4 more days before the Christmas break - Dec. 16, 2019

Christmas is now 8 days away; Christmas break is only 4 more days away!  Excitement is building :)

Here is a quick update from last week and what to look forward to this week.

In Grade 5 Math, we finished Unit 3 (multiplication and division with multiple digits) and wrote our unit test today.  YEAY!  I will try to have the grades back by the end of the week.  Tomorrow we will start on the new unit, Unit 5 (fractions and decimals).  We will skip unit 4 for now, but will return to it at a later time.  Please continue to practice basic multiplication facts at home as all math units will now heavily rely on these.  Unit 5 homework sheets will be coming home tomorrow.

In Grade 5 Science, we have been working on the concept of mixtures and did an experiment where we separated the mixtures both by hand and using sieves.  We compared and contrasted these strategies.  We will now be looking at other strategies like using magnets, water and air to separate mixtures.  Before the end of this week, I am hoping to also complete an experiment on dissolving solids in liquids (i.e. a candy cane.)

In French we looked at Christmas terminology (Noel).  We will be working on some more fun activities around Christmas.  I am not planning a test on this, but that also depends on how well we respect the classroom rules until Friday :).

In English Language Arts we continued working on grammar and looked at good beginnings in writing tasks. We will continue to work on these moving forward as we develop good narrative writing skills.  We also continued reading Refugee and continued to explore the topics around the content of the book.  The book is reaching a point where there are more difficult events taking place, so we are taking a bit more time to read these as we move forward.  The chapter questions are all available on the Google Classroom now.  We also started a Stamina program for reading.  The goal is to read quietly, uninterrupted the longest possible.  All who are in the class must participate and when someone looks up, the timer stops.  We have made it to 3 mins and 37 seconds today.  For each minute increment the students will get 100 XP points in Classcraft.

In Art, we finished our Christmas art.  These will be posted outside of the classroom in the hallway.  

In  Social Studies, the Grade 6s have now completed Chapter 2 and wrote their Chapter test.  I am hoping to have these back by the end of the week.  With the grade 5s we continued to work on the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence region.  We will have a debate once we finish with the Canadian Shield Region as well.  We will also have a test at that time before we move onto the next regions. Lots more to come. :) 

In Religion, we talked about Advent, why it is important to us and what it really means.  We watched several videos as well.  This 2 minute video is a fun one.  Make sure to slow it down as it moves really fast. :)  We also talked about how purple and pink are really the true colours of Christmas and that we will be taking that into consideration for Christmas Spirit Day on Dec. 17 (tomorrow.)  Unit 1 Religion tasks were due today but due to some challenging situations, I have extended it until tomorrow morning.  We will discuss what the students made and what it means.  There are some truly beautiful projects.

12 days of Christmas Art (by Hannah):

Hannah in Grade 5 has come up with a great art project where she is providing an Art prompt every day for 12 days until Christmas.  These art prompts are Christmas related and the students who signed up (there were quite a few) are encouraged to complete an art task around these prompts.  A prize will be offered to those who complete these prompts.  This is not mandatory but certainly fun. :)  Hannah is coordinating the submissions, the work and the encouragement for completing these art prompts.  I am looking forward to sharing these with everyone on the blog once completed.

Here are the prompts so far (I hope I captured them correctly :)).  These must all be scenes like in a movie (i.e. full backdrop.)

1) Wednesday Dec. 11 - Christmas lights overload
2) Thursday Dec. 12 - Frosty the Snowman or Santa and his Reindeer
3) Friday Dec. 13 - Christmas Shopping
4) Saturday Dec. 14 - Don't leave the cat alone with the tree
5) Sunday Dec. 15 - Over-decorated tree
6) Monday Dec. 16 - Santa and his elves at the workshop on Christmas Eve
7) Tuesday Dec. 17 - ...
8) Wednesday Dec. 18 - ...
9) Thursday Dec. 19 - ...
10) Friday Dec. 20 - ...
11) Saturday Dec. 21 - ...
12) Sunday Dec. 22 - ...

More prompts could be added.  Again, this is a student-driven initiative and I will support her with prizes for those completing the tasks.  I welcome student-driven initiatives and ideas and am currently working at setting up another one that would involve reading.  More to come soon on that :).

HOMEWORK FOR THIS WEEK:

Math 5: 
- Unit 5 lesson 1

Math 6: 
- Pg 70 - exercise worksheet

Science 5:
- December weather chart and data analysis - due in January
- Pages in Science Duotang relating to Mini Textbook pages 13-15 - separating mixtures

English:
- Any unfinished assignments (grammar, writing (narrative or expository), Refugee questions)

French:
- All outstanding Duolingo assignments.

THIS WEEK:

Monday, Dec. 16 (Day 1)

Tuesday, Dec. 17 (Day 2)
- Christmas Spirit Day - wear your Christmas Spirit
- CCC Christmas Card making with Buddy Group
- Spelling Test

Wednesday, Dec. 18 (Day 3)

- Grade 5 – Gym

- Grade 6 – Music

- Learning Commons

Thursday, Dec. 19 (Day 4)

- Grade 5 – Music

- Grade 6 – Gym

- Grade 7 band performance (morning)

Friday, Dec. 20 (Day 5) - LAST DAY

- Grade 5 - Gym

- Grade 6 - Music
- Delivering Christmas Cards
- Christmas Fun and Movie (bring treats - traditional treats suggested)

SEE CALENDAR BELOW FOR MORE...

----Some important links for your reference.----

Mathletics: https://login.mathletics.com/

Raz-Kids: https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/Login

Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/course/fr/en/Learn-French

Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/

eBoards for Grade 6 students: Math 6, Science 6

PAT practice pages: 

https://questaplus.alberta.ca/PracticeMain.html#, https://alberta.exambank.com/index.html (Password for this one is available in the Google Classroom)

A link to the Raven's Review: Ravens Review December 13.pdf  

Have a great week!

Week of Nov. 25 - Dec. 6 - Dec. 6

Christmas is two weeks away... ok, ok, more like 18 days, but only two more weeks of school!  

Thank you to all the parents that made it in for the parent-teacher conferences.  It was great seeing you all again and many for the first time.  

Here is a quick update from the past few weeks and maybe a few items based on our conversations from the past few days.

To start with, as prepare for Christmas this Advent season, I started using the calendar found at this link to encourage kindness and caring throughout this season.  The electronic version can be used when we are not in class: 

And, now… the updates:

In Grade 5 Math, we have been working on multi-digit multiplication and division (long division.)  We are still working on long-division and we are building understanding as we move forward.  We will then be using our multiplication and division skills to solve problems with large numbers.  As we completed up to lesson 8 in this Unit, next week we will do Units 9 and 10 and review the material for our test on Friday.  We will likely wrap up this year with some fun math activities that get us thinking "outside of the box" and then resume the units in the new year.  Division and multiplication are core topics in math and getting them right will help us in decimals, fractions and all future and awesome math work.  Please take a few minutes a day to practice the multiplication facts with the students to help them along this journey.

In Grade 5 Science (with the Grade 6s too :)), the students needed to complete their November weather tracking sheets (gather the data, analyze and graph.)   As we also started Classroom Chemistry, these past few weeks, we learned about the Scientific method and used it to experiment with Oobleck.  The Grade 6s also joined the fun, and we will all be incorporating the Oobleck and the original Dr. Seuss story into a writing task for English.  Here are some Oobleck making fun pictures in the meantime.

In French we covered words associated with health and Healthy Eating.  We discovered the fun we can have with listening to French songs and listening for words that we may recognize.  While it was challenging at the beginning, at the end of the lesson everyone was signing "Je suis une pizza" :)

In English Language Arts we have been doing some brief grammar reviews and have worked on our understanding of Narrative and Expository genres.  Next week we will be looking at writing tasks, including good beginnings.  We continue to read Refugee and continue to explore the topics around the content of the book.  The chapter questions are all available on the Google Classroom now.  

In Art we allowed for some extra creativity to take place by doing our own Christmas artwork instead of me assigning something.  The results are truly amazing and I am looking forward to sharing them on the blog.  Here is another sampling (aside from the one I sent via email earlier.)

Those who had already finished, tackled some really fun but perhaps a bit challenging logic puzzles.

In  Social Studies, the Grade 6s have now completed Chapter 2 and we are now reviewing the material.  The plan is to have a test by Monday Dec. 16.  With the grade 5s we moved into the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence region.  We will have a debate once we finish with the Canadian Shield Region as well.  We will also have a test at that time before we move onto the next regions. Lots more to come. :) 

HOMEWORK FOR NEXT WEEK:

Math 5: 
- Unit 3 lessons (1-8 so far - 1-7 should be fully completed at this time)

Science 5:
- November weather tracking if not finished.
- Science Experiment for those who did not get to do one in the classroom.

English:
- Any unfinished assignments (grammar, writing (narrative or expository), Refugee questions)

French:
- All outstanding Duolingo assignments.

Religion:
- Grade 5s - next week we start working on our unit tasks - Cornerstone of Faith Kit - must have an idea for this task at this time.
- Grade 6s - you need to have started your game - whichever format it will take.  You need to gather the materials for it.  We will make time this week to work on these, but you need to be prepared to do so.
- Complete all outstanding Chapter questions in Google Classroom - both grades

NEXT WEEK:

Computer Science Education Week

Monday, Dec. 9 (Day 2)

Tuesday, Dec. 10 (Day 3)
- Grade 5 – Gym

- Grade 6 – Music

- Learning Commons

Wednesday, Dec. 11 (Day 4)

- Grade 5 - Music

- Grade 6 - Gym

Thursday, Dec. 12 (Day 5)

- Grade 5 - Gym

- Grade 6 - Music

- Movie Night @ 5:30 - The Polar Express - Free

Friday, Dec. 13 (Day 6)

- Grade 5 - Music

- Grade 6 - Gym

- Grade 5 - Math Unit 3 Test

- 9:00 AM - Advent Liturgy (all welcome)

LOOKING AHEAD:

- Dec. 17 - SPIRIT DAY (Activities), CCC Card-making 

- Dec. 18-19 - Delivery of Cards to Neighbours

- Dec. 20 - Last Day before Christmas

SEE CALENDAR BELOW FOR MORE...

----Some important links for your reference.----

Mathletics: https://login.mathletics.com/

Raz-Kids: https://www.kidsa-z.com/main/Login

Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/course/fr/en/Learn-French

Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/

eBoards for Grade 6 students: Math 6, Science 6

PAT practice pages: 

https://questaplus.alberta.ca/PracticeMain.html#, https://alberta.exambank.com/index.html (Password for this one is available in the Google Classroom)

A link to the Raven's Review: Ravens Review December 6.pdf 

Have a lovely long weekend!

Back online! - Dec. 4, 2019

We are back! :) - December 4, 2019

It is with great excitement that I can say that our Blog is back online.  I will need to do a bit of updating and refreshing, but we are back online.  I will continue to share resources and add updates here while I also just added a Calendar to the bottom of the page.  This calendar will include due dates for assignments, tests and other very relevant information.  It will not include things like gym, music, lunches, etc, or it would fill up really fast.  PAT test dates are in there as well.

Here is a bit of Christmas art that we did today!  Looking forward to Parent-Teacher interviews and to updating you more often through this platform again, not to mention sharing resources that can really help at home as well.

Here are some photos of Battleship Multiplication with the Grade 5s - to help us practice our Multiplication facts as we move into Division and Long Division.

Please NOTE:
- Grade 5 Unit 3 Math test has been moved to Dec. 13
- Grade 5 Unit 3 Math homework is now due Dec. 11

More dates for tests and Assignments will be posted in the Calendar as well!

REST OF THIS WEEK:

Thursday, Dec. 5 (Day 1)
- Spelling Test

- PARENT-TEACHER INTERVIEWS: 3:30 - 7:00 PM

Friday, Dec. 6 - NO SCHOOL

- PARENT-TEACHER INTERVIEWS: 8:30 - 2:00 PM

LOOKING AHEAD:

- Dec. 9-13 - Computer Science Education Week
- Dec. 12 - Movie Night @ 5:30 - The Polar Express - Free Family Event
- Dec. 13 - Advent Liturgy @ 9:00 AM

- Dec. 17 - SPIRIT DAY (Activities)

- Dec. 18-19 - Delivery of Cards to Neighbours

- Dec. 20 - Last Day before Christmas

Have a lovely evening!