda.  Please visit our website:

Ms Sunnerton's Class Tin Roof Challenge Website

Tax receipts will be given for donations over $25.

Art Tomorrow

We will be painting tomorrow afternoon ! Please bring a "painting shirt".

Spelling Homework

Some of the activities in our new spelling program involve typing and working on a computer. Yesterday I explained to the students that instead of printing their spelling homework they can simply share their document with me on google drive. Many students know how to do this already and I showed the students the steps again yesterday. If students are not comfortable with this it is still perfectly fine to hand the work in. Here are the steps for sharing homework with me on google drive

1. Open Google and type google.yrdsb.ca into the search

2. Login in with user name and password (students have this in their agendas)

3. Create a document (press the rectangle that says "NEW" in red and select document.

4. Type your homework!

5. Click on SHARE on the right side and type in Sunnerton

Flashcards!

Hopefully something like this came home yesterday! In math each student created their own set of flashcards with doubles, and doubles plus one facts. By reviewing these cards at home students will build their mental math skills. I have asked the students to practise with these cards every night for about ten minutes for the next two weeks. These cards do not need to come back to school! Here are some ways students can practise with these cards at home: 

#1 Go through each card and solve the addition problem, check the back to compare your solution. * I really encouraged students to not "skip" cards that they don't know. They should be trying to find the solution to every card! It helps to think aloud. Once students "know" their doubles facts they can use those facts to solve the double plus one facts.

 For example, a thought process for solving 8+9 might be "I know 8+8 =16, 8+9 is one more than 16 so the answer is 17". OR "I know 9+9=18, 8+9 is one less than 18 so the answer is 17. 

#2 Students that confidently know the answer for each fact card might have fun timing themselves to see how quickly they can go through the cards.

#3 As a challenge, students who are confident with the facts can look at the answer (go through the cards backwards) and say the two numbers that were added together to make the answer. 

#4 Playing War! This is a fun way to practise the doubles and doubles plus one facts with an adult, sibling, or friend. Take the cards off of the ring and split them into two equal groups. Each person adds their numbers and the person with the greater number for their answer gets to keep both cards. Play until one person runs out of cards! 

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or even new ideas for how to use the flashcards! Thank you for your support. 

New Social Studies

Tomorrow we will be starting our new Social Studies Inquiry Unit about the Global and Local Communities. For this unit I will be teaching the Grade Ones and Grade Twos together! In this unit we will be exploring our local community, global communities, and we will also be creating, and interpreting maps!

To begin I will be posing the question Why do we live where we live? Throughout the unit we will be thinking about this question and hopefully generating some meaningful answers! It is great if you can talk to your child about this question and come up with some ideas from home as I know that many family members will have some really insightful answers for this.

It would also be great if you can talk to your child about the services and buildings (community centres, schools, municipal building, stores, fire and police, doctor)  we have here in Aurora while thinking about how these places meet our needs. Grade Two students would benefit from spending some time exploring the atlas. If you do not have one at home here is a link to an interactive map that students can spend some time exploring.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-map-viewer.html

Happy March Break!

Just a quick note wishing everyone a wonderful safe and fun March Break! If you are looking for some learning activities for over the break here are some ideas!

• Read everyday! Take a trip to the Aurora Public Library and borrow some books about a topic you are interested in, explore a brand new series of chapter books, or take out some cool looking picture books that you have never seen before! If you read a really great book we would LOVE to hear about it after the break!

• Math Games! In math we are learning about strategies for addition and subtraction. We have been focusing on "Friendly Numbers" (for example if you are adding 5+6 you can easily add 5+5 and then add one more!), and Making Ten (all the different number combinations that make ten for exmaple 8+2, 9+1, 6+4 etc.). I have sent home a couple of math games for students to play with family or friends over the break. The games require dice. I thought most families have dice at home, if not they are at the dollar store. 

• Writing! Consider reading a story and then writing a different ending or new chapter! Perhaps keep a diary of your thoughts and feelings over March Break, or write a retell of an activity that you experienced on the break. If you feel proud about something you wrote on March Break we would LOVE to hear it after the break! 

Which Stuffy is the Tallest?

Today we had fun measuring the length of our stuffys! We learned that Yash's stuffy is the tallest. Followed closely by Sparkles, Teddy, and Puppy! We measured using non-standard units (snap cubes). D.F. noticed that since  he knows one snap cube is 2cm he could figure out the length of his Stuffy in cm too!

Here is our class photo of stuffys. We arranged our stuffys in the same way the students appear in their own class photo- tallest stuffys in the back row!