It's been a festive week in 5E with a wonderful Holiday Concert on Wednesday and our field trip to the MTYP for a great performance of "A Year of Frog and Toad"!
We're trying to wind down the year by finishing up some units in the different subject areas, but many will be continuing into the new year!
So here's what we've been up to and what is coming up:

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Voicethreads, Voicethreads, Voicethreads...the students are so anxious to get started! We've completed all the preliminary work so we should be ready to record on Monday. I've booked out our computer lab for almost 3- 40 minute periods so I hope we get finished too. The students wrote some terrific scripts, rehearsed them and downloaded pictures from the creativecommons site off the internet that represented their story element. We're ready to roll!
Our final book report for 2008 is due on Thursday, December 18th. A few students have already handed them in (take a look at the sidebar of the blog to see some examples of their Holiday cards!).
In the New Year we will be doing an author study of Chris Van Allsburg. He's best known for his picture books of The Polar Express, Jumanji and Zathura but he's written many, many others which are actually geared for older students. They make the reader "think" and make inferences as they are reading. I'm hoping to read the Polar Express before Christmas as we will be viewing the movie Friday afternoon as our end of year celebration. It's a great movie!
Check out this youtube preview!



MATHEMATICS:
Our unit on Number Sense has finally come to an end! The students have been working on estimation, greater than and less than, ordering numbers and rounding over the past month. We corrected the review package on Thursday and everybody seems ready for our quiz on Monday. Keep practicing this weekend!
For the last week of school we are going to tackle another strategy of Problem Solving called "Act it Out/Use objects". It's a fun and easy strategy that the students will actually enjoy amidst the hustle and bustle of the last week before holidays!
We'll be starting off the New Year learning about DECIMALS! It's a nice transition from Number Sense as we explore place value to the right side of the "ones" place!

SOCIAL STUDIES:
Our research of the different Aboriginal groups is coming along nicely. The students have been using books primarily as their source of information. This past week I introduced them to two different sites on the internet with loads of information www.firstpeoplesofcanada.com and www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com . This unit will definitely be continuing into January!

SCIENCE:
With the digestive system "under our belts" (no pun intended...teehee!), the students have selected an organ/part of the body for their mini-research assignment. For this project, the students have been using World Book online, Ask Jeeves and kidshealth.com as their sources of information. They are collecting their data and organizing it using a Concept Frame. The final assignment is being written out as a "What am I?" riddle for the class (or perhaps another class) to solve. We will be finishing these up in class this week. The students have been given a rubric to follow for the assessment of this assignment in their Science Duotang.
In January, we will be starting a new unit involving "Physical and Chemical Changes". The students will be learning more about the scientific process, how to write up a proper experiment and the basic elements of chemistry (oops, I made a pun again!).

FRENCH:
Our French unit on Nutrition has been slow going. We'll definitely speed things up in the New Year! The students have been learning how to express a preference for their favorite snack by using "Il prefere..." or "Elle prefere..." as well as the expressions "C'est nutritif!" or "Ce n'est pas nutritif!". Ask your child what that means.

OTHER:

• Library is on Monday...don't forget your books!
• Our Snowman Craft is on Thursday (Art day)! Remember to bring in one clean, white sport sock and 1 cup of rice for the craft.
• Friday is our Secret Santa day! Please wrap and label your present with your Secret Santa name but not your name. Sign the card "From your SS" or something like that, as well as providing a short riddle for your SS to try and guess who you are! (Remember to keep your gift around $5.)
• Thank you for your donations to the mitten tree and our cereal box drive this past week!
• Let's have a "kind and helpful" week as we ring out a TERRIFIC four months of grade 5!

It's been snowing again! Enjoy that fresh snowfall and all your Holiday parties this weekend!

Mrs. Eby