A Fond Farewell!

Year End Field Trip: we had a blast! The weather held off long enough for lots of fun times at Confederation Park, and lunch before heading inside to the Eileen Dailly Pool.

Unknown Austrian girls visiting from the set of The Sound of Music. Lovely hair!

Well folks, it's time to say goodbye, but not before thanking parents for entrusting me with the education of your child for a year. We have shared many experiences together, learned lots, laughed lots, and grew up lots.

A heartfelt thank you too, to all parents and students for your many gifts and expressions of appreciation. You are a very generous community!

Lastly, now's a good time to Unsubscribe from Mr. Clarke's and Mrs. Startup's blog. I suggest you do it now while you're thinking about it!

Here's to a happy and safe summer for you and your family... and again, many thanks for your outstanding support over the year!

Wednesday June 15, 2016

Year End Gr. 5 Trip!

Mark your calendars... The Gr. 5s in Mr. Clarke/Ms. Startup's class, and the Gr. 5s in Ms. Reichert's class will be going on their year end trip on Friday, June 24 to Confederation Park and the Eileen Dailly Pool for the day.

Assuming the weather is cooperative, we'll leave Brooksbank shortly after 9:00 a.m. to head to Confederation Park, where there is room for picnicing, playing soccer or Ultimate, or just relaxing on a blanket and chatting with a friend. We'll have our lunch early so we can pack up and walk over to the Eileen Dailly Pool as we have reserved the 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm time for our school. I have asked the children to indicate if they are beginning, intermediate, or non-swimmers. If your child is a non-swimmer, you should contact Mr. Clarke.

By the time we dry off and get changed, it'll be time to drive back to Brooksbank for dismissal.

Look for a letter from us to come home Thursday or Friday of this week in your child's backpack. We will be looking for parent drivers (you are welcome to stay for the day or just drop off and pick up at the end of the day).

Thank you! We're looking forward to the day.

Tuesday June 14, 2016

Reminder:

• Decimals/Fractions quiz (W)

• good copy of C.S.I. on "Lucky" (W)

Thanks to Charlotte, Capri, Raya, Riya, Laleh, Naomi, Caleb, Dylan, Diego, and Lucas M for their Genius Hour presentations today. They were fabulous!

 

What did we encounter today?

• How to build your own website
• Photography
• 3 Original piano tunes composed and performed
• a working Lego crossbow
• a projector for phones
• rocketry

...and I've heard there will be more to come! Next opportunities will be Friday and Tuesday afternoons.

We were lucky, too, to have Ms. Russell join us for the Genius Hour portion of the afternoon. She is gaining valuable experience in a variety of schools in Surrey, but drove back just to see us. So nice!

Monday, June 13, 2016

Komagata Maru incident, 1914

For those students that haven't handed it in yet, today's reading assignment on the Komagata Maru apology by P.M. Trudeau needs to be completed as soon as possible.

The results from the 12 times tables quiz are now posted on FreshGrade.

We have a math quiz on Wednesday covering:
1)     convert decimal tenths and hundredths to fractions 
                    eg:   0.3 = 3/10 and vice versa (fractions to decimals)     eg: 83/100 = 0.83

2)     money eg: 25 cents = $0.25 = 25/100 = a "quarter"
                    eg: 5/100 = $0.05 = 5 cents = a "nickel"

3)     given a blank 100s grid, shade this fraction of it (eg: 0.24, or 35/100, etc)

Genius Hour update: For those who wish to, and are ready, they may present at Tuesday afternoon's Genius Hour from 2 - 3 pm.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

We had a wonderful presentation in our class today as a follow-up to our "Working Waterfront" field trip to the harbour last week. Today we had a rep from Vancouver Pile Driving who came and explained the work they do in building bridges, docks, cruise ship and ferry terminals, etc.

We went right past their drydock and dock space when we toured the harbour last week, but it was great to learn more about this company and the kind of work they do.

Their representative is a civil engineer, who explained how everything they need to build with, from steel pipe, to gravel, to concrete arrives at their site in North Vancouver by truck, and is then unloaded by a gantry crane so that the building materials can be barged to where they need to be, or in some cases so they can build a structure right in their own dry dock.

One of the more interesting projects VanPile built was the floating bridge across Kelowna Lake in 2008. The William R. Bennett bridge is a floating bridge, with all the concrete floats built by VanPile, and anchored to the bottom of the lake with cables and anchors, and a minimum number of piles. These steel piles were driven down to a depth of 30m to 50m below the bottom of the lake to ensure stability.

Students got to ask questions afterwards, and there was a good deal of excitement evident from the number of questions the representative had to field! We were fortunate to be able to learn such unique perspectives about our North Shore shoreline. 

...And we were given Vancouver Pile Driving ball caps!

All decked out with our VanPile ball caps!

Thank you to the Working Waterfront Alliance!