MUSEUMS, MUNCHIES AND MORE!

What a fun week!!! The students should sleep well this weekend with all the activity happening in 5E this week! I want to start by thanking all the parents that were able to attend our Aboriginal Museum Exhibit. The students were very proud of their hard work and happy to celebrate the end of a unit by sharing their new found knowledge with you...their biggest fans! For those of you who would have loved to be there but not able to attend, I have taken pictures of their projects and posted them to the blog (so please click the link at the bottom of this message to check out the actual blog!)

So here's what we've been up to and what is coming up:

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We're still having fun reading, interpreting and solving the mysteries of Chris Van Allsburg. As we read the books together, the students have been learning about a reading strategy called "inferencing". Ask your child what that means! We only have a few more books left before we begin our next Literature Circle unit. The theme of our next round of Literature Circle novels is "HEROES". If you are interested in being a volunteer for our second round in February, please send me an e-mail and I'll put you on my list. (I don't have any exact dates to offer just yet but I'll be sure to let you know by next Friday.) The students have also noticed my 'TUSC is coming soon' poster in the classroom. This will be an addition to our Language Arts program starting up next month...watch for more news in our next blog!

The students should all be reading a book of choice for our FEBRUARY book report which is due on Friday, Feb.13th. They have been asked to write me a Valentine letter describing their book's story elements with a short personal response! I love the creativity and TLC the students have been putting into their book reports to make them stand out.

MATHEMATICS:

The students are really catching on to our unit on Decimals! We've finished up comparing and ordering decimals this week. I've introduced the "thousandths" place to our place value chart. With the new Math curriculum this year, the outcomes have changed slightly to include the "thousandths" place and omit rounding. Since I had already included rounding in their booklets, many of the students have been encouraged to go ahead and practice this skill (although they will not be assessed on rounding.) A great opportunity for enrichment for some of our keen Math students! Next week we will also be covering adding and subtracting of decimals, which will bring us to the end of this unit and yes, you guessed it!...another test! A review package will be coming home near the end of next week with our unit test in the first week of February. Watch your child's agenda for an exact date!

SOCIAL STUDIES:

What more can I say! The students did a fabulous job on their projects! Many skills and targets have been reached in the creation of these amazing exhibits...researching strategies, paragraph writing skills, teamwork dynamics, public speaking AND baking skills!!! Today the students were given an opportunity to reflect on their learning and the whole project experience. I'll let our "Blogger of the Week" share her thoughts on the Bannock-making experience Thursday morning.

So who discovered this land of diverse aboriginal people first? That is our next leap into Canadian history!

SCIENCE:

With our focus on our museum projects this week, we didn't get very much Science covered. It did get a little sticky Friday afternoon, as we explored the physical properties of 3 different types of glue. We are testing the property of 'stickability' by glueing two popsicle sticks together using 3 different types of glue. Watch for the results on Monday to find out which glue is the strongest!

ART:

As many of you saw at our Museum Exhibit, this week the students created imitation soapstone carvings like the Inuit people carve, but by using an air dry type clay. The northern lights backdrops made of chalk pastel really made a colorful and striking backdrop for their sculptures. Next week will be our last week doing Art in the classroom, beginning in February the students will be receiving art instruction from Mrs. Van Nice, the art specialist in our school. I'll miss teaching Art but you can be sure it will be integrated into the other core subject areas.

BLOGGER OF THE WEEK:

Hi! My name is Maddy! I’m the Blogger of the Week.
On Thursday everybody made bannock. Bannock comes from the Plains people. All the parents and classes that came got to try a piece. When we got to the Foods Lab, the teacher told us how to do the recipe then we got started. Each group got a kitchen. Once we got our aprons on and got in our kitchen, one person from the pair of 2 got all the ingredients into one bowl, while the other person was getting the butter melted and greased the pan. We mixed all the ingredients together and mixed for a while. After that, we put it in a pan and cooked it. It took a long time to cook so we had to wait until after lunch. After our presentation, the parents and children were able to eat some. The bannock was Delicious! If I was to rate making the bannock I would give it 10 out of 10!!!!!! I would like to go in the foods lab again because we usually don’t cook food in the foods lab. The foods lab was a lot of fun!!

OTHER:

• Library is on Friday, Jan. 30th




• Scholastic Book Orders (Feb.) are due Jan.30th
  

Thanks for a great week and all your continued support of your child's education...it makes my job very rewarding and a lot of fun!

It seems we're in for another cold snap...bundle up!

Mrs. Eby