Welcome to our second official blog posting for 5E! I received a lot of positive feedback regarding the blog so I hope you enjoy it this year and feel free to let me know if there is anything more that I could add to help make our year together the best possible.
So what have we been up to and what is coming up...
I want to begin by thanking soooo many parents and family members for coming out to Open House night on Tuesday. It's so nice to see the support network behind this great group of students. The next time I will be meeting with you is the first week of November for our first round of tri-conferences. If you have any questions or wish to drop me a line about ANYTHING, please feel free to e-mail me (heby@pembinatrails.ca) or phone me at school.
As you can see around the classroom, a lot of our time this week was spent preparing for Open House as well as beginning new units in our core subject areas.
LANGUAGE ARTS:
We've begun learning a bit about paragraph writing (we will have a more intense look at paragraph writing later in the year!). The students were asked to put their new Olympic sporting event into a paragraph using the "hamburger method" ( introductory sentence and concluding sentence are the "bun" and the supporting sentences in the body are the "meat and fixings"). They will be putting their paragraph writing skills to test again in their September book report. The students were asked to bring home their first book report outlines this weekend so parents could preview it and sign it. Our theme for this month's book report is "Canadian authors"! In Thursday's library class, each student was instructed to find a book written by a Canadian author that they would be able to finish before the end of September. After that, they will begin working on their book reports and float presentations! Along with their personal reading, we will be starting a class novel study. The book is entitled, The Birchbark House. The book will be read aloud by me each day and the students will be required to answer questions, respond to the "reading" that day and make visual representations (drawings). It's a historical fiction novel that ties in beautifully with our Canadian history curriculum outcomes in Social Studies.
MATHEMATICS:
As you could see from our Open House, the students are having a lot of fun learning about data management. They've mastered the art of creating a graph using excel (even adding some "fun features"). Our Math Olympics on Monday was a huge success! Each event had the students estimating, measuring and collecting their data. The torch relay around the school definitely got them into the Olympic spirit. We are continuing to learn about analyzing data and creating an effective graph. On Thursday, the students experienced their first round of daily math conditioning. At the beginning of each Math class, the students are given a set of 15 questions to answer and self-correct. We are beginning with addition facts and moving quickly to mastering those multiplication facts with speed and accurate recall.
SOCIAL STUDIES:
We haven't begun our look at history just yet but we watched an excellent video Tuesday afternoon (when our X-country runners were absent!) that takes the viewer on an aerial tour of Canada. It's a beautiful montage of our country. The students were asked to choose their favorite scene...sketch it and write a small paragraph describing it and why they would like to visit that part of Canada. We will begin our look at "What is history?" next week.
SCIENCE:
Our first unit in Science is looking at "Maintaining a Healthy Body". Our main focus will begin with nutrition and how we feed our bodies to stay healthy. We've begun the unit with a brief overview of the nine organ systems that make up the human body. I've attached a few fun websites to help review and add more information to what we have already learned about how our body works.
FRENCH:
We've had a slow start this week but I hope to jump into our "Bienvenue a l'ecole" unit next week. The students will be learning french expressions to use in the classroom, school supply vocabulary and play some fun games to review their new knowledge!
OTHER:
- Thank you for returning your volunteer forms so promptly. Pam Beazley has graciously offered to be our classroom rep this year! Thank you, Pam. In the past I have not used a weekly volunteer. In grade 5, I appreciate volunteers to join us in Literature Circle groups, special activities in the classroom, party organizers and field trip supervisors. If you have not had a chance to fill out the form and still wish to volunteer, please feel free to return your form to the school next week.
- Strong Beginnings has been terrific! I love this opportunity to sit down and work with your child one-on-one to learn more about them both personally and academically.
- Terry Fox Run is on Friday, Sept.26th! If you are available, feel free to join your child on our schoolwide run/walk for cancer research.
It looks like another warm weekend...YEAH! The autumnal equinox is this weekend which takes us officially into the fall season. Start taking out those rakes!
See you on Tuesday,
Mrs. Eby
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