Monday, February 2018, 2018

Good afternoon families of room 18!

Today was a busy Monday! Here's a recap of what we did in the classroom:

Math:
Today we completed many tasks during our math time. We worked on transferring our math from our Valentine's menus to a sheet so that we could clearly track and understand our computations. We did this in order to understand if we went over our spending budget, or if we managed to stay under budget. We also had the opportunity to continue some decimal and fraction centres that we began on Thursday in preparation for centres that will begin tomorrow that dig deeper into understanding decimals, how place value works with decimals, and how fractions and decimals are connected.

Social Studies:
We took on part 2 of our work with the Famous Five. Students are using strategies that teachers are exploring through our PLC work to help build comprehension, direct student attention to important facts and details, and help them recognize information that challenges them to design next steps. Ask your child about the Persons Case and if they can tell you how the Famous Five moved women's rights forward in Canada. As a grade 4/5 project hook, students will be watching portions of the "Canada: The Story of Us" documentary series produced by the CBC. This is one way we are trying to expose students to alternative methods of research, students will also be using books and electronic resources to research an upcoming project related to WWI, The Great Depression, and the Post World War II boom.

Language Arts:
Last week we began putting our work with figurative language and superheroes into an article that combined one or more superheroes from our class into a fictitious event. This was very fun to brainstorm and plan, but once students began to write it was clear that they have forgotten about the elements of article writing while also being challenged by the desire to write their article as a story. While Ms. Ryan and I are attempting to steer their writing in the correct direction, our efforts were being interfered with by the excitement of creating these writing samples and forcing them to write using a non-fiction style is now dampening the excitement. We may take a break from these writing samples for a day while we re-group and re-direct our focus.

Reminders:
** Pink Shirt Day (Anti-Bullying Day) is Wednesday, February 28th! Everyone is encouraged to wear a pink shirt to support anti-bullying efforts!
** Safety Expo Field Trip Forms - these are coming home today! We are asking that all students return their forms by Friday! We will need 2 parent volunteers.
** Jump Rope Fundraising forms - these are coming home today as well! Please return all donations and forms by Friday, March 9th!
** Fun Lunch - This Wednesday. March 28th