Devine Snack Shack

After our meeting today with Tammy Auchterlonie we have finalized our business plan. Our business name is Devine Snack Shack which was chosen to incorporate the name of the person we are supporting with our charity Ms. Nicky Devine who is a teacher with our school. The three business proposals that will continue to be developed are Smoothie Blast, Cookie Kraz and Batter Up. The reason for these choices was that they would all fit nicely under a food service business. 

There is much work to do in the meantime. We need to finalize our logo and slogan. We need to make a list of ingredients and costs. We also need to incorporate the members of the two businesses that are closing up Triple C and Juicy Art into our new business structure. 

Our most pressing need however is start up money. There is an opportunity to present to the parent council meeting on Tuesday February 2 to potentially receive a loan. I would ask that parents check their availability to be able to accompany their child should they be part of the small group who can present to the school council. 

Next week we will work on Unit rates and estimating percents in Math and finish our making connections unit in Language. 

Have a great weekend. 

Our business mentor working with our students

Potential logo designs

Ratio and connecting

This week in Math we begin exploring proportional relationships. We will be exploring ratios by learning how a ratio is a comparison of two different numbers such as the number of boys to girls in the class. We will learn how to consistently use ratio notation Ex: the ratio 10:14 means there are 10 boys to 14 girls in the class.We will also explore how to find a missing value in a ratio: Ex if there are 24 students in the class and 10 students are male, how many students are female?  We will determine equivalent ratios and use them to solve problems. We will also be discovering how percents are a special ratio which has a whole of 100. There will be a quiz on Thursday from our fraction work last week as well as our work on ratios this week.

In Language we continue to make connections as we read our story about Ryan and Jimmy and finish present our books we studied with our Literature Study. This Wednesday is also Family Literacy Day. If there any parents who would like to come read to the class for second block (around 10:45) please let me know as soon as possible at benjamin.spindler@ocsb.ca. Students are invited to wear their PJ's and bring their favourite book as we will be reading for a portion of our time together.

The grade 2 students are also selling bookmarks at $1 each to purchase books for families in need. They will be coming around to the various classes on Wednesday. 

Wow

Today was our big day for our business proposal presentations. The presentations exceeded expectations. Our judges, Mr. Spindler, Mrs. Dilabio, Mrs Leafloor, Mrs. Tammy Auchterlonie (our business mentor) and Mrs. Betty Weil(from The Learning Partnership) were very impressed with the level of detail in each presentation and the high caliber of proposals. Mrs. Betty Weil said that she saw a disciplined, motivated, respectful, and creative class.

We were also treated to some samples from the different groups. Students were able to use their oral communication skills to present their business ideas in a compelling way. It will be very tough to pick a business for the class to put into action. I am very proud of their hard work and effort in putting their proposal together. Once again Wow!

Triple C talks up their crazy cool cases for smartphones. 

Smoothie Blast gives us the details of their proposal

Batter Up are all smiles after their comprehensive presentation.

Cookie Kraz concludes their presentation about their amazing cookies. 

Juicy Art explains the financials of their Juice business 

Practice makes perfect and Joy of reading

A note to parents that students are being encouraged to practice their part of the presentations for their business proposal to a family member to get ready for tomorrow.

Below please find an announcement form the grade 2 students at our school.

Does reading bring you joy? Does it take you on a new adventure to places you’ve never been before?  Wednesday, January 27th is Family Literacy Day, a day which encourages families to take 15 minutes to read together. ALL Saint Anne students will be able to wear pyjamas and bring a stuffie to school to celebrate this special day.

The Grade 2 classes will be selling bookmarks to help raise money to buy books for families in need.  For one loonie, you can purchase one beautiful origami bookmark or two lovely ribbon paperclip bookmarks made by a grade 2 student. Please bring one dollar to school on Wednesday, January 27th and you can help spread the joy of reading

Fractions and visitors

This week we will be working with fractions. We will start with ordering fractions with the same denominator using a number line, progressing to comparing fractions with an unlike denominator and exploring ratios.

We will also have several guest in the class this week. Tuesday Susan Davidson, math consultant with the school board will be here. She will be observing students work on their math and problem solving skills.

This Thursday our business mentor will be here to judge the business proposals we have been working on. We are also pleased to have Betty Weil program manager for the Entrepreneurial Adventure in attendance. Rounding out our panel will be Mrs Dilabio our Vice Principal and Mrs Leafloor our resource teacher. Some of the students have commented that working on their proposal is the favorite part of their day. 

Reminders and new PD day

A reminder that Pizza order forms are due Thursday January 21 for delivery beginning February 24. Also a reminder that the literature study sheets are due Monday January 18. Our library distribution day continues to be Friday although we will switch to second block from first block.

There is a new PD day on Friday April 15. This is a province wide PD day that has been added in as a part of the labour negotiations that had taken place earlier in the school year. Please mark that day on your calendars as students will not be in school that day.

Our Entrepreneurial Adventure is proceeding well. We have 5 potential companies who will be making their presentations on January 21. The business proposals are mostly complete with a few final details to be completed. Students may start preparing their presentation on the weekend. There will be class time for them to put the information from their proposals into their presentations whether it is on google slides, prezi, mindomo, powtoon or another method of presentation. The presentations will be on Thursday January 21. The company names are Cookie Kraz, Batter Up, Triple C, Juicy Art, and Smoothie Blast. We are all very excited about the presentations.

Have a great weekend. 

Mean, median and business proposals

Today we learned about mean and median and how to determine each. We discovered that the mean is like a balance for a set of data and the median is the middle number in a set of data. When determining the mean we list the numbers from least to greatest and find the number in the middle. If there is an even number of data points we take the two middle numbers, add them together and divided by 2 to get the median.

We also formed groups to present a business proposal for our Entrepreneurial Adventure project. These 5 highly motivated groups will present their business proposal to Tammy Auchterlonie our business mentor on Thursday January 21.

This week the focus is on completing all steps of the business proposal similar to the one found here. https://www.pandadoc.com/investor-propposal-template
A google doc of the assignment has been shared in each student's language folder. Students decided on a product and a company name. The task now is to come up with a plan to make and sell the product and determine the cost and potential profit. Students will also brainstorm ideas for start up money.

Next week the businesses will work on how to present their proposal using persuasive techniques.

Today the last of the Literature study jobs were handed out. This week students are to complete the Summarizer and Literary Luminary jobs. 

Entrepreneurial adventure and math cooperation

Today we welcomed our business mentor Mrs. Tammy Auchterlonie, branch Manager at the Bank of Montreal to talk about the Entreprenuerial Adventure. The project will include creating a business as a class to make a product or services with proceeds going to charity. Mrs. Auchterlonie talked to the class about what is a business and what is needed for a business to work well. 

We discussed how businesses make revenue and what is left after expenses is called profit. We also discussed the need for start up money, as well as a brief overview of the roles in a business such as management, operations, accounting, inventory, and marketing. We also brainstormed the potential products or services we could provide as a class. 

Starting Monday, students will be put into groups to pick a product or service and present a business plan to create and sell that product or service. 

In Math we worked with the other 2 Grade 6 classes in the learning commons to solve a rich word problem involving mean. Students were placed in groups of three and used various problem solving strategies such as working backwards to arrive at a solution. 

Next week we will also continue our literature study by completing the summarized and literary luminary jobs. The job sheets will be handed out Monday. 

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2016. I hope that everyone has had a restful and happy holidays.

This week in Math we begin our unit on Data Management. We started the week with constructing and conducting a survey. We looked at what makes a good survey question and how to record the results. We will continue the week with representing data from a survey and other sources onto line graphs and scatterplot graphs.

In Language we will continue our Making Connections unit,by examining what we already know about a topic and using what we read to confirm our knowledge or gain new information. We are currently reading a set of formal letters titled Nets to Africa.

This week we will also embark on the Entrepreneurial Adventure. The entrepreneurial adventure is a program that pairs a classroom with a mentor from the business community to create a business that will create a product or service with the proceeds going to charity. The process is student driven and Mr. S' grade 6 class is very excited to begin this journey. The link to the program can be found  by going to the following url:
http://www.thelearningpartnership.ca/what-we-do/student-programs/entrepreneurial-adventure