Good afternoon families!
Well, it was a busy day in room 18 today! We began our day with our second last day of swimming. The students are now getting to the really fun stuff and should have a terrific final day tomorrow.
Today we continued our discussion around the zones of regulation and brainstormed strategies for how to get back to the green zone when we go into the yellow and green zone. We discussed that a big piece of the yellow zone is being able to communicate the problem or emotions at the time.
After recess, we took a look at math. Grade 4s were looking at comparing and sorting numbers, while Grade 5s were using rounding to estimate sums. We will continue the work we started today, tomorrow! When lunch was over, we looked at dialogue tags and how to properly punctuate dialogue in preparation for our upcoming unit on expository writing. Students were to create their own three examples after we created three as a class.
Once we were finished, we moved into the end of the day and finished a chapter of our class novel.
Reminders:
- Picture money can be sent to school
- Tomorrow is the last day of swimming
Monday, October 30, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
October 27, 2017
Good afternoon!
Congratulations again to our Pillars of Care winners who received awards at today's assembly!
Today we had the opportunity so start sharing our social studies projects and it was really neat to see how some students decided to demonstrate their knowledge! Students also had a ton of valuable feedback for the presenters on how to improve or add to presentations moving forward. We will continue to share our projects on Monday.
We were fortunate to get to gym today and meet with our reading buddies as well! We squeezed in some time for math and finish up time for students who required it to work on their projects, while other students used the time to work on some centre work we started earlier this week.
Have a fabulous weekend!
Reminders:
- SWIMMING: October 30th and 31st
- October 31st: Orange and Black Day
Congratulations again to our Pillars of Care winners who received awards at today's assembly!
Today we had the opportunity so start sharing our social studies projects and it was really neat to see how some students decided to demonstrate their knowledge! Students also had a ton of valuable feedback for the presenters on how to improve or add to presentations moving forward. We will continue to share our projects on Monday.
We were fortunate to get to gym today and meet with our reading buddies as well! We squeezed in some time for math and finish up time for students who required it to work on their projects, while other students used the time to work on some centre work we started earlier this week.
Have a fabulous weekend!
Reminders:
- SWIMMING: October 30th and 31st
- October 31st: Orange and Black Day
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
October 26, 2017
Good afternoon families of room 18!
As a reminder for parents, we will be having our monthly Pillars of Care Assembly this Friday at 8:15. This month's peer-nominated winners are:
Care for Learning: Gregory
Care for Self: Zack
Care for Place: Kaydence
Care for Others: Madison
As per our swimming schedule, we began the day by going swimming with Mr. Sadowsky's class. We have some students who are beginning to make silly and unsafe choices in the pool, and who are ignoring the instructions from their instructors. Please have a discussion with your child and remind them that when in the pool, their job is to listen and follow instructions. We had this conversation too, it just sometimes holds more water coming from mom and dad!
When we returned, we began our social studies centres that are helping to collect information for my work in PLCs. These centres are giving students an overview of ALL of the geographical regions in Canada and will supplement the projects they are currently completing independently. After lunch recess, we then had our second to last research period for our social studies projects (yay! we're almost done!) and I was pretty impressed to see how students are making connections between geographical regions and how they impact our ways of life.
Once we put the laptops away we looked at using rounding as a strategy to make addition of larger numbers simpler, and then had a quick read aloud from our class novel study.
Some information items!
Tomorrow is fun lunch!
We have swimming tomorrow but NOT on Friday. We will resume swimming lessons on Monday and Tuesday.
The community club is accepting donations of toothbrushes for the Mustard Seed.
Mavericks are accepting non-perishable food items for the Veteran's food drive in preparation for Remembrance day.
A BIG THANK YOU to Sabrina, who brought in some gently used books to donate to our classroom library!
A reminder that I will not be at school tomorrow and that there will be a sub in my room.
As a reminder for parents, we will be having our monthly Pillars of Care Assembly this Friday at 8:15. This month's peer-nominated winners are:
Care for Learning: Gregory
Care for Self: Zack
Care for Place: Kaydence
Care for Others: Madison
As per our swimming schedule, we began the day by going swimming with Mr. Sadowsky's class. We have some students who are beginning to make silly and unsafe choices in the pool, and who are ignoring the instructions from their instructors. Please have a discussion with your child and remind them that when in the pool, their job is to listen and follow instructions. We had this conversation too, it just sometimes holds more water coming from mom and dad!
When we returned, we began our social studies centres that are helping to collect information for my work in PLCs. These centres are giving students an overview of ALL of the geographical regions in Canada and will supplement the projects they are currently completing independently. After lunch recess, we then had our second to last research period for our social studies projects (yay! we're almost done!) and I was pretty impressed to see how students are making connections between geographical regions and how they impact our ways of life.
Once we put the laptops away we looked at using rounding as a strategy to make addition of larger numbers simpler, and then had a quick read aloud from our class novel study.
Some information items!
Tomorrow is fun lunch!
We have swimming tomorrow but NOT on Friday. We will resume swimming lessons on Monday and Tuesday.
The community club is accepting donations of toothbrushes for the Mustard Seed.
Mavericks are accepting non-perishable food items for the Veteran's food drive in preparation for Remembrance day.
A BIG THANK YOU to Sabrina, who brought in some gently used books to donate to our classroom library!
A reminder that I will not be at school tomorrow and that there will be a sub in my room.
Monday, October 23, 2017
October 23, 2017
Good afternoon families!
This week will be a little topsy turvy as we adjust our schedule to accommodate the swimming schedule and the timeline to complete our Social Studies projects. We will be presenting our final products to the class this Friday and students are being asked to share their work with Ms. Laird in class via the drive so she has a copy of the project. In order to complete this task, students will have two more class research periods to polish their work and prepare for presenting it. We are also completing some social studies work that will be used toward our school development plan goals and so much of our language arts work will be completed through social studies this week.
Swimming was a ton of fun this morning and our students did their best to be out from the pool on time to catch our bus. We look forward to having 5 more days of swimming, so please remember to send your child to school with their swim gear Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then Monday and Tuesday of next week as well.
This afternoon we spent time working on research for our projects. Many students still have lots of information missing from their presentations and so they will benefit from the extra two periods before Friday. After that, we had music with Mr. Wiens and then we discussed our quizzes from Friday. As I was using this more of a formative assessment, we discovered some areas of need around how to round numbers and so students will be using these to jump off of during our math lesson tomorrow. Please expect these to be in your child's backpack tomorrow after school instead of today.
Have a great evening!
This week will be a little topsy turvy as we adjust our schedule to accommodate the swimming schedule and the timeline to complete our Social Studies projects. We will be presenting our final products to the class this Friday and students are being asked to share their work with Ms. Laird in class via the drive so she has a copy of the project. In order to complete this task, students will have two more class research periods to polish their work and prepare for presenting it. We are also completing some social studies work that will be used toward our school development plan goals and so much of our language arts work will be completed through social studies this week.
Swimming was a ton of fun this morning and our students did their best to be out from the pool on time to catch our bus. We look forward to having 5 more days of swimming, so please remember to send your child to school with their swim gear Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then Monday and Tuesday of next week as well.
This afternoon we spent time working on research for our projects. Many students still have lots of information missing from their presentations and so they will benefit from the extra two periods before Friday. After that, we had music with Mr. Wiens and then we discussed our quizzes from Friday. As I was using this more of a formative assessment, we discovered some areas of need around how to round numbers and so students will be using these to jump off of during our math lesson tomorrow. Please expect these to be in your child's backpack tomorrow after school instead of today.
Have a great evening!
Thursday, October 19, 2017
October 19, 2017
Good afternoon families!
This morning we introduced a new self-regulation program to room 18 students called the "Zones of Regulation" as part of health. It is a wonderful program that helps provide students with language to recognize their emotions and provide them with strategies to self-regulate. There are four zones: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. The colours work much like a traffic light system and recognize a student's emotions and energy levels, and can mean more than just mad, frustrated, happy, and sad. Ask your child what other emotional state Yellow and Blue can represent. The students had some very rich discussion around the zones and will be bringing back strategies for our next health lesson as to how we can try to work our way back to green. The big lesson here is that our brain works best in green and so while some students naturally "live" in the yellow zone, we want to provide them with strategies to get into the green zone as much as possible.
After this we looked over some of the math work we've completed over the last few weeks for areas of strength and growth. We have found that most students are ready to move on and so there will be a short quiz tomorrow that will be marked and sent home for you to look at on Monday.
Following recess, we moved into Science again as we are unable to access the computers. Students reviewed the concept of Air pressure and how it affects weather changes. We also built a science glossary so that students have somewhere to look when they need clarification of scientific terms.
After lunch students worked on reading either with myself in a group or independently at their desks. We are taking a few steps back to practice self-control during this time so that we can work up to whole class independent guided reading groups. Once we finished reading, we discussed the comma and how it is used in a variety of situations. We chose a selection of sentences and as a group added punctuation where it was missing.
We played soccer in gym and then finished the day off with our class novel.
Reminders:
- We will be painting tomorrow, so please remind your child to dress appropriately
- Swimming begins on Monday and we are the FIRST group to go, so please think about getting your swimming gear ready now (towel, plastic bag, swimsuit, underwear if your child wears their swimsuit under their clothes to school)
- If you have not sent in your swim forms yet, please do so ASAP. Students who do not have these forms returned to us on Monday will not be able to ride the bus to the pool/participate
This morning we introduced a new self-regulation program to room 18 students called the "Zones of Regulation" as part of health. It is a wonderful program that helps provide students with language to recognize their emotions and provide them with strategies to self-regulate. There are four zones: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. The colours work much like a traffic light system and recognize a student's emotions and energy levels, and can mean more than just mad, frustrated, happy, and sad. Ask your child what other emotional state Yellow and Blue can represent. The students had some very rich discussion around the zones and will be bringing back strategies for our next health lesson as to how we can try to work our way back to green. The big lesson here is that our brain works best in green and so while some students naturally "live" in the yellow zone, we want to provide them with strategies to get into the green zone as much as possible.
After this we looked over some of the math work we've completed over the last few weeks for areas of strength and growth. We have found that most students are ready to move on and so there will be a short quiz tomorrow that will be marked and sent home for you to look at on Monday.
Following recess, we moved into Science again as we are unable to access the computers. Students reviewed the concept of Air pressure and how it affects weather changes. We also built a science glossary so that students have somewhere to look when they need clarification of scientific terms.
After lunch students worked on reading either with myself in a group or independently at their desks. We are taking a few steps back to practice self-control during this time so that we can work up to whole class independent guided reading groups. Once we finished reading, we discussed the comma and how it is used in a variety of situations. We chose a selection of sentences and as a group added punctuation where it was missing.
We played soccer in gym and then finished the day off with our class novel.
Reminders:
- We will be painting tomorrow, so please remind your child to dress appropriately
- Swimming begins on Monday and we are the FIRST group to go, so please think about getting your swimming gear ready now (towel, plastic bag, swimsuit, underwear if your child wears their swimsuit under their clothes to school)
- If you have not sent in your swim forms yet, please do so ASAP. Students who do not have these forms returned to us on Monday will not be able to ride the bus to the pool/participate
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
October 18, 2017
Good afternoon families of Room 18!
Today was a whirlwind of day! It was a day 3 so our day started out with music and then moved into math practice on Rounding and basic facts. After recess we did science and learned about air pressure and were absolutely inundated with scientific terms related to this concept.
Due to the grade 3s completing SLA tests this week, our access to computers has been limited and so we squeezed in the only computer time we could get this week yesterday for a research period. As a result of limited technology, we may have to push back the due date of our social studies project to accommodate the missed research periods this week that were promised to students. It wouldn't be fair to expect students who have limited access to technology at home to meet the deadline without accessing it at school.
After lunch we went outside in the wind to play soccer. We had the opportunity to watch a presentation from the mustard seed today which was really helpful in building understanding and empathy for people who experience issues related to poverty and homelessness. It was AMAZING to see how caring and interested the students were, and to hear their questions about how they can help others in these situations.
Tomorrow will be an absolutely full day!
For Your Information!
- Please send in all swimming forms and money ASAP. Students who do not have their forms or money on Monday will not be allowed to accompany us to the pool.
- We will be continuing with our group of 7 Landform paintings on Friday so please remind your child to dress appropriately for the activity (wear a t-shirt under a sweatshirt so that sleeves aren't in the way).
Today was a whirlwind of day! It was a day 3 so our day started out with music and then moved into math practice on Rounding and basic facts. After recess we did science and learned about air pressure and were absolutely inundated with scientific terms related to this concept.
Due to the grade 3s completing SLA tests this week, our access to computers has been limited and so we squeezed in the only computer time we could get this week yesterday for a research period. As a result of limited technology, we may have to push back the due date of our social studies project to accommodate the missed research periods this week that were promised to students. It wouldn't be fair to expect students who have limited access to technology at home to meet the deadline without accessing it at school.
After lunch we went outside in the wind to play soccer. We had the opportunity to watch a presentation from the mustard seed today which was really helpful in building understanding and empathy for people who experience issues related to poverty and homelessness. It was AMAZING to see how caring and interested the students were, and to hear their questions about how they can help others in these situations.
Tomorrow will be an absolutely full day!
For Your Information!
- Please send in all swimming forms and money ASAP. Students who do not have their forms or money on Monday will not be allowed to accompany us to the pool.
- We will be continuing with our group of 7 Landform paintings on Friday so please remind your child to dress appropriately for the activity (wear a t-shirt under a sweatshirt so that sleeves aren't in the way).
Thursday, October 12, 2017
October 12, 2017
Good afternoon!
Today has been a busy day in room 18!
We began this morning with a quick read-to-friend period, where each student had the chance to read a just right book to a friend while focusing on their fluency and expression. It is really wonderful to see how engaged students are when they have the chance to read to each other. Yesterday we began working on guided reading in groups and found that reading in larger groups can be very challenging and requires lots of patience. We compared that with our successful read-to-friend period and found that they are in essence quite similar and one should be just as focused as the other.
In math this morning we looked at rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands. Students worked in teams to identify the "target" number and then strategized to determine whether the number needed to be rounded up or down. After math, we moved in to an LA lesson/review on punctuation as part of our preparation for expository writing. We will be examining the use of commas and apostrophes in particular as they can be very confusing!
After recess we had another chance to work on our social studies projects. Students helped generate a list of success criteria that every project should be able to meet. We have now generated a due date together, but as time is flying and soon it will be November, we will set a due date of Monday, October 23rd. Students who are creating a board game were asked if there are any materials they will need in hopes of being prepared to put their final product together. Their projects will need to meet the same success criteria through the use of trivia cards or however the student designs the inclusion of information for the city. As a reminder, all of the criteria and required information can be found in your child's googleDrive under the "shared with me" tab or can be searched in their drive using the words "travel and tourism outline". Thank you for supporting your child as they continue to develop their research skills and critical examination of credible sources.
After lunch, we painted! I apologize as we tried very carefully to keep paint from getting on clothes, but accidents and excitement does happen during a paint activity! It is tempera paint and should have no problem washing off in the laundry if there is any on your child's clothing. We began by laying the background of our paintings for the depictions we are doing of landforms in the style (hopefully!) of the group of seven. Some students did some really creative things with colour mixing and I'm really excited to see the final products!
At the end of the day, we continued some of the paint clean up before wrapping up briefly with part of our read aloud.
Reminders:
-Please continue to send in swimming ability forms/consent forms/payment for swimming. Currently you can send in cheques, money, pay in the office, or pay online through your CBE account.
-Pizza fun lunch forms are due tomorrow
-Monday is a PD day - NO SCHOOL
-October Scholastic orders are due Oct. 31st
Have a fantastic evening!
Today has been a busy day in room 18!
We began this morning with a quick read-to-friend period, where each student had the chance to read a just right book to a friend while focusing on their fluency and expression. It is really wonderful to see how engaged students are when they have the chance to read to each other. Yesterday we began working on guided reading in groups and found that reading in larger groups can be very challenging and requires lots of patience. We compared that with our successful read-to-friend period and found that they are in essence quite similar and one should be just as focused as the other.
In math this morning we looked at rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands. Students worked in teams to identify the "target" number and then strategized to determine whether the number needed to be rounded up or down. After math, we moved in to an LA lesson/review on punctuation as part of our preparation for expository writing. We will be examining the use of commas and apostrophes in particular as they can be very confusing!
After recess we had another chance to work on our social studies projects. Students helped generate a list of success criteria that every project should be able to meet. We have now generated a due date together, but as time is flying and soon it will be November, we will set a due date of Monday, October 23rd. Students who are creating a board game were asked if there are any materials they will need in hopes of being prepared to put their final product together. Their projects will need to meet the same success criteria through the use of trivia cards or however the student designs the inclusion of information for the city. As a reminder, all of the criteria and required information can be found in your child's googleDrive under the "shared with me" tab or can be searched in their drive using the words "travel and tourism outline". Thank you for supporting your child as they continue to develop their research skills and critical examination of credible sources.
After lunch, we painted! I apologize as we tried very carefully to keep paint from getting on clothes, but accidents and excitement does happen during a paint activity! It is tempera paint and should have no problem washing off in the laundry if there is any on your child's clothing. We began by laying the background of our paintings for the depictions we are doing of landforms in the style (hopefully!) of the group of seven. Some students did some really creative things with colour mixing and I'm really excited to see the final products!
At the end of the day, we continued some of the paint clean up before wrapping up briefly with part of our read aloud.
Reminders:
-Please continue to send in swimming ability forms/consent forms/payment for swimming. Currently you can send in cheques, money, pay in the office, or pay online through your CBE account.
-Pizza fun lunch forms are due tomorrow
-Monday is a PD day - NO SCHOOL
-October Scholastic orders are due Oct. 31st
Have a fantastic evening!
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
October 10, 2017
Welcome back after a long weekend!
Today in room 18 was full of special activities, as Tuesdays can sometimes be right now. We started the day with Music, had some time practicing our basic facts using dice games, and then moved into library. After library we got to go to phys. ed and then to recess.
After recess, students had time to work on their social studies project and chose which city they will be focusing on. Students were then asked to determine which region their city belongs to and then subsequently begin to look for information about it's climate, methods of transportation used in that city/region, industries that drive the economy, and so on. If you are wondering what type of information your child is looking for, the project requirements have been shared through your child's googleDrive. However, some students have been experiencing difficulty with accessing their drive and so are very patiently troubleshooting through these issues with me. They have access to a paper copy at school.
During the afternoon, students had the opportunity to make their own sandwich as a part of our souperstars presentation, and each student would have received a special stuffy prize for participating in a nutrition bingo game. After this, we read a chapter of our class novel study and then were posed some deep thinking questions. Students then had to use the skills of stretching sentences and 'using question words in their answers' to make predictions and connections about some of the events in the story so far.
We had a class meeting today briefly to discuss some things that are happening out on the playground with some of the grade 5 students. It's easy to forget how quickly having fun can turn into conflict when we change our minds but can't easily communicate that to our friends. What we discussed related to a health lesson we had last week where we brainstormed recognizing our emotions and practicing ways to communicate to those around us our emotional state and needs. This is tricky stuff for grade 4 and 5 students! I'm glad they are engaging in the conversation with me!
Tomorrow will be a much more 'normal' day. Have a great night!
Reminders:
-Swim forms came home today, please try to have forms and payment back to school ASAP
-Fun Lunch money is due this Friday
-No school Monday, October 16th - PD day
Today in room 18 was full of special activities, as Tuesdays can sometimes be right now. We started the day with Music, had some time practicing our basic facts using dice games, and then moved into library. After library we got to go to phys. ed and then to recess.
After recess, students had time to work on their social studies project and chose which city they will be focusing on. Students were then asked to determine which region their city belongs to and then subsequently begin to look for information about it's climate, methods of transportation used in that city/region, industries that drive the economy, and so on. If you are wondering what type of information your child is looking for, the project requirements have been shared through your child's googleDrive. However, some students have been experiencing difficulty with accessing their drive and so are very patiently troubleshooting through these issues with me. They have access to a paper copy at school.
During the afternoon, students had the opportunity to make their own sandwich as a part of our souperstars presentation, and each student would have received a special stuffy prize for participating in a nutrition bingo game. After this, we read a chapter of our class novel study and then were posed some deep thinking questions. Students then had to use the skills of stretching sentences and 'using question words in their answers' to make predictions and connections about some of the events in the story so far.
We had a class meeting today briefly to discuss some things that are happening out on the playground with some of the grade 5 students. It's easy to forget how quickly having fun can turn into conflict when we change our minds but can't easily communicate that to our friends. What we discussed related to a health lesson we had last week where we brainstormed recognizing our emotions and practicing ways to communicate to those around us our emotional state and needs. This is tricky stuff for grade 4 and 5 students! I'm glad they are engaging in the conversation with me!
Tomorrow will be a much more 'normal' day. Have a great night!
Reminders:
-Swim forms came home today, please try to have forms and payment back to school ASAP
-Fun Lunch money is due this Friday
-No school Monday, October 16th - PD day
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
October 4, 2017
What a busy week we have had!
Yesterday we were lucky enough to have two special presentations in the afternoon. The first was our usual Souperstars program in which we learned about kitchen safety - specifically with handling knives in preparation for making our sub sandwiches next week. Students were told that they could bring extra food from home that they might want to add to the sub if they so desire. Non-pork meat options included chicken salad and tuna salad, so if your child may want an alternative to those options provided you are welcoming to send something to school in the morning.
We also had a weather presentation from Kevin Stanfield who is a CTV weather specialist. The students loved the presentation as it was very engaging and Mr. Stanfield was very entertaining. We even got to check out a cool website that showed the current weather patterns on Earth! You can check it out at home by visiting:
https://earth.nullschool.net/
We continued working on improving our writing and stretched sentences in LA, and had a discussion today that getting feedback from a peer or teacher should be a positive experience and that it is not meant to hurt anyone's feelings. Often students bring their work to show me or a peer their progress and when met with some constructive feedback on how to turn a 2 into a 3, or a 3 into a 4, it can seem surprising. We talked about how it's everyone's job to think about how we can grow and improve while at school, even Ms. Laird's! Feedback is just another way we learn.
In Math, we are getting ready to move on from ordering and comparing numbers and will have a quick informal assessment tomorrow that will give us that final push of information we need before picking up and moving on. Remember to practice reading numbers at home with your child as assigning the words to a number (for example - 202 456 Two hundred two thousand, four hundred fifty six) can be quite a challenge for a grade 5 student. Students in grade 4 are expected to be able to do the same skills for numbers up to 10 000.
We introduced our first project in social studies today and will be diving into that in further detail in class next week. Students are being asked to "sell" a Canadian city to European citizens who are looking to move to Canada after an imaginary shortage of natural resources in their home countries. Persuasive language and the understanding of how the region we live in affects our lives (economy, climate, lifestyle just to name a few) will be our ultimate goal. Students have been given choice on how to present their knowledge, but because this is our first research project, Ms. Laird may help make some guiding choices to ensure success for everyone.
Also, we have begun a class novel study, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This is a story that we will be doing lots of discussion around to prepare students for as it is a sad tale, but timely for completion around Remembrance Day. Please e-mail me at crlaird@cbe.ab.ca if you have any questions about this book.
Reminders:
There is no school this Friday OR Monday due to a Professional Development day and Thanksgiving Monday.
Have a great night!
Yesterday we were lucky enough to have two special presentations in the afternoon. The first was our usual Souperstars program in which we learned about kitchen safety - specifically with handling knives in preparation for making our sub sandwiches next week. Students were told that they could bring extra food from home that they might want to add to the sub if they so desire. Non-pork meat options included chicken salad and tuna salad, so if your child may want an alternative to those options provided you are welcoming to send something to school in the morning.
We also had a weather presentation from Kevin Stanfield who is a CTV weather specialist. The students loved the presentation as it was very engaging and Mr. Stanfield was very entertaining. We even got to check out a cool website that showed the current weather patterns on Earth! You can check it out at home by visiting:
https://earth.nullschool.net/
We continued working on improving our writing and stretched sentences in LA, and had a discussion today that getting feedback from a peer or teacher should be a positive experience and that it is not meant to hurt anyone's feelings. Often students bring their work to show me or a peer their progress and when met with some constructive feedback on how to turn a 2 into a 3, or a 3 into a 4, it can seem surprising. We talked about how it's everyone's job to think about how we can grow and improve while at school, even Ms. Laird's! Feedback is just another way we learn.
In Math, we are getting ready to move on from ordering and comparing numbers and will have a quick informal assessment tomorrow that will give us that final push of information we need before picking up and moving on. Remember to practice reading numbers at home with your child as assigning the words to a number (for example - 202 456 Two hundred two thousand, four hundred fifty six) can be quite a challenge for a grade 5 student. Students in grade 4 are expected to be able to do the same skills for numbers up to 10 000.
We introduced our first project in social studies today and will be diving into that in further detail in class next week. Students are being asked to "sell" a Canadian city to European citizens who are looking to move to Canada after an imaginary shortage of natural resources in their home countries. Persuasive language and the understanding of how the region we live in affects our lives (economy, climate, lifestyle just to name a few) will be our ultimate goal. Students have been given choice on how to present their knowledge, but because this is our first research project, Ms. Laird may help make some guiding choices to ensure success for everyone.
Also, we have begun a class novel study, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This is a story that we will be doing lots of discussion around to prepare students for as it is a sad tale, but timely for completion around Remembrance Day. Please e-mail me at crlaird@cbe.ab.ca if you have any questions about this book.
Reminders:
There is no school this Friday OR Monday due to a Professional Development day and Thanksgiving Monday.
Have a great night!
Monday, October 2, 2017
October 2, 2017
Good afternoon families,
We started this morning with a period of read to a friend and discussing the goals and reasons behind reading to a friend. We talked about how this helps us develop our fluency and expression, and has been identified as a goal for many students that have read with Ms. Laird.
Next we moved into a health lesson in which we discussed understanding and expressing our feelings. This will be an ongoing discussion over the next week as we try to better understand how our actions can have a positive or negative impact on others, especially when solving interpersonal problems. We also discussed strategies for dealing with our feelings and how these strategies can be different for different people or can even be triggers for some, as in the case of taking a break/walking away. We briefly touched on the idea of positive stress/negative stress and how building stress can affect our overall health and wellbeing.
During math, students were given their mathletics logins and explored the new platform of mathletics. Feel free to access mathletics from home for extra practice!
In Social Studies we discussed the connection between People and Regions. We looked at how the characteristics of a region (climate, landforms, natural resources) influence job choice, housing design, clothing, and transportation. Students had to list what they would want to wear, drive, do for fun, in an ideal situation, and then see if it's realistic that such a region exists in Canada or the world.
During the afternoon students worked on improving the quality of their writing through stretching sentences. This was difficult work as we often assume that what we know in our head is translated into our writing. Students were asked to consider if their reader would have questions that were not answered from their writing, such as "Who, What, Where, When and Why", and answer them if missing.
Reminders:
- Oct. 6th: NO SCHOOL - PD day
- Oct. 10th: NO SCHOOL - THANKSGIVING
- Library books due tomorrow
Accidents Happen! Message from the office:
We are looking for donations of gently used pants, from size 4 up to 16, or, youth XS to youth XL. Accidents happen, be it the bathroom variety or a seam splitting, and currently we have no pants to help students in such a situation. If you have extra taking up space at home, we will gladly take them off your hands. Thank you.
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