Two of our very own participated - Jasper dancing and Sascha singing! Bravo les garçons!
Check out clips from the talent show here! Password is our English teacher's last name:
https://vimeo.com/131616485
Check back to this page for updates on what's going on in Portable 2 throughout the year!
We had a lot of fun today at the Knoxdale Eagles Talent Show! Grade 5 and 6 students performed a variety of acts, including piano, singing, dance, and even jokes!
Two of our very own participated - Jasper dancing and Sascha singing! Bravo les garçons! Check out clips from the talent show here! Password is our English teacher's last name: https://vimeo.com/131616485
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We had so much fun this afternoon at Centrepointe Park for our MFI end of year celebration. We had beautiful weather and the kids enjoyed running through the cold water on a hot day!
Thank you to our parent volunteers and for bringing some furry friends to come visit! We had a fierce competition in class in Science this week! To wrap up our Physics units, students faced a design challenge in pairs. The grade 5's had very limited materials (50 straws + 1m of tape + 1 piece of paper) to create a bridge that could span 30 centimeters, withstand wind force, and hold as much weight as possible. Many adjusted their plans as they built, and in the end, Jasper & Ryan had the best scientific explanation of the forces involved in the bridge while holding significant weight and withstanding the wind.
The grade 4's had unlimited materials as they had to incorporate pulleys and/or gears into their catapult design. Congratulations to our two boys who launched their catapult to victory with a fantastic design! Check out their perseverance as they tried and tried again to find the best catapult design! The password is our English teacher's last name (lower case): https://vimeo.com/131616766 Bravo tout le monde! Today we had Jump Rope for Heart, a fantastic fundraiser close to Knoxdale's heart as one of our own staff members suffers from a heart condition. Students participated well as we skipped outside to fun music. Some played group games, while others showed off their individual skills.
Bravo les aigles! We had an AMAZING opportunity today to experience French Canadian Culture first hand with La Ridaine from MASC. They were an amazing and very engaging musical group who shared traditional French Canadian music with us. To top it all off, they even taught us several French Canadian dances! It was such a fun, interactive assembly during which many students got to participate!
Check out their dancing and music here! The password is our English teacher's last name (lower case): https://vimeo.com/131617152 What a wet but fun day! :) It poured all day long at Upper Canada Village for the annual Medieval Fair, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! We saw an exciting jousting match - our knight, Sir Chanton, won in a final epic match! We also got to try out experience medieval lifestyle, tools, and even weapons with a giant catapult!
It was a fantastic way to end off our Early Societies unit in Social studies! Despite the rain and cool weather, we had a very successful junior track and field day! Students participated in at least 3 different events, and we had many of our students place in the top 5! Bravo!
I really enjoyed seeing everyone give their full effort and encouraging each other. Check out these great pictures and the 100m finals on video! The password is our English teacher's last name (lower case): https://vimeo.com/131617303 Today we had Scientists in the School for 2 physics workshops to kick off our last Science units for the year: grade 5 forces and grade 4 ancient machines! The grade 5's learned about different types of forces and completed a structure challenge to use newspapers and tape to hold as much weight as possible. Congrats to the winning group - their structure held over 22 books!
The grade 4's had a great workshop that helped wrap up our history unit in Social Studies and launch into our Pulleys & Gears unit as we explored "ancient" simple machines and discussed how the Ancient Egyptians could have possibly built the pyramids using simple physics! Today, the grade 4's had the amazing opportunity to go explore the Wetlands at the Bill Mason Centre. The field trip was sponsored by the Ducks Unlimited. We had such a fun time learning about the importance of wetlands and protecting natural habitats up close! We played games to reinforce concepts about migration and resources, and then got to explore life in the Vanishing Pond. Students got to use nets and buckets to look at life in the pond up close. We found insects, tadpoles, and other pond creatures! Everyone loved it :) We absolutely love opportunities to get hands-on with the curriculum, and this field trip really reinforced our Habitats & Communities Science Unit in a powerful way!
To wrap up our Social Studies unit on our Heritage & Identity, we invited other classes to our History Museum! We've been discussing historical significance, and so students created an artwork to represent significance in their given early society and explained their decision on their written "plaque."
The grade 4 students each chose an ancient civilization or the Middle Ages and researched the various aspects of that society. With the big picture in mind, they picked 1 aspect that they thought was the most significant for that people group and described its impact and importance. As we explored the interactions and conflict between Aboriginals and early European settlers in early Canada, the grade 5 students decided on which event or action had the more significant impact on the development of early Canada and these 2 people groups. Check out their amazing projects! We look forward to visiting 4/5EFI's museum when they're ready! Wow! What an amazing night! :) Artscape was a huge success - an amazing celebration of the arts at Knoxdale! The Dance Club & Glee Club both had some incredible performances - we have such talented students at Knoxdale!
Check out our beautiful art - our class did contrast art. The grade 4's contrasted seasons using cool and warm colours, while the grade 5's contrasted a healthy, natural world with a polluted one for Earth Day. We're all so proud of our Knoxdale students! Thank you for supporting Project Playground & Free the Children! We had the amazing opportunity of participating in a drumming workshop today at school. The guest presenter was from South Africa and shared some amazing insights about rhythm and the power of communicating through drumming. Students got to try many different types of traditional and non-traditional drums and create amazing rhythmic sequences.
Enjoy the photos and video clip! The password is our English teacher's last name (lower case): https://vimeo.com/131617618 In celebration of Earth Day, our students helped clean up the Knoxdale yard - it looks amazing! We are SO very ready for the nice weather. They also made up songs and raps about why the Earth is worth protecting and how to help.
We have some very environmentally-aware students! :) Check out their performances here! The password is our English teacher's last (lower case). https://vimeo.com/127882960_ This week in grade 4, we have been exploring the properties of light for our Light & Sound Science Unit. The students discovered that 1) Light travels in a straight line (trajectory) and 2) Light bounces off shiny surfaces to travel in a new direction (reflection) through some science experiments.
They did a great job problem solving to get the light from the light source to the target! ![]() Today as a school we celebrated "wear pink day" - a day to encourage anti-bullying by standing together to say that it's not what's on the outside that matters - it's what's on the inside that counts! Every class prepared anti-bullying t-shirt slogans and poems that were posted around the school. We read some great messages! As a class, we also talked about how we can be a helpful and caring classmate to one another and read "Le cadeau du morse" to discuss strategies to use when someone is bothering you. As a school, we are using the W.I.T.S. program this year (Walk Away, Ignore, Talk it out, Seek Help) to help equip kids with different strategies for different situations. We've had some mad scientists in our classroom over the past week, sharing physical and chemical reactions with the class in a fun and creative way! Students had to use tone and expression to communicate the physical properties of their ingredients as well as the explication of their reaction.
Our scientists did a great job! Check out our "Knoxdale Mad Science" TV show here: https://vimeo.com/131618527 . The password is our English teacher's last name (lower case). ![]() Each grade 4 student picked a rock or mineral to investigate in their final project. After doing research in the computer lab, students took notes and put all of their information onto a project cube. These cubes had information about their rocks or minerals such as the physical properties, everyday uses, where it is mined, and other fun facts. The students did a great job! Have we ever been lucky this winter with wonderful skating weather!
It is such a luxury to have a skating rink right in our school yard. We have had perfect skating weather week after week, and our whole class has really enjoyed the opportunity to skate. I absolutely love seeing the kids encourage and help each other, especially those who are just learning how to skate! It's also so great to see the boys play "sockey" so fairly together - they truly cooperate and have fun together! We're hoping our good luck continues with the weather this week and for the coming weeks. Thank you SO MUCH to our parent volunteers for your time! We literally could not do it without you :) ![]() Our rocks and minerals unit is in full swing, and this week students are putting rocks to the test in our very own Rock Olympics! Students tested the physical properties of various rocks and minerals to see which rock would win the gold at each station. We tested for hardness using the Moh’s Scale, examined the impact of water on colour, studied the weight of rocks, and determined which rocks or minerals are the most useful. Students showed gold-medal teamwork as they judged our “rock-star athletes!”
We had a LOT of fun celebrating the holiday season with a whole school sing-a-long in the gym today. In our pyjamas, we sang Petit Papa Noel with M. Karl's grade 1 class, despite technical difficulties! Everyone was SO excited and had a great time!
It’s the last day before the holidays, so of course we had to celebrate with some fun holiday games! The boys were thrilled when my husband arrived with NHL 2014 - they had a fun tournament and Isaac and Alden ended up winning the "Knoxdale Cup" in the finals. During that time, the rest of the class played some very fun Minute to Win It style holiday games. Games included “Snowball Head” - the team captain stood with a cup on their head, and teammates threw cotton balls from behind a line, earning a point for each one that lands in the cup; it was MUCH harder than it looks! We also created toilet-paper snowmen by wrapping the team captain up! Finally, we had a few snowball races by blowing cotton balls. It was a very fun start to the holidays! Joyeuses fêtes! We have had Scientists in the School visit us 2 times for a few different workshops. The scientists shared very informative presentations and hands-on experiments/workshop activities to reinforce core content that we are learning in Science this year.
The grade 4's got to participate in a pulleys & gears workshop where they had many opportunities to experiment with everyday objects and solve design challenges. Their next workshop will be on Light & Sound on March 2nd. The grade 5's participated in a Human Body workshop and created different human organ systems and learned in hands-on ways how different organs work. They also had a workshop about the changes of matter and put on their safety glasses to do various chemical reactions and see science in action! We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to have these experts and their hands-on materials in our classroom this year. Thank you Parent Council! ![]() As part of our Health unit of coping and responding to dangerous situations, we completed Level 1 of the Red Cross "People Savers" course. I am a certified Red Cross First Aid trainer, so we had a lot of fun practicing our oral French and discussing who we can go to for help in various situations, as well as the importance of looking for dangers and getting help quickly to keep yourself safe. The students did a great job and many earned their Secouristes Avertis certificate! What a fun day we just had at the Ottawa 67's School Game Day hockey game! I've never heard such a loud and enthusiastic crowd! :)
Students had lots of fun as Knoxdale junior students filled a whole section. We cheered on the 67's to victory! Our grade 5 students had a great field trip to the Parliament Buildings today. They showed great respect as we toured around the inside and outside of Parliament.
First, we had a guided tour which helped us understand the journey of a bill becoming a law through the different parts of government. We got to see the House of Commons as well as the Senate and Library, and our knowledgeable tour guide pointed out many interesting facts along the way. The students participated well in answering her questions to pass the law. Then, we visited the Peace Tower and started our "scavenger hunt," finding the answers to questions to win a prize. After lunch, we saw the statues and memorials outside the Parliament buildings. So much history and beautiful architecture! Enjoy the photos! :) |
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