Every month we will post a new set of key ideas and concepts that your child will be learning in their classes at AV. They are meant to help keep you aware of what general topics are being covered in order to be more efficient and effective in assisting your son or daughter at home. Throughout the year, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us through email at either daniel.ellis@ocdsb.ca or audree.kresic@ocdsb.ca.

Therefore, during February, the following areas will be covered:

English

In English class, we will begin looking at persuasive texts for the purpose of understanding some of the techniques used to convince people of ideas and arguments. To begin, students will have the opportunity to develop a short, persuasive text with their own opinions on a specific debated topic. We will also discover how to identify ways to counter-argue points from the other side. We will also connect these topics with a number of other concepts covered in different subjects (i.e Math & French) by looking at developing a poster/flyer promoting their Robotic Race Track Design from math class while also making it a bilingual version.

In addition, students will be responsible for choosing a second “Hot Topic” issue in the media recently and present their thoughts and opinions about that article during the final week of the month. It will be similar to the assignment completed in November.

Also, from time to time, students will be asked to respond to different bellwork assignments from class (Picture of the week, Video of the week etc.) on Google classroom.

Finally, starting in September and continuing until the end of May, students will have the opportunity to choose a minimum of one book to read each month of the school year. They will complete a short assignment at the end of each month on one of the books the read to be submitted through Google classroom.

Math

Moving into February, we have been quickly been covering concepts related to Geometry such as types of angles (acute, right, obtuse, straight) and measuring/constructing angles (up to 90 degrees- Gr5 & 180 degrees – Gr6)with a protractor. We have also discovered ways to construct different shapes (Gr5 – Triangles & Gr6 – Regular/Irregular Polygons) with specific side lengths or angle sizes.
Students are now working through a very unique way of learning some of these concepts, as they will be also be creating a Race Track design meant for the Lego Mindstorm EV3 robots to drive through. Students will be creating a program to allow the robot to drive a lap of their track taking into account all the different side lengths and angles created in the track (Gr.5 triangles, Gr. 6 parallelogram/other polygons).

In addition to the geometrical component of the race track, we will also make the connection of understanding the rate of the robot while driving. Students will be timing how long it takes to drive one lap as well as the total distance covered in order to calculate the rate at which it is moving.

Finally, we occasionally take the time to discuss the many connections between math concepts learned in class to other strands/terms that we have previously looked at or will look at later in the year. This is to impart in students minds that all things in math are connected and that they will likely see some topics again in later units.

Stay tuned for next month’s post reflecting our learning goals for March.