What is Inquiry?

Students in Room 214 have spent some time this year learning the value of asking questions. Inquiry is a model of learning that encourages natural questioning. When we ask questions about things that interest us, we are more engaged in our learning and in finding out the answers.

We completed a Mind Map that helps to understand what inquiry is all about. Here is a picture of what the students came up with.

For more information on the inquiry process, please click on this link

Arts Express Dance Program

For the last few years, students at Twentieth have had the opportunity to learn dance through a fantastic sponsored program that brings dance instructors into our school once a week for one month to teach them different dance forms. It has been a highlight of the week for many students in 214.

Here is a video of students from 214 (and some other students) getting down to some good old fashioned soul music. 

Don't you love them now that they can dance?

February Newsletter

Our Community Market

For the last two weeks, students in 214 have been hard at work planning, designing, engineering (and sometimes redesigning) storefronts for our upcoming Community Market. In pairs, students will open a shop, sell products, give the right change, and go shopping!

Students were faced with the challenge to create an inviting storefront that encouraged them to think about branding and advertising, all while learning about how to use coin amounts up to $2.

Over the course of this integrated unit, students have become familiar with basic media literacy concepts, as well as regularly exploring the names and values of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, and toonies. We have spent time adding, subtracting, and comparing these values as well as combining coins to make larger amounts.

Please encourage your child to continue practicing with coin values at home. Here are some ways you can encourage your child to use coins and have fun with it:

• Ask your child to help you make the right change when shopping
• Perform pretend 'transactions' at home for things in the cupboard
• Add up the cost of certain groceries on the receipt (like all the fruit or all the veggies)
• Think of all the combinations of coins that could be used to make your age (eg. if you are 42 years old, how many different combinations of coins could be used to make 42 cents?)

Our Community Market will be taking place this Wednesday afternoon and students from other classrooms will be visiting to go shopping!

Raz Kids = Reading Fun!

Last week, I sent home a parent letter with students about our new online reading program called Raz-Kids that I have subscribed Room 214 to. Each student in our class has a password (which is actually a picture) as well as the website address for Raz-Kids taped inside the front of their agenda.

The Raz Robot: Build and personalize a robot with all the reading points you earn!

This service will allow students to read books at their level (I've already set them up at their current reading level) on any device or computer that has a connection to the internet. They can log in from anywhere and choose from over 1000 books that will help them to become fluent masters of reading! There are also assignments that challenge students to use their comprehension and memory skills to answer questions about the books they read.

Personalize your Raz Rocket with more reading points!

All of their progress is tracked by me and as of next week, parents and guardians will be able to log in and track progress too. If you are having any trouble logging your child into Raz Kids, please let me know as soon as possible and I will provide you with 'tech support' and help you and your child to get it up and running.

Here are a quick set of instructions to get you going:

1) Go to Raz-Kids (http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login)

2) Enter the teacher name: zaksmith

3) Find your child's name in the list and click the button above their name.

4) Click on the picture (or pictures) that is the password for your child (found on the slip of paper taped into your child's agenda).

5) Start reading!

Here is the link to the Raz-Kids App for Apple users.

Here is the link to the Raz-Kids App for Android users.

**Note: You do not need the app to use Raz-Kids but it does make it easier...