ENJOY A BIG BOWL OF CHICKEN SOUP!

It's great to get back to business and get some serious work done after all our fun field trips! I can't believe how fast the year flies after Spring Break. I am having so much fun with this class and there is still so many things I want to do before June.

We enjoyed a rousing and lively concert with Aaron Burnett on Tuesday. I love his songs as my girls have them all memorized but I was starting to wonder if he wasn't getting a bit too "young" for our grade 5 students. Although I have to say I saw a lot of singing, laughing and dancing amongst the 5E bunch (even Mrs. Zimmerman was having a blast!).

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

LANGUAGE ARTS:

It's been a serious week of revising in 5E as we come down to "crunch time" with our Chicken Soup publication date looming in the near future. The students were asked to self-revise and edit as well as peer-revise with a friend. I've informed the students to ask for their parents help with spelling and grammar but not to interfere with their story content too much! This weekend's homework is to get our stories and cover pages ready for our Bookmaking Workshop on Thursday, April 30th! This requires doing some typing! If your child needs some help as they take a long time to type, feel free to assist them in this portion of the project. On Thursday, the students were given a checklist of tasks (it's on a pink piece of paper), that need to be finished by the following Thursday, April 30th in order to be ready for publication. Thank you for all your support and help with this project...I know it's a "biggie"!

We also have our OPEN HOUSE T.U.S.C. meeting for the parents on Friday, May 1st at 1:00pm. I think it's going to be a "full house" too! The students are getting excited and nervous all at the same time! We have one more "practice" meeting before the big day on Tuesday.

I have also assigned a new book report for April! April is National Poetry month, so in the spirit of poetry, the students are asked to write their book report in the form of a poem. They have received their assignment outlines and can begin whenever they have finished their "book of choice". These reports are due on Tuesday, May 5th!

MATHEMATICS

Our unit on Fractions has come to an end. The big unit test is Tuesday, April 27th. The students corrected their review packages on Thursday and on Monday we will be playing various Fraction games in centers, to study the concepts we have learned over the course of this unit.

Next week we will learn and practice another problem solving strategy, "Finding a Pattern", before we begin our next big unit on Multiplication and Division!

SCIENCE

With the success of our egg experiment this week (you can see our rubbery eggs in the picture on the sidebar of the blog), we thought we'd extend it and see what would happen if it was exposed to air and not the vinegar...no luck hardening again, they just shrivelled!

We had fun extending our chemistry learning by talking about molecules and creating a methane molecule using toothpicks, jujubes and mini-marshmallows! Who knew science could be so yummy? This unit has also come to an end! We will be finishing our learning with a team project, where the students will be the scientists. This project will be introduced next week! Watch the agenda for a unit test date coming up on "Chemical changes"!

SOCIAL STUDIES

With our field trip to the museum not too long ago, we took a bit of a hiatus from New France but have begun our closer look at the lives and culture that made up Canada's first colony. The students viewed an old (but highly informative) video about the different cultural aspects of Life in New France. We will continue looking at the lives and roles of the people of New France next week.

FRENCH

It seems like we are finishing a lot of units this month. We have finally completed all the pages of our "Album de Famille" and now the students will be putting them together in the form of a Scrapbook next week. They followed a model to create a poem about their families and typed them up in the computer lab on Thursday. I hope to have their final scrapbooks on display for our Tri- conferences in 2 weeks!

OTHER:

• Library is on Monday...don't forget those books!


• Winnipeg Harvest permission slips and $3 are due ASAP. What a great field trip to understand the purpose of our Empty Bowls fundraiser! More information will be coming home shortly about our annual Gr. 5 Empty Bowls event...in the meantime, put a circle on your calendar for June 4th from 4:30- 5:30pm
  
  Have a great weekend...I hear it's warming up a bit again! Time to rake those lawns yet?

Mrs. Eby