Math – Page 2 – Mrs. Black's Class Blog

Tracking the Yukon Quest! 1

Margaret BlackFebruary 28, 2016March 8, 20161 Comment

The Yukon Quest is a 1,000 mile sled dog race between Fairbanks, Alaska and Whitehorse, in the Yukon. This year, 23 mushers and their 14-dog teams braved the elements for nine to twelve days, traveling scantily marked trails, over mountain ranges, along frozen rivers and through forests, stopping to resupply at just ten checkpoints along the route. Our class was particularly interested in following Hank Debruin and his team of Siberian Huskies, from Haliburton, Ontario. They have completed both the 1,000 mile Iditarod, and the Yukon Quest twice before.

Prior to the February 6th start of the Yukon Quest, students watched videos and read articles that provided background about Alaskan and Siberian Huskies, the equipment and food that mushers use on the trail, and the challenges they were likely to face in the northern wilderness.

Next, students wrote mini-biographies about all of the musher's in this year's race, by summarizing information posted on the Yukon Quest website. Students were particularly impressed to learn that one of this year's rookie mushers was a nineteen year old girl from Minnesota. Other mushers hailed from across North America and Europe. One musher was a Japanese woman, now living and training in Whitehorse.

Another aspect of our Yukon Quest unit was a reading challenge. The goal was to read for 1,000 minutes faster than Hank Debruin and his dogs could run 1,000 miles on the trail. We tracked everyone's progress on a door-sized graph.

All of the mushers carry SPOT Trackers on their sleds, so each morning we went online to see how far the teams had progressed on the trail. We plotted Hank's progress on a trail map.

We also graphed and compared the temperature in Washago with the temperature in Alaska/Yukon, throughout the race. At one point, we were surprised to see that it was colder in Central Ontario than in the far north!

Our temperature is in red. Hank's is in blue!

We also practiced estimating and calculating elapsed time, by trying to predict when Hank's team would reach one of the checkpoints based on his position and the speed he was moving. Groups of students then shared the methods they used to calculate an answer, and their time estimates.

Hank beat our Eagle checkpoint estimate by 10 minutes. All of the dogs he was running, at that point in the race, were veterans of the 2014 Quest, so they knew the trail. We are guessing the team sped up on their final approach to Eagle, knowing that they would soon be receiving a warm meal and a nice, long rest!

Mushers start with 14 dogs, and can drop off dogs that are not feeling up to continuing, at any checkpoint. However, once a dog is dropped it cannot be replaced or resume the race. Dropped dogs are cared for by the musher's support team until the race is over.

Unfortunately, this year Hank had many road blocks thrown in his path from the very beginning. In the first three days after leaving the start line in Fairbanks, Hank and some of his dogs experienced ill health, and an important trail sign disappeared, causing Hank and several other mushers to take a lengthy, incorrect detour in the mountains, and then backtrack to the main trail. One of Hank's dogs, "Charlie," who had not been exhibiting any signs of illness and had just been cleared by race vets (dogs receive mandatory vet exams at most checkpoints), collapsed on the trail without warning, and had to be rushed back to the previous checkpoint, at Central, for medical care. Fortunately, she made a full recovery.

Illness, detours and caring for Charlie added many more miles to the early days of Hank's Quest. On the evening of Day 3, Hank left the Circle checkpoint in last place by ten hours, with just nine dogs on his team. Despite this, he continued down the frozen Yukon River, to Eagle, Alaska.

These are photos Hank's wife, Tanya, took of the team leaving for Eagle:

After leaving the Eagle checkpoint, Hank's team ascended a peak called American Summit. When he was almost at the top, he turned around and headed back down the mountain to Eagle. We found out later that he had encountered blizzard conditions, and elected to return to the safety of the previous checkpoint overnight, for the sake of the dogs. When dawn rose the following day, the trail had been obliterated by one to two feet of drifting snow, and Hank didn't have the heart to ask his small team to re-climb the mountain and then break trail on their own for over 100 miles, just to reach the mid-point of the race in Dawson City. For the first time in his racing career, Hank decided to end his race early.

Although sad to see Hank's race end early, students in our class understood that Hank had put the welfare of his dogs ahead of his aspirations to complete the race. Hank became a hero to our class, in a way that he likely cannot even imagine. Students sent Hank heartfelt messages of support, and elected to finish the race on his behalf by continuing their reading challenge until the last musher in the race crossed the finish line.

This year's totals, in the Hank Debruin Reading Challenge," are impressive! Students in our class read for a combined total of 40,055 minutes, over three weeks. We want to sincerely thank Hank Debruin, his wife Tanya, and their amazing dogs for inspiring so much great learning, via their Quest!! We are hoping Hank will come to class, to present the reading challenge certificates, and share some of his amazing Iditarod and Yukon Quest experiences, once the racing season is over.

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In related news... Earlier in the school year, Mrs. Black won a copy of a novel about dog sledding, written by an author living in Whitefish Falls, Ontario. Throughout the month of February, we enjoyed the book as our class read-aloud. The author, Terry Lynn Johnson, will be Skyping with us about the book, and her experiences as a dog sledder, author and conservation officer in early March!

Other curriculum-based ideas and resources for tracking the Yukon Quest with students are located on Mrs. Black's website: http://blackdeer.ca/YukonQuest11/index.html

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

The Epic Knitty Bitty Clothing & Food Drive!

Margaret BlackDecember 16, 2015December 19, 2015Leave a comment

In September, our class offered to promote and organize the school's annual drive in support of the local food bank. Then, in October, high school ambassadors from Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), visited our class and helped students identify a pair of outreach projects that would complement the food drive nicely: a winter clothing drive and a campaign to knit scarves for the less fortunate. Our project, which the students named "The Epic Knitty Bitty Clothing & Food Drive," took place from mid-November to mid-December.

Students in our class began their work by decorating banners and boxes for a drop-off station in the school foyer.

Our drop-off station:

Next, we created colourful posters and distributed them throughout the school.

Students in our class also wrote a short piece for the school newsletter and counted out flyers, reminding Kindergarten through Grade 8 students and their parents to contribute. The Grade 4 class helped with promotion by writing and reading reminders on the morning announcements.

After our drop-off station was set up and promotion was in place, it was time to start knitting! A few students in our class already knew how to knit. Several others attended a knitting course/club, run by our school's Grade 4 teacher.

Some of us also made polar fleece scarves, for the clothing drive.

Throughout the campaign students in our class kept the drop-off station neat, by organizing the food items and bringing bags of clothing to the classroom for storage.

When our trio of drives were over, we sorted the donations and readied them to be delivered to local social service agencies. Mrs. Black drove our food to The Sharing Place food bank, and clothing to the Green Haven Women's Shelter's drop off location. She also delivered a few pet food items that came in with the food drive to the Orillia SPCA.

Here, we are sorting, counting and packing the food drive items:

At the food bank:

Sorting and packing the clothing drive items:

At Green Haven's drop off centre:

We were amazed by the response to our food and clothing drive! We collected 339 food items (which weighed in at 327 lbs.) and 14 large bags of clothes. Students in our class also made a total of 15 scarves for the less fortunate.

We want to thank everyone who donated food, clothes, knitting supplies and polar fleece, to "The Epic Knitty Bitty Clothing & Food Drive." Your donations will keep some grateful people warm and well fed this winter!

The "Knitty Bitty" drive isn't the only thing that's epic. Mrs. Black wants to recognize her EPIC STUDENTS for their caring and compassion, and congratulate them on a job exceptionally well done! 🙂

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Hour of Code 2015

Margaret BlackDecember 16, 2015December 16, 2015Leave a comment

Last week, our class participated in "The Hour of Code," an initiative aimed at providing school children, world-wide, with experience writing computer code. Students watched the following video and then worked through various tutorials on the code.org/learn website, or for tablets at studio.code.org

Students LOVED the opportunity to learn about how computer programs are written, and to change the way characters and components of games behave. Here are some pictures from our class' Hour of Code experience:

This is what some of the students in our class had to say about Hour of Code:

Z.M.
I like Hour of Code, because it is fun and it makes you feel like a computer wiz. It is fun to rig games to get lots of points. Hour of Code is awesome!

J.S.
Hour of Code is the best, because you get to program games!

B.L.
I think that the Hour of Code was so cool, because you can make the game funny or weird. It is also awesome, because it is fun learning about how computer games really work.

S.T.
Hour of Code was cool, especially because you can "code" your own game! 🙂

J.M.
Hour of Code is a great way for children around the world to learn computer programming. It is fun for all ages. I enjoyed creating and personalizing games.

B.W.
I think the Hour of Code is wicked awesome because I got to create my own game!

A.M.
I like Hour of Code because you can design your own game. Then you can play it and change it.

L.B.
I think Hour of Code is fun because you can program the game, and so it is a lot like creating your own game.

B.T.
I like Hour of Code because it can express your computer-science-y imagination. You can control the character of YOUR game, and do whatever YOUR heart desires!

R.K.
I think it is a good experience to code your own game. I love it! It makes me feel like a real programming guy.

M.M.
Hour of Code is a game to learn computer codes. It is an awesome learning game. When I got home, I ran straight to my computer and played again. BEST GAME EVER!

This morning, students in our class used their experience with Hour of Code to mentor the children in Mrs. Wilson's Kindergarten class. The Grade 5's taught four and five year olds how they could write computer code. Students, big and small, really enjoyed this experience!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

“Market Day” for the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre 1

Margaret BlackNovember 30, 2015December 11, 20151 Comment

Part 1 of our class' turtle project involved researching Ontario turtles, Skyping with staff at the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre (KTTC), in Peterborough, and writing persuasive letters to our local MPP, urging him to ask the government to ban the hunting of Snapping Turtles.

Part 2 of our project was a class fund-raiser, in support of KTTC. The name of the fund-raiser was "Market Day." Students in our class were invited to donate gently used toys and books that they no longer needed and were willing to sell to friends. After everything had been collected, the class divided the items into four categories, or "stores." Students then arranged themselves into teams of six or seven, created signs for the stores, and priced the items they would be selling. All items were priced between 25 cents and a dollar. When Market Day arrived, teams set up their stores and students took turns selling, or browsing and purchasing goods.

The Book Store:

The Toy Store:

The Video and Game Store:

The Stuffed Animal and Nik Knak Store:

Each student in our class was invited to bring up to $5.00 to spend on purchases at Market Day. This event gave students great real-life practice working in a team, marketing, buying, selling, counting money and calculating change.

When our market closed, student teams counted their store profits.

This is the tally of money raised through Market Day:

Video/Game Store: $28.85
Stuffed Animals & Nik Knacks Store: $24.60
Toy Store: $23.50
Book Store: $17.25

Some students also elected to donated their unspent money: $15.90

The grand total raised by students was: $110.10

Mrs. Black had previously promised to match the students' donation. With her contribution added, our class' total donation to the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre became: $220.20!!

Thank you and congratulations to all the students and parents who supported our fund-raiser with donations of goods and money. We know the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre will put our funds to excellent use!

Mrs. Black also wants to thank her teaching colleague Lisa MacRae, for sharing the idea of Market Day.

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Nutrition Meets Math

Margaret BlackNovember 10, 2015November 11, 2015Leave a comment

Each year in health class, we study the importance of healthy eating and exercise. Our class recently reviewed the Canada Food Guide and a PowerPoint presentation about nutrition labels.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/order-commander/eating_well_bien_manger-eng.php

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/label-etiquet/nutrition/educat/info-nutri-label-etiquet-eng.php

We were curious about the sugar and salt content of prepackaged foods and drinks that students bring to school for lunch. After one of our nutrition breaks we collected a random assortment of packages that had nutrition labels, from classroom garbage and recycling bins.

We examined the sodium content of salty snacks, in small, Halloween-sized bags. Most of the potato chip, Dorito and cheezie bags contained between 95 and 110 mg of sodium. This represents 5% of the Daily Value for sodium.

We compared the sodium content of the chip bags to that of a "Lunchable." We were shocked to find that the Lunchable contained over five times as much sodium as the chips... or 23% of the Daily Value for sodium!

Next, we examined the sugar content of "sweet" treats, and ranked several items in order of sugar content.

Then, we graphed the sugar content of twelve sweet snacks that students had brought to school for lunch.

While some students were drawing and colouring the graph, others weighed granulated sugar to approximate the amount of sugar in each snack. We bagged the granulated sugar and attached it to the graph.

The ranking of some of the items and the large quantity of sugar in the bags surprised everyone!

We mounted the graph in the hall outside our classroom. It became an instant conversation piece for students in our class, and for those passing through our hallway!

During our next health lesson, we decided it might be a good idea to examine the sugar content of healthier school lunch items, and graph them as well.

The "healthy food graph" gave our class and passersby some extra data to consider. These are Grade 5 and 6 students discussing the graph on their way in from recess.

This is a Grade 1 class discussing the graph. They are also studying nutrition right now.

We discussed the fact that, although we represented sugar content for all items using granulated white sugar, the sugar that is present in most of the items on the healthy food graph are natural sugars, rather than manufactured sugars that were added to make food and drinks more appealing.

Students in our class felt our graphing activity was an eye-opening experience. Here are some of their comments:

R.K.: I was shocked to find out how much sugar was in Powerade and chocolate bar flavoured milk. I thought Coke would be the worst.

B.T.: It’s unbelievable how much sugar can be in everyday foods!

B.L.: I agree. It’s amazing how much sugar is in everything we eat.

J.M.: Nobody really thinks about how much sugar and sodium they are intaking every day.

W.C.: I couldn’t believe how much sugar is in root beer. I thought Coke would be higher.

R.P.: Every day, every person thinks they are just drinking flavoured milk, but the Caramilk type has a ton of sugar in it.

E.G.: I think more people should stop to think what they are buying at the grocery store. They should be looking at the food labels, not just the advertisements about things being “high fibre,” etc.

C.B.: I had no idea that the Caramilk milk-thing had more sugar than pop!

J.C.: I wonder if a Caramilk chocolate bar has as much sugar as the Caramilk drink?

L.B.: I can’t believe that Powerade has more sugar than Coke.

S.T.: It’s surprising to me how much sugar could possibly be in a simple drink like pop.

K.P.: I think it was really surprising that the ham had no sugar in it, and I was really surprised that root beer has more sugar than Coke.

S.M.: I was really surprised that oranges had more sugar than carrots.

N.H.: I was surprised that apples have more sugar than oranges, because sometimes apples taste really sour.

M.M: What I eat is scary! 🙁

The next step in our nutrition unit involved discussing what constitutes a healthy school lunch item, and what could be defined as a less-healthy snack item. Students rated the lunches they had brought to school that day, according to how nutritional and waste-fee they were. Most students rated their lunches as moderately to highly nutritious; most rated their lunches as poor in the waste-free department. Students with waste-free lunches then provided tips to their peers about how to reduce school lunch waste.

Afterwards, each student made a list of the healthy food items they sometimes bring to school. Then they were given an opportunity to peruse others' lists and jot down new healthy school lunch items that they would like to try.

Hopefully, our graphing activity, and the conversations it inspired, will help students to really think about the food and drinks they are putting into their bodies, and to try some new healthy school lunch ideas!

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Workshop with the LSF Student Ambassadors

Margaret BlackNovember 9, 2015December 15, 2015Leave a comment

High school student ambassadors from Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) recently visited Rama Central P.S. and ran a workshop geared at helping our class identify its next outreach project.

The workshop began by inviting students to share their thoughts and feelings about images depicting cultural, economic, environmental and social issues.

Next, students were each given a photograph and asked to identify which category or categories of need the picture addressed.

Once students had been exposed to some outreach categories and ideas, they worked in small groups to brainstorm project ideas for our class.

Then, each group chose its favourite idea and had a repesentative of the group present it to the class.

The class was then given an opportunity to vote, to narrow down the choices. After two rounds of voting, we had a two-way tie. We decided that helping the turtles could be the focus of our persuasive letter writing unit, so the rest of the workshop was focused on developing the idea "helping the homeless."

The LSF team helped the class more clearly define their project, which will include knitting, a winter clothing drive, and a food drive for Sharing Place food bank.

Once the scope of the project had been determined, the LSF ambassadors entered the project into the "Our Canada Project" database, where others can view it. We will add photographs and more details to our online project listing, as they become available.

knittingdrive-screencap http://ourcanadaproject.ca/place/the-epic-knitty-bitty-clothing-drive-2/

We want to thank the student ambassadors for coming to our class. We had a great time, and learned a lot about outreach projects and how to organize them!

In a future blog post, we will show our class working toward making their new outreach project a reality.

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Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Wildlife Food Drive Party! 1

Margaret BlackNovember 3, 20151 Comment

On Friday, October 16th, students in our class celebrated their hard work organizing and participating in this year's "Food Drive for Orphaned Wildlife" with a class party.

Our friend and Rama Central P.S. neighbour, Laura Gallagher, offered to help us celebrate by bringing several of the non-releasable rescue animals from her company, Speaking of Willdlife, for a classroom visit! Laura and her associate Krystal Hewitt taught us about five different species of Ontario wildlife, including two that eat the kinds of food we collected during the food drive.

Here are some images from a most remarkable afternoon:

This cutie is a baby Norway Rat, named Ratagen. She was found in front of someone's garage at a very young age and brought to a wildlife rehabilitation centre. Unfortunately she became too habituated to humans and could not be released.

Meet "Luna," the Saw Whet Owl that appeared in Telus advertisements a few years ago. She was found in someone's backyard, with a wing injury, and taken to a wildlife rehabilation centre for treatment. Unfortunately, Luna's injury left her with a permanent disability that prevented her from flying well enough to survive in the wild.

This is Hawthorne, a six month old porcupine. He was born in captivity so, in accordance with Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) regulations, he could not be released into the wild.

This is a Bobwhite Quail named Virginia. She was found in a snowbank in Quebec and taken to a wildlife rehabilitation centre. Bobwhites are not native to Quebec, and no one knew where Virginia came from, so she was sent to live at Speaking of Wildlife. Bobwhites are critically endangered in Ontario, with only about 100 individuals still living in the wild. Experts believe the ice storms in 1997 decimated the Ontario Bobwhite population and they have been unable to make a comeback.

Last, but not least, meet "Petunia" the skunk. Petunia was dropped off at a wildlife rehabilitation centre at night. There was very little information left with her. The rehabilitation centre couldn't determine Petunia's point of origin and her friendliness made it apparent that she had been living in someone's house. These two factors made Petunia non-releasable.

Students contributed an amazing array of snacks for our party:

... and Mrs. Black had Mariposa Market create this awesome cake for us:

We want to sincerely thank Laura, Krystal and their wildlife ambassadors for coming to class today! Their visit MADE our party, and will be fondly remembered by all of us for years to come!! 🙂

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Third Wildlife Food Drive a Huge Success!

Margaret BlackNovember 2, 2015November 2, 2015Leave a comment

This year's food drive for orphaned wildlife enabled students at our school to help four local wildlife rehabilitation centres stock up on natural foods for their overwintering patients. This year, the sanctuaries received additional food contributions from students in four other schools, who were inspired by our food drive.

During Week 1, we collected for Procyon Wildife, in Beeton. Prior to their food delivery, our class enjoyed a wonderful opportunity to Skype with the centre's director. She spent 45 minutes giving us a virtual tour of the the nursery and a couple of outdoor enclosures, via Skype on her phone, and answered a myriad of questions from students.

The day our delivery to Beeton was to take place, we used math to estimate the number of items we had collected for them. This is Beeton's "food order":

We started by using a kitchen scale and counting to determine the number of acorns in a half kilogram (165). Then we doubled number to estimate how many acorns were in a kilogram (330).

Then we used a bathroom scale to determine how much each box of acorns weighed. This involved weighing a student, with and without a box in his arms, and then subtracting his weight. We also had to convert the weight from pounds to kilograms, and subtract one kilogram to account for the weight of the box itself.

Here are our calculations for acorns:

We had four boxes of pine cones that were the same size. To estimate how many pine cones we were shipping altogether, we counted the number of pine cones in one box, and then multiplied by four.

For apples, we counted how many we could see in the top layer of the box, estimated how many "rows" of apples the box held, and then multiplied to estimate how many apples were in the box.

The number of maple keys was estimated using the kitchen scale. We determined how many keys were in 50 grams, created similar sized piles, and then used multiplication to glean a number estimate.

Here are our estimated totals for Procyon Wildlife's food delivery:

Students in our class transported the food to Mrs. Black's car and loaded it for her.

The volunteers that run the wildlife rehabilitation centre in Beeton were thrilled to receive the food we had collected for their overwintering animals.

After we dropped our food off in Beeton, a school in Alliston topped up Procyon Wildlife with additional food for the winter. 🙂

During Week 2 of the food drive, students collected, tallied and loaded food for Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge. Mrs. Black picked up a big sack of acorns from a school in Orillia, which brought our estimated totals for this delivery to: 9,000 acorns, 1,000 pine cones and 400 apples.

She then delivered everything to the sanctuary, which is in Pefferlaw.

During Week 3 of our food drive, we collected for Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary in Minden. Their delivery included approximately 2,300 acorns, 2,000 pine cones and 700 apples, plus a small box of ash keys, a small box of chestnuts and a box of sumac.

During the fourth week of our food drive, we accepted donations for Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Rosseau. We received help from a family and two schools in Barrie. They sent us the following food items, for Aspen Valley:

We merged the food from Barrie with the food we collected. In total, Aspen Valley received approximately 3,500 acorns, 4,000 pine cones and 1,000 apples.

The sanctuaries sent us a few pictures of animals in their care enjoying the fruits of our labour:

The wildlife food drive continues to grow in size and popularity. We started out with one school (ours) contributing food to two wildlife sanctuaries. In year three, we had students in five schools supporting the work of four wildlife sanctuaries! A sincere thank you goes out to everyone who helped with this year's food drive. We'll see you again next year!

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Third Annual Wildlife Food Drive! 1

Margaret BlackSeptember 19, 2015October 13, 20151 Comment

Each year, our class engages in a variety of projects that fulfill curriculum expectations, while providing outreach that benefits the school, community and beyond.

Our first community service project is a campaign to assist four local wildlife rehabilitation centres with food gathering for orphaned wildlife that will be overwintering with them.

Orphaned animals need to be provided with the food they will eat in the wild, to ensure proper nutrition and so they know what to look for after they are released.

The goals of our project are:

to encourage students from Kindergarten through Grade 8, plus school staff, to collect acorns, pine cones, maple keys, apples, sumac, chestnuts and black walnuts for the animals
to inventory the food we collected
to prepare food for shipment to local wildlife rehabilitation centres

Our food contributions will go a long way toward sustaining and educating baby animals throughout the winter months. These are pictures that were sent to us last year, showing orphaned animals enjoying the fruits of our labours:

AV-raccoons-acorns This week, students in our class created a mural, posters and announcements, advertising Rama Central's third annual food drive for orphaned wildlife (media literacy, art, writing).

Students distributed our posters throughout the school:

They counted, bundled and delivered flyers, for students from Kindergarten through Grade 8 to share with their parents (addition):

We worked together as a class to write the script for an oral presentation about the food drive (shared writing), and then a group of seven students toured the school and delivered our presentation to all classes, from Kindergarten through Grade 8 (oral language, public speaking). Throughout the food drive, students from our class will also deliver messages and reminders via the morning announcements (oral language, public speaking).

2015-09-17 012

Each morning over the next three weeks, students from our class will collect food donations from children as they exit their school buses (volunteer service).

2015-09-18 001 2015-09-18 005 2015-09-18 006

This year, we are thanking students who donate food by inviting them to enter their names in a lucky draw.

Each week we will be giving away a set of these fabulous prizes. We want to thank the wildlife sanctuaries for donating items for our lucky draw!

At the end of each week, our class will sort, weigh, and count or estimate the number of items we have collected (measurement, addition, subtraction, multiplication, estimation), package the food for shipment, and load cartons of food into Mrs. Black's car (volunteer service). She will then drive the food to its destination.

Last fall, Mrs. Black delivered four car loads of food to various wildlife sanctuaries. This is what a typical shipment of food looked like:

This year's tentative delivery schedule is as follows:

Procyon Wildlife, in Beeton: weekend of Sept. 26-27
Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, in Pefferlaw: weekend of October 3-4
Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary, in Minden: weekend of October 10-12
Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, in Rosseau: weekend of October 17-18

This PowerPoint presentation, which showcases our 2014 campaign, provides more detail about the curriculum connections and activities associated with the food drive (click on the image below and the PowerPoint will download to your computer):

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.

Sharing Place Food Drive

Margaret BlackDecember 17, 2014December 18, 2014Leave a comment

In October, my class organized and ran a highly successful food drive for orphaned and injured wildlife residing at local wildlife rehabilitation centres. Then, in November-December, we assumed responsibility for the school's annual food drive for the food bank in Orillia.

Each morning for three weeks, several of my students made the rounds, collecting contributions from students in classrooms from Kindergarten through Grade 8 and placing them in the front hallway of the school. Whenever the bins started to overflow, a pair of students and I would spend a recess counting, weighing, boxing and labeling some of the food.

Today, a number of students in my class spent second recess moving all of the food donations to my car:

After school, I drove our boxes to The Sharing Place Food Bank. By our count, we collected 517 items. The official weight of our school's donation was 511 lbs., which is 27 lbs. more than we collected last year. My students are very pleased with this result!

PAYING IT FORWARD!
As an incentive to bring in donations, Miss Wigle (Grade 2/3 teacher), Mrs. Ross (Grade 7/8 teacher) and I (Grade 4/5 teacher) pledged that we would each volunteer for an hour at the Lighthouse Soup Kitchen or Sharing Place Food Bank, for every 100 lbs. of food that was collected by our school. My daughter Emily, age 14, said she would volunteer too. Miss Wigle and Mrs. Ross will be working a five hour shift at the soup kitchen on Monday, December 22nd. Emily and I will be doing the same on Tuesday, December 23rd.

Thank you for visiting our class BLOG. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me (Margaret Black): mblack@scdsb.on.ca or to add a comment to this page.