Orange Shirt Day, Mathematician Visit & More

Hello, 5B families!

We hope you are enjoying a weekend of reflection and togetherness. Here are some highlights from our learning on Thursday and Friday…

**ORANGE SHIRT DAY**: On Friday we joined in an assembly to acknowledge the meaning of Orange Shirt Day and to affirm that every child matters. All this week our 5B students have been learning about the injustices Indigenous children were subjected to in the residential school system. We’ve learned about the work of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and it’s 94 Calls to Action, and we discussed how we are all responsible to take steps to move towards reconciliation. Brainstorming ways we can all acts as peacemakers right now was empowering. Students wrote reflection pieces to communicate their learning.

On October 1st, we honour the feast day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, also called St. Teresa of the Child Jesus or the Little Flower. Our class enjoyed watching this biography of this young saint who has inspired so many.

In **Religion**, students also discussed what it means to be a saint, and we enjoyed this beautifully illustrated story of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

In **Math**, we have also been looking at comparing and ordering small and large numbers, while continuing to review place value concepts in fun ways, such as with this “Fortune Teller”-style game.

**CAREER ED. GUEST SPEAKER: Dr. Peter, Mathematician**
*What is the biggest number that exists? Is infinity a number? What do you do in university math?* These are some of the big questions students asked our visiting mathematician on Friday. It was lovely to be able to introduce my husband, Peter, who is the biggest fan of numbers I know! He joined our class to inspire students to see the creative side of advanced mathematics. He gave a general introduction to calculus and presented some interesting paradoxes. Peter loves using math extensively in his career as a data scientist at a video game company. Before becoming a data science and father to our three sons, Peter worked as an instructor in the Math Department at UVic, taught kids’ camps at Science Venture, and completed degrees in Pure Mathematics at the B.Sc., M.Math, and PhD levels.

**Fun fact**: Some people are naturally drawn to math at an early age—but some don’t discover their interest for it until much later in life. Peter didn’t feel his calling to the discipline until his third year of university in a Physics class when he saw the beauty of formal proofs modelled for the first time. To make sure our students don’t have to wait as long as he did to awaken to the wonders of this mathematical universe, Peter showed us some fascinating proofs around the concept of a favourite topic: **infinity**!

Set Theory: A weird fact about infinity…Mathematicians would say there are theoretically the same number of positive integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,…) as there are positive even integers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10,…)—even though there are seemingly HALF as many numbers in that set! That’s because each number in the first set has one-to-one correspondence to another number in the second set, with no number left unmatched. Mind boggling!

CAREER ED.: Learning about careers, academic disciplines, sports, hobbies, art forms, and other enriching domains is so interesting and inspiring when we hear from folks who are working directly in these fields. Please reach out if you have an area of specialty you would be willing to share with us as a guest speaker in our class. Our school’s diverse community is an incredible resource, and we love to learn alongside you!

Email: tpoirier@cisdv.bc.ca
(We ensure that all guest speaker presentations are carefully vetted and aligned with our curricular goals and school mandate.)

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