Week of January 21-25

Greetings!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

In our Wellness Education classes, we’ve been learning how to be safe in different environments. One of those environments is online. On Monday, we will welcome Constable Sander, our School Resource Officer, who will help us learn about Internet Safety!  

We have an exciting outing planned for Wednesday morning: we will be going to the Yates (via Lakie buses) for G.S. Lakie’s dance show!

Wednesday is Hot Lunch day!

Language Arts:

This is a big week because we will be kicking off our Word Power (or what we would recognize as spelling). Students will be placed in groups according to their spelling level and will be monitored as they move through the lessons to see if their group best suits their abilities. Students will be introduced to the program and how it will work and get started in their groups this week. Parents, please look for a letter coming home that will explain ‘Operation Word Work’. The first lesson assignment is due this Thursday (no exceptions), and the quiz will take place next Thursday.

We will also continue our focus on reading and challenge ourselves to do some great thinking while reading with some ‘sticky-note reading’ strategies!

French:

Learning how to tell time in French will wrap up this week. We hope to have a quick quiz. In order to prepare, students are encouraged to practice counting by 5’s in French (cinq, dix, quinze, vingt, vingt-cinq, trente, trente-cinq, quarante, quarante-cinq, cinquante, cinquante-cinq), it would also be wise to review terms such as: et quart, et demie, moins le quart, etc.

Our next focus will be on spaces/rooms in the school! Check out Lucie’s first day at her new school:
Lucie

Math:

We wrapped up our unit on Transformational Geometry last week and now turn our attention to what we’ve all been waiting for: more complex multiplication! Students have been doing well working on their multiplication facts and I encourage them to continue spending time with these! It is obvious which students have been putting in extra effort. There is steady improvement amongst those who are consistently working on these every night! We will be putting these multiplication skills to work this week with more complex multiplication challenges!

Social Studies:

Our ‘What’s Happening Wednesday’ presentations were kicked off in grand style last week and got our class thinking and discussing current events and related issues. We look forward to many more over the coming weeks!

We will be studying one of my favorite poems written about the north this week and we plan to take another trip to the Arctic to wrap up this unit! Bundle up!

Planning ahead…

OUR YEAR-END TRIP TO CALGARY IS A GO! With 98% of families in support, I’m pleased to report that our grade five teaching team is going ahead with the planning of this trip. It is scheduled for Thursday, June 20^th. We will be sending out more information (including cost and volunteer requests) after Easter.

AN EXTRA…

Last year I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on ‘mindfulness’. Simply put, mindfulness means ‘paying attention on purpose, in the present moment with qualities like compassion, curiosity and acceptance’ (Shamash Aladina). The world around us is becoming increasingly busy and our thinking is often interrupted by this busy-ness in one form or another (i.e. technology). The concern is that people young and old are less able to hold their attention for extended periods of time and often go about living on ‘auto-pilot’ without being completely aware of their thoughts or the things that are happening around them. One video clip I found particularly interesting and worth passing along is linked below. If you have about 3 minutes, please check it out!

What the internet is doing to our brains: (strong title, but great message): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKaWJ72x1rI&sns=em

Let’s have a terrific week!

Week of January 14-18

Greetings!

In the rear-view mirror…

What a great and busy first week back! While I expected to see signs of tired that would inhibit our ability to do our best learning, I was happy to see most students demonstrating a great deal of ‘Christmas Magic’, yay!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Friday of this week is “Dress Like your Favourite Book Character” Day! This could be a challenge…I know I’ll need to do some thinking about this one!

Language Arts:

Last week students wrote a Word Power (what is commonly referred to as spelling) screening assessment. This assessment will be used to create groupings of like-levelled spellers for our Word Power focus. We will launch the program next week with a lesson and an assignment, and a quiz to follow the next week.



We also spent quite a bit of time generating ideas about resolutions, why they were important, and how we were planning to work toward them. After using a graphic organizer to lay out our ideas, we took some time to peer edit and Ms. Bourassa got to do some reading this weekend! Students will be ready to handwrite their resolutions paragraphs this week!



We will also focus on reading goals this week. We will set a goal for quantity in a week, and we will also plan our ‘next reads’. Students, to prove you read the blog, begin your stack of ‘next reads’ by creating a list of (and collect, if possible) the ‘next books you hope to read’ and bring it/them to show Ms. B. on Monday! (I know I have a few books at home waiting for my attention, I’ll be bringing those!) Students, be sure to have a novel ready at your desk every day this week so we can work on these goals!

French:

Last week students learned some new vocabulary and wrote New Year's resolutions in French! We also experienced 'la fete des rois', a French cultural celebration also known as Epiphany. This week we will continue our study of the school, with a focus on telling time using both analog and digital clocks!

Check out the links to practice with time in French by clicking on the French tab above!

Math:

Transformational Geometry is really quite challenging, especially drawing rotations! This unit will wrap up this week with some reviews and preparation for the final assessment on Wednesday and then, the math we’ve all been waiting for: more complex multiplication and division!

I am noticing some significant growth in many students with their multiplication facts, way to go! It is clear that some students are working on these every night as their scores and times are continually improving. This will be of GREAT benefit in the coming weeks. Keep up the super effort, grade five, and get ready for another Multiplication Mania coming your way soon!

Social Studies:

Wow! Breezy has been busy travelling all over our great country, and the postcards are rolling in! We are enjoying them as we read about the places, locate them on our map and determine which region of Canada they are located in!

Last week we were introduced to our current events projects (What's Happening?) and signed up for presentation dates (all Wednesdays). In order to keep the projects 'current', students will receive their forms to begin working on their projects one week prior to their presentation date. Although this project is completed at home, students are welcome to come see me anytime with any questions, concerns or needs!

This week we will further explore the ‘Northwest Passage’ and the Aurora Borealis and then Ms. Bourassa will share her FAVOURITE poem about ‘the North’!

Have a terrific week!

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful holiday break full of rest, relaxation and fun. We plan to keep the fun going with some exciting activities and great learning as usual! Students, please remember that Ms. Bourassa will be on the lookout for “Christmas Magic” all month long! Remember that Christmas Magic is what happens to grade five students over the holidays that shows they are no longer at the beginning of grade five! Students, to prove you read the blog, please present Ms. B. with a note before O’Canada on Monday detailing one thing you plan to do to demonstrate ‘Christmas Magic’!



Bouquets:

*Thank you for your wishes and generosity at Christmas! I’m the luckiest teacher because I get to spend my days with the most amazing group of learners in the school!

*Thank you to all our stocking sewing helpers; I think we would all agree they turned out fantastic—thanks helpers, we couldn’t have done it without you!

*Another bouquet goes out to the families who contributed to our Christmas Party snack on the last Friday before the break. Thank you to Spencer, Kaiden, Wesley, Munkhu, Lily, and Mia for supplying our delicious and nutritious snack!



It’s Winter!

*Wow, we dodged having a frigid Christmas, but there’s still plenty of winter on the way! Calling all warm jackets, mitts, toques, scarves, snow pants, and other winter gear! For the greatest amount of fun (and of course to stay healthy), students should come to school dressed for the weather every day this month because whenever we have the chance, we will head outdoors to be physically active! Some of our Fridays will include outdoor winter activities, running may even be an option if there is no snow or ice on the pathways! Being warm and dry will make these experiences far more enjoyable!

Sneak Peek at the Week:

Social Studies:

Wow! Breezy has been busy travelling all over our great country, and the postcards are rolling in! We are enjoying them as we read about the places, locate them on our map and determine which region of Canada they are located in! Students, there is a pile of postcards waiting for us!

We are headed back to the Arctic Region of Canada to wrap up a scavenger hunt and even hope to take a ‘trip’ back there next week!



What’s Happening? (Current Events Project)



In order to help develop responsible and active citizenship, a very important part of the Social Studies curriculum is the awareness of current events. Parents, as was mentioned previously, please encourage your child to read a newspaper, view news items online, watch the news and become knowledgeable about the events occurring in our world. It is always a good idea to take a few minutes to follow up or discuss these events with your child to find out what they are thinking and feeling. This week we will be introducing 'What's Happening Wednesdays' (our independent current events projects) that will be starting next week! Please note that all preparation for this project will take place outside of school time at home (if this presents a problem for your family, please let me know). Students will sign up for a date to present and during the week preceding their date, will be responsible for:

*choosing an event happening within that week prior to the presentation (this could be as simple as buying a newspaper and choosing a story of interest or going online to find out ‘What’s Happening’)

*researching the story to learn as much as possible (students should attempt to become a bit of an expert on the topic)

*presenting the information to the class in whatever way it may best be understood and remembered (i.e.: poster, tri-fold, PowerPoint, play/re-enactment, etc.) in 5-6 minutes.

*Please note that a very detailed outline will come home to directly assist students in their preparation when their date is ‘just around the corner’.



French:

We will be celebrating the New Year by learning some vocabulary and writing resolutions in French! We will also learn about a French cultural tradition by celebrating 'la fete des rois' on Wednesday. Scholars, be sure to explain to your parents what this is all about--if you don't want to wait until Wednesday to find out, perhaps you'd like to do a little research…



Language Arts:

After sharing our holiday activities with each other, students can look forward to brainstorming and writing resolutions for the new year!

Now that we are in our new year, we will turn more of our attention to word work (spelling). This week will focus on evaluating where students are with a couple of quick assessments so that we can determine learning groups and then next week we will walk through how the program will work!  



Reading Rocks!

What are you reading right now? What are you reading next?

One of the most important goals we have in Language Arts is to develop a lifelong love of reading. Improving our reading skills is something we can all do and will be a focus for our class through January. To get better at reading, we must read more! Students must, at all times, have a novel at their desks for reading time as we will be taking time to read whenever possible. We will also spend some time searching out our ‘next reads’ so we are always ready to pick up another book! Students can look forward to setting some reading goals next week!



Math

The next couple of weeks we will be focusing on transformational geometry (shapes in motion) before we jump headfirst into more complex multiplication. That’s right! Students have two more weeks to sharpen their multiplication skills in preparation…and two more rounds of Multiplication Mania to look forward to as well!

It's going to be a great week!

 (That's Ms. B. when she celebrates student success with Christmas Magic:)

Opening and celebrating our 'Christmas Presence'!

The fireplace is almost built!