Mr.

Hancock’s News

MAY 8TH,
2008

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. Genesis 2:1
(NIV)
A Note From Mr. Hancock
Spring has seemingly come at last. In La Crete, where I used to teach, there would still be snow on the
ground and a chance of more snow to come. Here in Abbotsford, I am actually in the garden coaxing my
little tulips to grow. My wife and I thank you for your continuing
prayers and we continue to feel blessed to belong to such a
wonderful community. As the year draws to a close, we have
many activities and events still to get through. It is very
important to remember that, even though the end of the school
year is coming, we still have a lot of work to do. Sometimes I
feel that the busiest times of the year are just before Christmas
and the end of the year; the two times when you would think
we wouldn’t be doing a whole lot. However, that is just the
opposite and, in fact, those times are the busiest as we try to
complete curriculum and projects. With that in mind, please
continue to make sure that your child is getting to bed at a
reasonable time. This can be hard with the sun staying out
longer but it is very important that students come to school
ready to go and getting enough sleep, even if it is just lying in bed, is still extremely important.

Language Arts

Poetry continues to be our focus this month and we have been reading some fantastic poems, both by
children in other schools and by published authors themselves. Students have also been writing a variety
of creative poems on various subjects and their poetry writing has really taken off. We have been working
on some more humourous poems. One of these poems was titled “I Like . . . but” where students wrote
about things they liked but also adding something that was bad about that thing. As a springboard to
 Important Notes!

1. Summer Uniforms
Summer uniforms are now in
effect. However, please take
the days weather into
consideration before sending
your child in a uniform that is to
cold for the conditions. Also,
Wednesday is still full dress
uniform.

2. Reading
Students should be reading
most nights. A good time to do
this is after supper or before
bed. Please also make sure
that, we watched the “My Favorite Things” song from “The Sound of that you are recording their
times and signing their
Music”, recorded some of her favorite things then brainstormed our planners.
own ideas. Following that poem, we took a look at a completely
different style of poetry called “Shape Poems” or “Concrete Poems”.
In these poems, the words take on the shape of the main idea. For
example, if students were writing a poem about snakes, they might
write the poem in the shape of a snake with their words slithering
across the page. Our latest poem has been an “Apologies” poem. In
these poems, students brainstormed a variety of everyday, inanimate
objects and wrote poems apologizing for how they have used them.
The poems are quite hilarious! As we are getting close to the end of
our poetry unit, plans are in place for a couple of culminating
activities. First of all, students are going to be getting ready to publish
their poems in book form. This is very exciting but also very new to
me so we will have to see how it goes. One site I am thinking of using
for this is lulu.com, which seems to be the best for this type of
venture. As we get closer to doing this, I will let you know how you Bible Verses
can get your own copy of this compilation. The other event I am This month, students will be working on
planning for is a Hot Chocolate Cafe/Open Mike. Using the idea of the Psalms 33: 1-8. Please help your child
practice these verses. Students will
coffee houses in San Francisco, where people went up to an open know which specific verse they are
mike and read out poetry they had written, we will have a time where working on. Students will be saying
their verses on Fridays unless Friday is
students can share their poetry. Instead of serving coffee, we will a holiday. In that case students will be
serve hot chocolate. Parents will also be invited to share poetry they doing their verses on the Monday.

love. More on that later!!!!

Math
We have concluded our look at the times tables and have now
 Dates
Here are a list of important
dates for this month as well as
the next month to help you
prepare for the important
things happening at Highroad!
May June
9 27 13
Playground Fundraiser/Silent Spring Spectrum - 7:00 pm Field Trip to Barg’s
Auction Grades 4-6 Fun Day
Dismissal at 12:00

16 30 19
Highroad Spelling Bee P.D. Day - Morning classes K-3 Fun Day
1:00 - 3:00 (Chapel) only Dismissal at 12:00

19 20
Victoria Day (No School) Last Day of School
Elementary Awards 9:30-11am

learned the times tables from 0 to 10. Students have

also looked at relationships between quarts and gallons,
quarters in a dollar and how many centimeters there are
in a meter. One of the nice things about this program is
how it connects multiplication to these more abstract
ideas and cements them in a child’s understanding of
the world around them. These understanding have really
proven themselves in our other subjects like Science,
where students are applying their math skills to solve
scientific problems. We have also recently started to
multiply number of more than one digit. Starting with
10’s and 100’s, students learned how they can make
the problem easier by taking the 0’s off, multiplying the two numbers, then adding the zero’s back on to
the answer. This will help us when we start multiplying numbers like 28x4 or 134x3. I have added some
more math activities for you to work on with your child. This is a great way to explore what they are
learning and show them that math is not just a school subject; it can be shared, explored and discussed
at home as well. These activities can help get these conversations start and can be good ways to spend
family time together.

Science
We are in the middle of our space unit and students are getting excited by the fascinating things they are
learning and seeing. One of the great advantages of having a smartboard, is that students can really see
all the wonders of space whether they are actual pictures of planets taken from satellites or interactive
models that can be manipulated. For example, students recently got to see an actual video of Mercury
revolving around the Sun. I have added a number of links to the class blog that will allow you to share in
what your child is doing. We have also been doing a number of class experiments. To start, students
explored the idea of the Earth’s atmosphere. We also worked on describing the sizes of the Earth, Sun
and Moon in relation to each other and learned that the Sun is many, many, times bigger than the Earth
and the Moon. Using 2-D and 3-D models, students worked in groups to determine how many Earths
could fit across the diameter of the Sun. Students came up with numerous ways to solve this problem
and all came very close to the actual number of 109 earths. One of the big problems we have been
faced with is, if the Sun is so large, how can the moon possibly cover it during a solar eclipse? Using
rulers and volunteers, we discovered that the farther something is the smaller it appears. So, the
mountains appear to be small because they are far away. The Sun appears to be the same size as the
Moon because the Sun is far away and the Moon is so close to us.

As an aside, I don’t if anyone out there is handy with carpentry but I found these items on the internet
and thought that they would be great to have as a class for our space unit. I know that time is always an
issue especially when it comes to this sort of thing, but I was hoping someone might be handy with
wood and a hammer and might consider making a couple of these for our class. They are called
sunspotters and they allow you to reflect the image of the sun onto a piece of paper to view its spots, as
well as to get a good sense of how the Earth is constantly moving around the Sun. Here is a picture of it
and the specifications if anyone has the ability and the time!
 • Telescope Type: folded-path
refractor, F11, altitude-
azimuth design
• Objective Lens: 2-element
achromat, 700mm FL, fully
coated
• Objective Aperture: 61.7mm
diameter, stopped down to
57.0mm
• Mirrors: 50mm x 50mm x
10mm, two @ 25mm x 25mm
x 5mm, <1/4 wave flatness
• Field Lens: 4-element,
12.5mm FL Plössl, fully
coated, 10mm aperture
• Total Path Length: 875mm,
fixed focus
• Equivalent Magnification: 56x
• Approximate Solar Image
Diameter: 85mm (3.25?)

I am adding this list of links again as I think some of them got lost
• Field of View: .75° (1.5 solar
diameters)
in the photocopying last newsletter:
• Pointing Range: altitude
Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia/index.html 0°-30°, 30°-90° (reversed),
azimuth 0°-360°
Premier Planets - http://www.premierplanets.com/ • Pointing Aids: 2.2cm gnomon
(±30°), 22cm pinhole
Interactive Universe http://www.history.com/genericContent.do? projections (±3°)
id=54499 • Frame Material: 15mm 9-ply
(cradle), 20mm 13-ply
SkyOrb - http://www.realtech-vr.com/skyorb/download.html (telescope), Baltic plywood

Stellarium - http://www.stellarium.org/
• Overall Dimensions: (H x L x
W) 40cm x 37cm x 15cm (16?
x 15? x 6?)
Wikisky - http://www.wikisky.org/
• Total Weight: 3kg (6.6lb)
Virtual Journey - http://library.thinkquest.org/28327/main/
cockpit.html

Interactive Space - http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system

 The Final Word
Social Studies
Enjoy the beautiful days
with your children.
In Social, we have started to look at community services and utilities. As While school is
we started discussing the two definitions students began to see that important, family time is
services are things people do for us in our community and utilities are more important and the
things that we use to make our lives more comfortable. Water and time you spend with
electricity are two examples of utilities. We then discussed the difference your children now will
between everyday services and emergency services. Students are now help them become the
successful people we
working on a tribute to an emergency services person. They are each
know they have the
thinking of things emergency services people do in their line of work and potential to be in the
are thanking them for risking their lives for us in those ways. They will then future. Thank you for all
create a “voicethread” using those ideas, combining them music and the work you do with
images. We will be putting the finished “voicethreads” on our blog. your children. I see the
results in the classroom
everyday!

Other News
Playground Fundraiser
Thank You!
Thank you for your contributions towards the “tea” themed basket. I was Mr. Hancock
so thankful for your generosity and, with the money, were able to put
together a beautiful basket that some of you might even want to bid on!!!
The fundraiser is happening tonight. Doors open at 5:30. I hope many of
you will come out and support this great cause.

Class Blog
Don’t forget to check out our class blog where you can get up-to-date
information on what is happening in the class. It is always changing!!! Our
HIGHROAD ACADEMY
blog is located at:
46641 CHILLIWACK
CENTRAL ROAD,
http://mrhclassblog.edublogs.org/ CHILLIWACK, BC,
V2P 1K3

TEL: 604 792 4680

WWW.HIGHROADACADEMY
.COM