Important Dates
Dec. 16-18 Peace Festival Activities Dec.19- Potluck Lunch and Gift Exchange (see below) Dec. 20 - No School Dec. 21- Jan. 5 - Winter Break Jan. 10 - Glenbow Museum Humanities: Students completed the detour tasks for the Great Lakes region this week. We then moved on and learned about the Canadain Shield. Students completed sketchnotes as they learned about geography, resources and climate for the largest region in Canada. Students should be finished the roadblock task. The detour for the Canadian Shield will be wrapped on Monday. Math & Science: This week we learned how to mentally multiply using strategies learned in class. One such strategy for 95 x 7 for example is to multiply 100 x 7 (which is 700) then subtract 5 x 7 from the product (which is 35) and they get 665. There are plenty of other strategies out there, but this is to illustrate the fluidity of numbers and how we can use alternative strategies aside from the standard algorithm. Results for the check-in will be communicated next week. In science, we graphed our temperature measurements using Lego bricks. We then discussed interesting things we observed from the graphs, such as patterns (if any), potential sources of error - all part of the nature of science. Looking ahead: warm and cool air movements and mental math interviews (2-digit by 1-digit) minimum Peace Festival Week
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Important Dates
Dec. 9 - Hour of Code Lunch is NOT provided Dec.19- Potluck Lunch and Gift Exchange (see below) Dec. 20 - No School Dec. 21- Jan. 5 - Winter Break Dear Parents, Canada Learning Code week takes place next week Dec. 9th to 13th. The grade 5 students will be joining 120 000+ students across the country when they participate in an hour of code. Teaching coding is more than teaching our students how to write lines of code to build awesome algorithms. It allows us to teach skills like critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork. We are excited to participate in an hour of code activity on Monday, Dec. 9th. We are participating in an as an Apple Distinguished School, and Apple will supply the students with a pizza lunch. However, we WILL NOT be having the pizza on Monday, as was previously communicated. The students will need to provide their own lunch on Monday. Please enjoy the video attached to see some of the many reasons learning to code will benefit your child. https://youtu.be/yyTbo0wre4M Math & Science We completed our weather instrument construction. Students showed tremendous creativity in problem-solving and perseverance in this activity. Students then created videos, answering questions from how it works to measure a particular part of weather to how the experience was like collaborating with someone. In math, students learned how multiplying by base ten numbers (10, 100, 1000) and multiples of these numbers (20, 30, 200, etc) by using special number properties and how they can be easily used to estimate products. You can check out the lesson here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1m0YuYV5p3ACZKQYbN9x-l63VyFDQQxnp3WE3_5Q2qcM/edit?usp=sharing On Wednesday next week (Dec. 11th), we will have a multiplication check-in/quiz. I’ve encouraged students to study on a nightly basis - about 10 minutes - and review one of the many ways to multiply. Please use the email I sent yesterday to support your child at home in preparing for this. Looking ahead: graphing our weather observations, predicting cool and warm areas in a room, problem-solving activities and mental math interviews. Humanities: This week we finished up with the novel study one pagers. Students worked hard to demonstrate their understanding of the novel through graphics and print. In social studies we discussed the Great Migration and began learning about the fur trade. Coming up we will learn about the Underground Railroad and start our Mock Caldecott unit. December Activities- There are some fun activities planned for this month before break. The Peace Festival will take place, more details will be provided as we know them. We are participating in an Hour of Code activity with all the grade 5s. As Connect Charter is an Apple Distinguished School we will be taking place in a coding challenge. The last day of school we will have a potluck and a Secret Santa gift exchange. Please sign up for a potluck item here. Please see the attachment for additional information about the gift exchange. Dec. 6 - No School
Dec. 9 - Hour of Code Pizza Lunch Dec. 20 - No School Dec. 21- Jan. 5 - Winter Break Dear Parents, Please enjoy this look into our week in grade 5! We were busy as we prepared for Student Led Conferences. We enjoyed seeing families at student led conferences. If you were not able to attend our student-led conferences, your child will be able to lead a conference with you at home. Please see attached document as your guide. Math & Science: This week, I shared with students three online resources/apps that they can use to help them with their math work and can be used for extra practice.
If students have access to a device (laptop, desktop, or table) at home, they can work on any of the above resources. They won’t need to take their school iPads home unless you want them to. With all of the above resources, students need to just log into their Google accounts to access all the work that I’ve assigned for them to do. Looking ahead: more practice with multiplication using different strategies: array and lattice. In science, we started our study of weather by identifying concepts/ideas that are relevant to weather. One common misconception was how students thought tsunamis were related to weather. Looking ahead: predicting areas of hot and cold areas in a given space and tracking temperature over a given time. Humanities: This week the students completed the detour and the roadblock for the Amazing Race Atlantic Region. You will be able to view these on Seesaw next week. We were able to start our learning of the Great Lakes Region. Students have learned that this highly populated region is small in area, but large with people and resources. Students also revisited a blank map of Canada and filled in all that they know. They compared this map with one they completed in August and reflected on their growth. Coming up next week we will continue learning about the Great Lakes and some of the history in that region. Dec. 6 - No School
Dec. 9 - Hour of Code Pizza Lunch Dec. 20 - No School Dec. 21- Jan. 5 - Winter Break Dear Parents, Please enjoy this look into our week in grade 5! We were busy as we prepared for Student Led Conferences. We enjoyed seeing families at student led conferences. If you were not able to attend our student-led conferences, your child will be able to lead a conference with you at home. Please see attached document as your guide. Math & Science: This week, I shared with students three online resources/apps that they can use to help them with their math work and can be used for extra practice.
If students have access to a device (laptop, desktop, or table) at home, they can work on any of the above resources. They won’t need to take their school iPads home unless you want them to. With all of the above resources, students need to just log into their Google accounts to access all the work that I’ve assigned for them to do. Looking ahead: more practice with multiplication using different strategies: array and lattice. In science, we started our study of weather by identifying concepts/ideas that are relevant to weather. One common misconception was how students thought tsunamis were related to weather. Looking ahead: predicting areas of hot and cold areas in a given space and tracking temperature over a given time. Humanities: This week the students completed the detour and the roadblock for the Amazing Race Atlantic Region. You will be able to view these on Seesaw next week. We were able to start our learning of the Great Lakes Region. Students have learned that this highly populated region is small in area, but large with people and resources. Students also revisited a blank map of Canada and filled in all that they know. They compared this map with one they completed in August and reflected on their growth. Coming up next week we will continue learning about the Great Lakes and some of the history in that region. Please enjoy this look into our week in grade 5! We were busy as we wrapped up term 1. We look forward to seeing families at student led conferences next week. Please watch for an email from the office to sign up for these conferences. These conferences are a time for students to share and celebrate their learning. If you feel you need to have a private conversation regarding progress and concerns, please reach out through email to book a time to meet with the teachers outside of the conferences.
Math/Science: Mr Sonico is back in the classroom and has started reviewing mental math strategies with students using number properties, like making tens and decomposing numbers. He has asked that students show their parents these strategies to show how to mentally calculate numbers (samples ranged in difficulty from simple to more challenging questions). We then played a game called Pig where students used the mental math addition strategies along with determining the likelihood of rolling a 1 or double ones using words like likely, unlikely, etc. Looking ahead: we will start our studies of multiplication next week. Mr. Sonico has given each child a copy of the multiplication table and asks that you work with your child at home in mastering this. At school, we will be looking at ways to represent multiplication and ways to calculate it and use it in problem-solving contexts. In science, we concluded our studies of wetlands by discussing students’ solutions to the beaver and cottonwood tree environmental dilemma. Students then began generating “I wonder…” questions related to weather as it is our next topic of study. Although any questions were welcomed, Mr. S encouraged higher level questions that start with the words “why” and “how.” Looking ahead, Mr. Sonico will start speaking in the first-person perspective. Humanities: The students are deep in an exploration of the Atlantic Region right now. They are learning about history and how the geography and resources have shaped the way of life in this region of Canada. Students are also well into their novels, many have started section 5. Students should be done the section 4 reading and activities today. Next week we will start the final activity for the novel study, as students will be starting to finish up the reading. Last week, we had a field trip to the Glenbow museum. There we engaged in activities around several different types of artwork, their significance, and learned skills on how to take time to thoroughly analyze art. We also looked at different artifacts in the galleries and this supports our collections inquiry. Google Calendar Subscription - apart from using Google Slides with your child’s agenda, Mr. Sonico has created a public calendar for you to subscribe to so you can add it to your mobile devices. He’s hoping that one of these links will work with your platform:
Math: This week in Math we are wrapping up our estimation unit and starting to move into multiplication strategies. We will be continuing to wrap up estimation strategies next week, but will also be looking at multiplication. We have learned about how to use arrays and area models to support us in building our conceptual understanding of multiplication. We practiced how to round numbers and in turn revisited place value. We also learned how to play a fun multiplication pyramid game, which is an easy game to play at home to practice our times tables.
Science: We continued to explore how humans impact wetland ecosystem and have chosen a specific action which we have been doing research on. Some students have chosen air pollution, construction, habitat destruction, and invasive species. Next week will be our last week in our wetland unit. We will be participating in an action research project with Mindfuel Alberta. This organization is testing their new augmented reality app. This app will support students in furthering their learning of human impact on Wetlands. Humanities: Our student teacher, Mrs. Sterling, spent the day with us on Monday. She will be joining us full time after Christmas break. We started the Amazing Race Canada in Social Studies. We will learn about Canadain regions and history we explore the county through roadblocks, detours and pitstops. Students are sketchnoting as they watch an introductory documentary and will continue to use this technique for notetaking throughout the year. Next week we will begin our in depth look into the Atlantic Region. We wrapped up the week with our first book talk discussions. Students should be done with section 2 of the novel, as we are moving onto week 3. The end of week 3, marks the half way point of the novel and most students are finding their book selection enjoyable. We will be working with these books until the end of November. |
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