Thank you to all our lovely parents and family members who attended Parent Teacher conferences. It was so wonderful to get this opportunity to discuss your child's growth, learning and progress this school year. I also really enjoyed seeing students share how proud they were of their learning! Great job everyone!
All students have homework over Spring break! We have continued to explore the causes and impacts of climate change. This week, we were inspired by stories from all over the world of how people are working hard to create CHANGE. We learned that people have created edible cutlery such as cups and straws--which helps reduce the amount of waste being thrown out each year. We also discussed hybrid/electric cars and just recently, the story of two local Grade 6 students who started a petition for Starbucks to create a more recyclable disposable cup! I can't wait to see what inventions our students come up and look forward to seeing their creations after Spring Break! We are in need of volunteers for our upcoming field studies to Ralph Klein Park (on April 16) and to National Geographic Live (the morning of April 23). Please contact me as soon as possible if you have CBE clearance and wish to join us on these dates. Unfortunately, our Aggie Days field study has been cancelled due to unforseen events. Have a lovely Spring break everyone! Do not forget to read everyday, work on your inventions, and learn something new!
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What another busy week we have had in Room 16! Here's a brief recap of our learning:
We had a special guest, Elisha visit our classroom yesterday. Elisha is an Occupational Therapist who spent some discussing self-regulation strategies using the Zones of Regulation. Students learned that there are 4 Zones (Blue Zone, Green Zone, Yellow Zone and Red Zone). Ideally, we strive to be in the Green Zone which is ready for learning, but can be in many different zones throughout the day. It is essential to recognize what zone we are in and then to come up with strategies to help us get back into Green Zone. Zones of Regulation is an important tool to help us manage and self-regulate our emotions, thus helping us to become more independent thinkers and problem solvers. This week in Math, we reviewed how to simplify fractions and equivalent fractions. We played a "partner math fractions" game and played some online Math games to help us strengthen and build on these skills. Next week, our Math work will involve measurement, beginning with standard vs. non-standard units. In Science, we are focusing on climate change and global warming. Students have taken ownership of this topic and are quite concerned about the impact and effects climate change has on us, animals and our land. We learned that human activity impacts climate change more than anything. We are continuing to explore and look deeper into this topic and come up with ways to change our behaviours. I am eager to see where this project takes us and to see how students can begin to make positive changes now and into the future! Leadership students put on an assembly today about Going Green to Be Clean! Our school has begun a new composting initiative where students are encouraged to compost any organic waste material. This will help bring the amount of garbage and waste down. Great job Leadership students! Updates/Reminders: 1) Grade 5 Ian Baz option forms are due on Monday March 19 2) Grade 5 Outdoor school forms and payment due on Tuesday March 20 3) TREC Education presentation for Grade 5's on March 20 (all day) 4) PT Conferences on Thursday March 22 (evening) and Friday March 23 (morning). 5) Spring break begins March 23-April 9. School resumes back on Tuesday April 10 Have a wonderful weekend everyone! What another amazing week! Students had the most wonderful time working with Leah and putting together the final touches on our school mural, felt sea creatures, and mini felt balls (which will be put together to form trees!). We have really enjoyed our incredible experience working with Leah and should all be proud of our hard efforts!
We had a fantastic field study on Monday at National Geographic Live. Our speaker, Bertie Gregory gave an inspirational talk about his journeys as a photographer with National Geographic. For more information about Bertie and to view more videos on his channel, check out this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_zD4N2NqWQ Tuesday's field study to Nose Hill Park was a cold, yet wonderful and worthwhile experience! We were so fortunate to have Elder Randy Bottle come join us on this morning. Randy shared some of his knowledge about our connections to our land, animals and Mother Earth. It is important to listen with our hearts and be mindful of our choices. Randy even invited us to take part in a smudging ceremony on this special morning. This was a truly memorable experience that I hope none of us will forget! Students completed a Math assessment this week on decimals and fractions. Please ask your child to review the assessment with you as we will continue to review our work with decimals and fractions next week. We also engaged in a fun 3-Act Math task involving decimals about the Daytona 500 race. Ask your child to share their findings and learnings from this task! Our Grade 5 students did an excellent job sharing their homework about chemical reactions. Some shared about a family recipe that involved where a chemical reaction took place and a few students mixed household items together to produce chemical reactions. Great job Grade 5's! After researching and a thoughtful class debate, the zebra plant is our final choice for classroom plant! Stay tuned for our planting process! Thank you to all the Grade 5 parents who attended yesterday's Outdoor School meeting. I know that many students are eagerly anticipating this wonderful experience in May! A parent handbook will be coming home in the near future with more information about this special event. Updates and Reminders: 1) Leadership Assembly on Friday March 16 at 10:15am 2) TREC education for Grade 5's on March 20 (AM only) 3) PT Conferences March 22 (evening) and March 23 (AM only). Please remember to book a time to meet with me! 4) Last day of school before Spring Break is Thursday March 22. Students resume back to school on Tuesday April 10. Have a great weekend everyone! What another super busy week we have had! We began our amazing work with our Artist in Residence, Leah. She gave us a brief lesson on different types of wool, where wool comes from and how wool can be transformed into felt. Some students then got a chance to make little balls of felt, others created wool jellyfish and a few worked on a large wool mural. All of our final creations will be pieced together to make large Art pieces which will be displayed in our school. I am so excited to see how our art pieces will turn out!
We had a lovely presentation from Stephanie from the NLC this week. She gave us some useful information to prepare us for our upcoming field study to Nose Hill Park. We are very excited for Tuesday's trip. Please note that this is an all-day outdoors trip, so all students will need to dress appropriately. If there is inclement weather and the temperature is colder than -20 (with the windchill) the trip may be cancelled. Please remember to have your child dress in layers and not to forget their snowpants, mittens, toques, scarves, etc. Students continued to practice our decimals and fractions this week. We are learning how to correctly read a decimal (up to the thousandths) and also represent decimals concretely, pictorially and symbolically. Here a few great videos students can watch for review: www.learnalberta.ca/content/mesg/html/math6web/index.html?page=lessons&lesson=m6lessonshell01.swf www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/math5.html?goLesson=1 We conducted some fun experiments this week. We mixed a solid with another solid, a solid and a liquid and a liquid and liquid together to create various solutions and mixtures. Have your child share his/her learnings and observations from our experiments. Grade 5 students have some homework! With adult supervision, they will need to conduct an experiment where a chemical reaction takes place. They will bring in their findings to share with the class. Grade 4's also have homework! Their homework involves researching about 4 types of plants: desert gems, tallandsia, spider orchids and zebra plants. From our research, as a class we will choose the best type of out of the 4 plants to plant in our class terrarium. Updates: 1) National Geographic Live field study Monday March 5 (AM only) 2) Nose Hill Park field study all day Tuesday March 6 3) Grade 5 Outdoor School parent meeting (all Grade 5 students and parents must attend) on March 8 (evening). Outdoor School forms and payment is due on March 20. Have a warm and safe weekend everyone! |