NANCY GREENE...A TRUE HERO!

Ok...I have to start this week's blog off by sharing my encounter with Nancy Greene last weekend. What a sweet and amazing woman! The timing for meeting her seemed perfect as we had celebrated the Olympic Spirit in September and now we are in the middle of our Hero unit in Language Arts. She was very obliging as I asked to have my picture taken with her (to share with you) and she even signed my ski boot!! I have an Olympic Gold medal skiier's "touch" on my boot...I'm bound for good skiing this season! I've included a link in our "Cool Websites" section if you want to learn more about her.











Here's another picture of Haleigh with Nancy! She spoke to Haleigh's ski class and then they followed her down the hill. What an experience!

Enough about Nancy Greene, I hope everyone enjoyed our second annual Family Long Weekend too! It's been a short week at school but an eventful one!

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

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Our "Hero" unit is up and running! The students received their Literature Circle novels on Friday with much anticipation. They had several opportunities this week to read and respond to their novels. Our first Literature Circle meeting for the halfway point in the novel is TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24TH at 11:20. The students need to have read to the halfway point in their novel and have 2 responses completed for the discussion. Along with reading our Hero novels, we have been having some thoughtful and reflective class discussions about the definition of a hero and their character traits. (You can see our web of adjectives on the sidebar of the blog!) On Friday, the students began some research on our very own Canadian Heroes. The students will be asked to choose one hero next week and practice their "organized paragraph" writing skills in a brief biography of their chosen hero!

We had our FIRST T.U.S.C. meeting on Thursday! I won't say too much about it, as it is our topic of discussion from our "Blogger of the Week". Let's just say, I was really impressed. The meeting ran very smoothly (for our first one)! I think some of the students' nerves kicked in but now that they know what to expect and our T.U.S.C. targets are posted, our next meeting should be a huge hit! Our next T.U.S.C. meeting is TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24TH!


MATHEMATICS:

We've finished up our latest problem solving strategy of "Making an Organized List". The students breezed through their assessment on Wednesday. On Friday, we began reflecting on our targets regarding Problem Solving in preparation for our Tri-conferences in less than 2 weeks.

FRACTION FUN begins next week as we begin making connections to our unit on decimals and get inspired by some "hands-on" activities!

SOCIAL STUDIES:

Who were the next Europeans to make contact with North America? and...Why did they come? As we begin our unit on "The Age of Exploration", these are some of the big questions we will be tackling. We kick started the unit with a video on Wednesday and reviewed the big ideas today with some mapwork, to create a visual representation of our learning. Ask your child why nutmeg was such a sought after spice in the 1400's?

SCIENCE:

Our study of Physical Changes continued this week as we reviewed changes of state with a fun Bill Nye video! Today, the students looked at the solubility of a piece of candy into water! We learned that the rate at which it dissolves can be affected by three factors. Ask your child if they remember what those factors are! It was a yummy experiment too as everyone chowed down on an extra piece of Jolly Rancher. What a sweet class!

We are almost finished our investigation of this concept...watch for an upcoming test date to evaluate their understanding of the ideas we've covered so far.

BLOGGER OF THE WEEK:

by Brendan

Hi, I’m Brendan, the blogger of the week and I’m going to talk about yesterday's T.U.S.C. meeting. I thought the meeting went really well for our first time, about a 6 out of 10. There were some amazing speeches and the jobs were done very well. I am really looking forward to the next meeting and hope we can do even better.

Here are some questions to think about for next time:


What is your favourite job so far besides vacation?

Do you think we will do better or worse on our next TUSC meeting?


Are you looking forward to doing chairperson?



Answer the poll question on the sidebar of the blog (I made it for Mrs. Eby!).



OTHER:

• Library is Thursday this week!


• We only have 2 book orders for Scholastic this month so I'm extending the deadline till Monday if anyone is still interested in ordering!


• Thank you to Mrs. Rappaport for her help this week with my daughter's sudden ear infection "crisis" on Wednesday.


• It's D.E.A.R. week starting on Monday...have your books ready for the chime over the P.A. system to alert us to "Drop Everything And Read!"


• Bingo reading cards are due on Wednesday if you want to enter the draw for some prizes!


• The Canada Day poster contest deadline is fast approaching. Please have your poster ready to send off on Wednesday if you are entering the contest.

Have a terrific weekend! Happy Reading!

Mrs. Eby