The final two weeks of school...

Hold on to your hats, these are two BIG weeks in Grade 5!

Students, thanks for keeping up with your sleep, we still have great learning happening at school every day and not only is it easier, it’s a whole lot more fun for everyone if you are rested and ready to go! Monday is our farewell assembly for staff members leaving MMH and Wednesday is our big trip to Calgary(see details below)! Thursday is a spirit day (dress for the beach!) and our final $cholar dollar sale when students will have the opportunity to use up their scholar dollars on small items and/or tickets for a chance to go out for a special ice cream treat next week! Friday will be our walking trip over to Nicholas Sheran Park to do our Wetlands study and some Disc Golf!

Wednesday is our big trip to Calgary! Parents, if you’ve signed up to come, we can’t wait to see you bright and early on Wednesday morning (we are meeting in our gym between 6:40 and 6:50am). We will assign you a certain group of amazing young people for which you will be responsible for most of the day, thank you for your help! We will share expectations and a more detailed itinerary of the day with a handout that will go home Monday. It will be jam-packed with fun and learning, so students, be prepared by getting a great sleep the night before, packing great snacks and a healthy bagged lunch, good walking shoes, sunscreen, some kind of entertainment for the bus ride (great ideas include books, drawing paper, word puzzles, electronic devices (only if you understand that there’s a risk that things can get lost or broken) and the same fun-loving spirit you’ve brought to school every day this year! Also keep in mind that we will show one G-rated movie on the way up and one on the way back. If you have one you’d like to bring along, that would be great! We will be returning between 5 and 5:30 pm. Students, be sure you’ve made arrangements with your parents so you know if you are going to be picked up or if you will be walking home. This is a trip that will be remembered for a very long time!

Sneak Peek at the Final Two Weeks:

Language Arts:

Wow, our Book Talks were kicked off in a great way on Friday and we have many more to look forward to! Our students are getting exposed to a great number of books recommended by their friends, so plan for a few trips to the library or a book store this summer!

French:

This week we will introduce our mini-unit on ‘la maison’ (the house). Students will learn the words for the rooms and some furniture inside the house and then create/draw a floorplan of our own homes and possibly our ‘maison des reves’ (dream homes) next week (as time permits)!

Math:

Our measurement will roll along through our final two weeks with lessons on referents, perimeter and area, volume a,nd capacity! We will be squeezing in any time we can to get through these lessons!

Social Studies:

Last week we finished our Interior Plains scavenger hunt which is one of the  last scavenger hunts we will do this year! A big scavenger hunt takes place on Wednesday: Heritage Park, here we come! We will take some class time to prepare for the awesomeness that awaits us in Calgary on Wednesday! Students can check out the park via the following website. Be sure to scan the map and click on locations if you want an advantage when we get to the park on Wednesday!

Heritage Park

We will also learn about the building of the railway and how it helped unite our great country from sea to sea! We will listen to Gordon Lightfoot’s: Canadian Railroad Trilogy to celebrate!

The Final Week: June 25, 26, 27, 28

Monday is Sports Day! Parents, if you would like to help by working at our station (bucket brigade—probably the best station out there), please let me know! We would love to have you! Students, please come dressed for the weather and some awesome active fun! Hats, sunscreen, running shoes, water bottles and healthy snacks and lunch all immediately jump to mind!

Tuesday is our final day of regular classes. We will also make a special visit to our former grade four teachers on this day!

Wednesday is a day filled with reflection. We will be creating our grade five portfolios by looking through all of the work we’ve done this year and choosing pieces to place in the portfolio. It is essential that students have a glue stick or two for this day! (Check your stocks!)

*At the end of this day students will be packing all of their stuff up and taking it home. It would be wise to bring an extra bag (a canvas grocery bag would be perfect!) to help haul stuff home. The only thing students should be taking home on Thursday is their report card.

Thursday is our final day of school. As mentioned previously, we will have our grade five farewell assembly from 8:30-9:30 (families please join us!), after which our class will gather back at the classroom for a small breakfast (special thanks to those listed below for the goodies). We will have our last recess of elementary school before heading to the gymnasium for the whole school end-of-the-year assembly and slideshow. After the assembly, we will be handing out report cards and then saying ‘see you soon’ with our final dismissal at 11:35.

Muffins: Aiden & Ava

Fruit: Brynley & Roxana

Juice and Napkins: Trevor

There’s no doubt in my mind, it’s going to be an awesome wrap-up to an amazing year!

Week of June 11-15

Greetings!

Students, please make sure you are getting plenty of rest these days and taking good care of yourselves as we still have some great learning to do! Many curricular outcomes are still to be achieved in the next couple of weeks, so stay alert!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Language Arts:

Students will be working on their final poems of our poetry unit this week. This will be very ‘important’ poetry!

Last week students were introduced to the book talk projects we are doing to wrap up our amazing learning in Language Arts this year. Students have been gathering their top reads of grade five and, using some selection criteria, are narrowing their choices to one favourite book which they will be presenting as a recommendation to their classmates in the final two weeks of school. Students are encouraged to ‘re-view’ their books this week and to have them at school every day as we work on our presentation ideas. Students will have 5-7 minutes to present next week and may do it using any format they choose: power point, tri-fold, poster, story vine, book box (museum of relevant items), video, etc. The entire process will be exciting! Students will receive a list of all the books their classmates are presenting and will have the opportunity to decide whether or not the books presented will be future reads for them. Each student (and their teacher) should walk away from our year with a ‘Summer Reading List’!

French:

This week we will be wrapping up our clothing unit with a mini-project before turning our attention to studying 'the house' and the rooms found inside next week!

Math:

Last week we finished our unit on Fractions and Decimals and on Tuesday we will be taking up our review. We will have our unit test on Wednesday and then launch ourselves into the next and final unit: Measurement! Students can get a jump start on the unit by checking out the area and perimeter lessons from:

Math 5 Live

We will explore vocabulary from this unit this week and will be ready to explore perimeter and area next week before checking out volume!

Social Studies:

This week we will continue our study of the Interior Plains region with learning about the North West Mounted Police before taking a trip to the foothills of Alberta in transition to our final region: The Cordillera (Rocky Mountains). Next week we will take a fingerwalk through this region before learning all about the building of the railway.

Students are getting very excited about our big field trip to Calgary next week. It would be wise to check out the following website to get a sense of the amazing historical village we will be doing our final scavenger hunt through!

Heritage Park

It’s going to be another amazing week!

Week of June 4-8

Greetings!

Welcome to June!



Thank you to everyone that came out to support our students at the Art Show and Poetry Slam! What a cool event to showcase all the great work that has been done!



Just a couple extras on the docket this week:



*It’s ‘Walk or Bike to School’ week! Students are encouraged to get exercise while going to and from school all week long!



*Our ‘Run for Fun’ was postponed due to rain on Friday, so we will be having that on Monday. This is the official wrap-up to MMH’s Run Club.



*School Council is treating all students to a free hot lunch this Wednesday!



*We will be treated to a performance by the GS Lakie Band this Wednesday! This will take place from 10-11 am as this fine group are performing for us and then taking off on their band trip right after! 

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Language Arts:

We have only a couple more forms of poetry that we wish to tackle this year! One this coming week and one next week! Mixed in with these final bits of poetry, students will be asked to consider all the books they have read through grade five in order to choose one that they would like to promote to their classmates! In the coming weeks, we will be writing about our choices and creating a 5-10 minute book-talk presentation to showcase our greatest reads!

French:

Les animaux etranges etaient....tres etranges! Our strange animal creations were beyond strange... These creatures will soon be on display on the bulletin board outside our classroom, check them out when you have the chance!



We are now focusing on ‘les vetements’ (clothing) and will explore articles of clothing so that we may describe what we are wearing!

Math:

Last week we began to explore thousandths. This week we will continue this and then we will relate fractions and decimals to division before moving into estimating sums and differences and adding and subtracting decimals. We will wrap up this unit with a review on Friday and a test next week and before starting into our final unit: Measurement!

Social Studies:

We are very comfortable exploring our own region: The Interior Plains! Our scavenger hunt will keep us busy this week and then next week we will study the NWMP and get set to travel through the Foothills to our final region of Canada: the Cordillera!

Looking Ahead…

Calgary Trip:

There are still a few families who have not yet paid for the Calgary Trip. I’ve asked for Schools Cash Online to stay open for a few extra days. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!

Grade 5 Farewell:

Parents, your scholar will soon be bringing a note home regarding our Farewell Assembly. We invite you to join us on the final day of school (Thursday, June 28^th) at 8:30 for our Grade Five Farewell. It will be at this time when we will be presenting our students with certificates for completing grade five. All family members are welcome as we will not be inviting the rest of the school to attend. (If there are siblings in other grades that you would like to attend, please check in with their teachers.) We anticipate the assembly to be about 45 minutes to one hour in length. Please note that this assembly is separate from the Year End assembly that will take place later that morning just before final dismissal. We hope you can join us!

Have an amazing week!

Week of May 28-June 1

Greetings!

This is a very big week in grade five as we are getting set for our Art Show and Poetry Slam taking place Thursday evening between 5:30-7. Please feel free to drop in anytime. Students will have the opportunity to share all of their poetry portfolio with their parents and also perform some of their poetry (if they choose) during that time! Parents, please ask your scholar how to ‘applaud’ for a poetry performance!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Language Arts:

The poetry focus continues! This week students will learn to write about their favourite place in the world with a form of poetry inspired by Canadian author and poet: David Bouchard! We will also develop and use a process to select our best poetry for our Poetry Slam on Thursday!

French:

This week we will wrap up our final project for our animal unit! This has been a fun project that has allowed us to demonstrate our learning in this unit (animal names, parts of the body, adjectives to describe and habitats.) Parents, be sure to ask your scholars about their ‘animaux etranges’.

Math:

Last week we spent a considerable amount of time comparing and ordering fractions. Students also began converting fractions to decimals by finding an equivalent fraction with the denominator of 10 or 100. This week we will continue with this as well as focusing on thousandths. We will compare and order decimals and then our next steps will be learning how fractions and decimals relate to division. For example, if 3 people were sharing 4 donuts (4 ÷ 3), each person would get 1 whole donut plus 1/3 or 4/3! If 4 people were trying to share 3 donuts (4÷3), each person would get less than one whole donut! If we cut each donut into 4 equal parts, each person would get ¾ of a donut (1/4 from each donut).

Social Studies:

Last week students had the opportunity to demonstrate their level of understanding as well as their skills in locating and interpreting information in order to answer questions in an open-book format of an assessment for the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Lowlands region. These skills require great thinking, perseverance, and some patience. It is not easy to scan for specific information and do the thinking to make sense of it all at the same time. Great job, scholars! You will receive your assessment back on Monday.

.And then…If you’re not from the prairie, you don’t know the sky…

We are mixing some Language Arts in with Social Studies in the next couple of weeks as we explore David Bouchard’s ‘If You’re Not From the Prairie’!

We will also be going on a scavenger hunt through the Interior Plains region and taking a trip to the Breadbasket of Canada soon!

Planning ahead…

Calgary!

We are getting very excited about our big trip to Calgary, it is less than a month away! Thank you to all the families who have already sent in their permission forms and money for the June field trip to Calgary! These are due this coming Friday on School Cash Online. Once again, if payment presents great challenges, please contact me. This is an amazing experience for students, so I would not want anyone missing out.  

Hope to see you at the

on Thursday!

Week of May 22-25

Greetings!

What a beautiful long weekend! I hope everyone had the opportunity to rest and recharge and are ready to take on the learning challenges of the upcoming weeks!

In the rear-view mirror…

Rock Concert:

Youpi! Gregg LeRock was awesome! A special thanks to our district for the tickets, we had a blast!

Art Workshops:

Thank you to our guests: Emily, Jessica, and Mrs. Gillam who provided us with some instruction and practice in three artistic ways to express ourselves. This week we will choose a technique for our artistic representation of the poems we are writing.

This Week:

Wednesday is hot lunch!

Thursday is our spirit assembly, wear blue and yellow!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Language Arts:

Our word work assessment will take place on Thursday. Students, please take some extra time to study your list of words as well as the first column of ‘Frequently Misspelled Words’ in preparation. Let’s ace this one!

Students will wrap up the poetry stations we started last week and write even more poetry this week in an effort to create something they are proud of and will want to showcase in the big upcoming event (more details coming soon!)

French:

This week we will continue our final project for our animal unit! Students should be choosing their two favourite animals that they will be morphing into one (please bring pictures on Tuesday or email them to Ms. B. to print!) Students will be creating an image and description to demonstrate their learning in this unit (animal names, parts of the body, adjectives to describe and habitats.) Parents, be sure to ask your scholars about their ‘animaux etranges’.

Math:

Last week we began learning how to compare and order fractions. This week we will continue this learning and venture into relating fractions to decimals! (Think money!)  

Social Studies:

This week students will wrap up their study of the Great Lakes St Lawrence Lowlands Region and will have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to recall, access and interpret information from this region in an open-book assessment on Thursday.

Planning ahead…

A note about sleep for parents but mostly for students:

I remember the joyful days of playing outdoors in the evenings and I also remember how difficult it was to call my own children in to get ready for bedtime. “But it’s still light out!” They would say in sadness. I understand that many families will be having these same battles in the coming weeks and I want you to know that I support you in your struggles! We have a lot of important learning left to do and students are at their best and able to learn well when they get that fresh air and exercise, eat well and get enough sleep. Thank you for your efforts in this very important area!

Calgary Field Trip:

Thank you to all the families who have already sent in their permission forms and money for the June field trip to Calgary! These are due by June 1^st.