Hi Parents! It was wonderful to cross paths with so many of you over the last two days at Student-led Conferences.
Important Dates: Dec. 7 -No School Dec. 21- No School Building Community: This is an important focus as we move into term 2. This week, both classes participated in a knowledge building circle. The question “What do we value as a learning community?” was posed, and students created an exhaustive list of things they value about our place. From this list of values, each class created 3 community goals we can work on during term 2. Science: This week we continued to compile our wonders/questions from the wetland visit last week. We will take these big questions and help formulate the direction we will take for our weather inquiry. Math: We continue to work on constructing our understanding of multiplication using arrays. We built some out of unit cubes as well as using digital manipulatives on a Number Pieces App. You can check these out on SeeSaw. Next week we will work at constructing proofs for multiplication. Continue to work on those math facts at home. Students also revisited the Deca Tree problem as some had not yet completed it or submitted it to SeeSaw. If students were finished that, they had the opportunity to work on some challenging riddles. Humanities: We started a new read aloud this week, “Endling, the Last.” We are exploring a different genre, as this book sits in the fantasy realm and provides a lot of opportunities to examine how an author builds worlds and characters that sit outside of the known and everyday. We also wrapped up our work on Canadian identity and wrote in the opinion journals. Coming up we will begin a new social studies focus about history and geography, that is embedded in our larger inquiry into what is beautiful.
0 Comments
Hi Parents!
For a short week, it was a full one. We enjoyed an in school experience coding micro:bits and went out of the school for a wetland visit! Important Dates: Monday, Nov. 19: Report Cards go home, sign up for student led conference time. Thursday, Nov. 22 (4pm-8pm) & Friday, Nov. 23 (8am-1pm): Student Led Conferences (no School on Friday)Conference registration will open Monday. Watch for an email from the office for specifics. Home conferencing is also possible if that works better for your circumstances. Thursday Nov.22: Scholastic book orders due. 5.4 can order online through Gail’s account, 5.3 can order online through Erin’s account. If you are ordering Christmas gifts, let us know and we can hold on to them when they arrive to keep it a surprise! Science (and more!): This week we launched a long-term interdisciplinary (humanities and math/science) study focusing on the question: “What is Beautiful?”. This essential question will be explored through the year. We will examine the beauty that can be found in the grade 5 curricular topics. Students will build their critical thinking skills as we build a multifaceted definition of the concept of beautiful. We will then look for beauty in geography/landscapes, historical stories, weather/climate, and mathematics (think patterns, Fibonacci, symmetry). Our first experience was to look for beauty at the constructed wetland in North Glenmore Park, as we will be using this a test site for a citizen science project in the spring (check out: Call of the Wetland). Students used a new app, called “Clips” on their iPads to document beautiful things they saw in the wetland and will share these with you at student-led conferences. We also generated ‘thick’ questions that will guide us into our weather inquiry as we observed interesting things about the changing of the seasons during our visit. Thanks to Sam C. and Layla’s moms, as well as our dear former superintendent Ms. Chomistek for joining us on our walk. Stay tuned for more volunteer opportunities! Math: This week in math we wrapped up the rectangle problem from last week. Next week we will begin to explore strategies for multiplying beginning by analyzing a unique representation of a multiplication table as we build our understanding of what it means to multiply. Students can continue to build fluency in their multiplication facts up to 9 by practicing at home. Parent Math Corner: Check out this great resource: 6 Ways to Support your Child’s Mathematical Development Humanities: This week we wrapped up our novel study. Students completed an activity that assessed their understanding of the book’s mood, theme and events. Most students found the end of the book quite sad and we had a good discussion about why books like, “Refugee,” are important. We agreed that we developed increased empathy for those that are forced to flee their homes because of war. Most of the students enjoyed the genre of historical fiction. Coming up we will begin a new social studies focus that is embedded in our larger inquiry. We’ve had another busy week in grade 5.
Here’s a look ahead: Monday, Nov. 12: No School Thursday, Nov. 15: Walk to North Glenmore Park Wetland - Parent volunteers needed 10:30-1:00pm (see more details under “Science”) Monday, Nov. 19: Report Cards go home Thursday, Nov. 22 (evening) & Friday, Nov. 23 (morning): Student Led Conferences (no School on Friday) Science: We are in between science topics right now. On Thursday, students completed a ‘blank paper test. In groups, they created a visual (small poster) that depicted everything they knew about wetlands. This task gives me an idea of their existing knowledge. Next week we will begin to link wetlands with our next inquiry into weather. Part of this will be a walk to the constructed wetland in North Glenmore Park (near the Canoe Club) on Thursday morning. Please let us know if you can join us for our adventure. We will be leaving at 10:35am and walking to the school back by 1:00pm. The plan will be to have our lunch there, as long as the weather cooperates. Math: This week in math we began to explore patterns in multiples and ways of approaching our times tables to help with our fluency. In addition, we started a “Week of Inspirational Math.” We are using rich problems to spark our curiosity and engagement in all of the ways that math is beautiful and interesting. You can try out our first problem at home (students got a start on it, but we ran out of time to explore all of the possibilities...the lowest number that a student came up with was 6!). Using grid paper, draw a rectangle that is 13x11 units. Within that rectangle, try and draw the fewest number of squares that will take up the entire rectangle (note: you can’t split any units in half and the entire rectangle must be made up of squares when you are finished). Humanities: This week we presented our TED talks that show our understanding of Canadian identity. They were recorded and can be viewed on Seesaw. When we weren’t watching TED talks, we were reading,“Refugee.” We anticipate wrapping the novel up next week. Students will complete one final project that will show their overall understanding. These will be shared at Student Led Conferences. Term 2, which begins on Nov. 19, will usher in a new unit in Social Studies and a focus on writing in Language Arts. Students will continue to read a choice book daily, we just won’t be studying a novel as a class. Have a wonderful long weekend! As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. |
Archives
February 2020
Categories |