Mr. Gregory has challenged each class to think of others this holiday season.  We have looked at all the options on the Canadian Feed the Children Website and as a class have decided to collect coins from home until Monday, December 19.  On Monday we will count how much money has been donated and select gifts from the site to purchase.  Some of the favourites in our class are -chickens, goat, fruit tree, pre and post natal care, family water source and safe haven.  Please check out the various gifts we can choose from at http://cftcgift.r-esourcecenter.com/.

Hello all! 

It has been a very busy time for our class (with Halloween, Remembrance Day student led conferences and progress reports), I apologize for not updating sooner.

Thank you to all who came to student led conferences.  The responses overall were very positive and I appreciate being able to talk with you about your child.  Students were excited to show you everything they are doing at school.  If you were not able to make it in and would like to discuss anything, feel free to contact me (please see the ‘Contact Ms. Rivard’ section on right hand side of this page).

Curriculum Update:

We are wrapping up our science and social studies units, Science “Think Tank” projects have been handed in and Social Studies “Create your own island” projects are due next Wednesday (December 7).  The students have had approximately 8 classes to work on the social studies projects, so as long as they used their time in class wisely, they should not have very much left to complete.

In Math we are working on using our estimating skills (with rounding) to decide if our answers to addition and subtraction questions are reasonable.  We are also focusing on word problems.  Students have recently learned that to be good at work problems they need to understand what the question is asking.  This is especially important in grade 5 as we work on problems that have more than one step.

In writing we have wrapped up recounts and are moving on to persuasive pieces.  Your child should be practicing how to convince people to do or think something with relevant reasons.  Recent reading activities are helping us with this as we are looking at the point of view of different characters to deepen our understanding of what we read.

The student council is currently holding a canned food and toy drive until December 9th to benefit the goodfellows and the Tilbury Information and Help Centre.  The class has written me several persuasive letters to allow them to have a special day if our class brings in the most donations.  If our class is the winning class, I will chose the most persuasive letter for a special day or activity right before the Christmas Break.  

Math workbook - pages 9 and 10 are for homework. 

If you have not finished the first 3 sections of your Visualizing brochure, you need to do that.

Picture Day is Thursday, Oct 21. Chocolate bar money is now past due. Students who received brown envelopes from Mr. McFadden need to have their parents sign the last page, then return the envelope and the signed page.  All other pages stay at home

There are some students who still have not handed in :

The Most Important Thing (good copy)

Elements of Art squares and leaf rubbings

Appreciation statements for classmates

Bluenose questions

Double check to make sure you are completely caught up!

These are our bitstrip characters.  A few students have not yet created their avatar so I will post a new class picture once they have.  I am happy to see so many students actively using twiducate and bitstrips :)  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Today in computer lab we started using a private social networking site called Twiducate.  It was created by teachers specifically for school use.  Through out the year your child will be using this site to complement the learning that we do in class and to learn how to use online sites appropriately.  We have also started using ‘bitstrips for schools’ which allows students to create their own comic strips online and share with the class.  this will also be used through out the year for both content and media assignments.  In order to view either of these activities at home, your child will have to log in for you.  Although these are accessible at home, they are considered school activities and consequences for misuse will apply.  Your child knows that they have time at school to complete the activities and if they wish to do more at home it must be with parent permission.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me

Wow! I can’t believe it’s already the end of the first day!  Students have a list of supplies in their planners if they were missing anything that we need.  Also planners are provided at a subsidized cost of $ 2.00 - due by Friday.  Students have highlighted important  information that they are to review with parents/guardians tonight.

It looks like we have a fantastic class and I am looking forward to a great year!

Mrs. Morris has been coming to our school for the last few years to teach dance to all the students.  She has applied for a pepsi grant through their ‘Refresh Everything” campaign to bring together many students from different schools and perform at the Youth Dance Festival in October 2011.  The grant, if she wins, will significantly reduce the cost of lessons for all students who wish to participate.  If you are interested in helping her to win this grant, please vote at http://www.refresheverything.ca/moving2learn each day.

Wow! Term one has flown by.  You should have received your child’s report card - please sign and return the cut off form at the bottom of the second page, as well as the envelope.  We are busy learning many things!  In science we have started learning about the Human Body, we are starting our social studies unit on Government as well.  In Math we are wrapping up our multiplication and division unit - the test will be on Tuesday.  We are also wrapping up our report writing unit.

Your child should continue to read every night for about 20 minutes.  Ask them about the strategies they are using and what the author has done to help them understand what they read.  They should be able to tell you about predicting, visualizing, maknig connections, using prior knowledge, summarizing and inferencing!

 Science Fair is quickly approaching.  February 22nd and March 1st will be computer lab times to type up their reports, so they should be finishing up their observations soon.  Be sure to come by the school gym on March 8th after 12:25 to view the amazing projects!

A great website to use to make graphs of their observations can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx .