Activities for the week of March 28-April 1st

Greetings everyone,

Thanks to all the parents who returned the report card envelopes with their children this morning.  If you have any questions about reports or would like to schedule a meeting time please let me know.

THIS WEEKS ACTIVITIES:


MATH


We will start the week with a short review quiz before learning about mixed numbers and improper fractions.  By this point each student should be reasonably comfortable with finding equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions, and ordering fractions using common denominators and/or percentages.  By the end of the week we will be applying our knowledge of fractions to circle graphs.  The chapter test for fractions will be early next week.

READING


We will spend some time choosing and reading biographies and autobiographies.  We will be discussing common features found in all biographies, and how we will use what we learn from our reading to help us write our own autobiographies.  We will also keep reading our class novel 'Sounder' and practicing our summarizing, and hopefully we will be able to watch the movie version of 'Sounder' by the end of the week.

WRITING


We will be using a graphic organizer to help us plan out our autobiographies.  The organizers will be used to work on our pre-writing skills, and learning about how important it is to plan before writing.  Once our graphic organizers are completed we will begin writing.

SOCIAL STUDIES


We will be discussing the expectations for our final social studies project, especially time management and cooperation.  We will also discuss how to find and use information appropriately, and how to use our summarizing skills to make sure that all of the information that goes into our projects comes from our own words and hard work.  The students will be given time to work on their projects and assessed on how well they use their time, and how they cooperate with their partners.

CHARACTER STUDIES


This week in character studies we will be working on good sportsmanship.  This is a character trait that needs work in our class, as sports activities amongst our students often lead to fights and arguments.


Here's to a great week!  All the best,

Jordan Rose

Classroom Activities for March 21st to 25th

Hello everybody,

We are coming to the close of our third quarter.  Reports will be sent home with students at the end of the week.  Please return the envelope that they come in with a parents signature on Monday.  Here's to a great final week of quarter three, and enough energy to keep learning new things right to the end of the year.

This Week's Classroom Activities:


MATH


In math lessons this week we will be learning to compare and order fractions.  To do so we'll use our fraction pieces to visually compare the size of different fractions.  We'll also be drawing connections between fractions and percentages to help us determine which fraction is larger or smaller.  At the end of the week we'll be having a short quiz to assess how we are doing with fractions thus far.

READING


We will continue to practice our reading skill of 'summarizing' this week.  Students will listen and read along with a section of our class novel, "Sounder", and then practice summarizing the most important details in their own words.  We will also continue our individual reading, and continue to write about the books we're reading in a reading recommendation letter to another student in the class.

WRITING

We will be using the timelines that we created last week as the starting point for writing our own autobiographies.  The autobiographies will be an ongoing project where we will attempt to tell the story of our lives, from birth to the present day.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We will begin our final social studies project this week.  Students will choose partners and project topics and begin to read and summarize the information that they read.

I hope everyone has a great week!!  Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there.  Thanks for reading,

Jordan Rose

Activities for the week of March 14th-17th

Hello everybody,

I hope everyone who made it out had a great time at family night.  Our third quarter is coming to a close this week.  It is also a short week, as there will be no school Friday.

This Week's Classroom Activities


MATH:  In math lessons this week we will be continuing with our fractions unit.  We will be learning about equivalent fractions.  To do so we'll use our number sense and multiplication/division skills, as well as using hands-on manipulatives and visual representations of fractions.  We'll also work on putting fractions into their simplest form and comparing fractions.

READING:  In reading this week we'll continue to practice our ability to read and summarize a piece of text in our own words.  We'll be looking at a piece of text from our social studies unit about slavery in the USA.  This summarizing skill will be necessary for our social studies project that begins this week.

WRITING:  In writing this week we'll be putting together the timeline of our lives, and use it as the entry point to writing our own autobiographies.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  In social studies this week we will be learning a little bit more about the differences between Northern and Southern States during the time of slavery.  We'll also be introduced to  our final project for this unit that will have students working as partners to study and report on an aspect of the issue of slavery in the USA.

GRAMMAR:  In grammar we will spend a second class looking at prepositions in the English language and how they're used in our writing and speaking.

I hope everyone has a great week!  All the best,

Jordan Rose

IMPORTANT REMINDER:

DISCOVERY SCHOOL FAMILY NIGHT IS THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 11th

In case you missed the letter sent home with your child, you and yours are invited to join as at Discovery School for Family Night.  The theme this year is Carnaval  Students and parents are welcome to wear a mask or a costume.  The evening will be from 5 to 8 pm.  Please contact me if you did not receive a letter, and would like more information about this event.

ADDITIONAL INFO ABOUT FAMILY NIGHT:

The Music department will be devoting their class time this week to constructing musical instruments for the BATUCADA SAMBA GRITÓN group presentation on Family Night. Please make sure that your child brings with him/her the following materials for your child’s choice of instrument by Tuesday morning:

For Drums: An Large Empty Milk Can with its lid (preferably “CETECO” brand, but any will do) OR a medium size plastic bucket, AND a broom stick (with out the broom).

For Maracas: Two small empty cans OR two small Agua Azul bottles.

Please send your child’s materials labeled with your child’s name. If you have extras of any of these materials, please donate them to share with the children who may not be able to bring them. If your child has any stickers or drawings that they would like to use for decorating their instrument, please encourage them to bring them or put them in the bag along with the materials.

We hope you can all join us for a wonderful fun filled evening. 

This Weeks Classroom Activities:

Math

This Tuesday will be our end of chapter test for the Geometry concepts that we have learned over the past three weeks.  As always there will be a practice test sent home tonight (Monday) for students to review prior to the test tomorrow.  Following our geometry test, we will be moving into everybody's favourite math topic: Fractions!  The students will have a re-introduction to the concept of fractions as a part of a whole, and talk about what they already know about fractions and how they are used in day-to-day life.  We will also be using manipulatives to help our visual learners conceptualize the idea of fractions.  

Reading

In reading we will continue to read our class novel, 'Sounder'.  We will be using our context clues to try to understand challenging words that we come across.  We will also be using the story to learn more about some of the effects that slavery has had on American society.  Our new reading skill this week will be summarizing.  The students will work on reading pieces of non-fiction text and summarizing the text into the main idea and important supporting details.

Writing

In writing this week we will begin preparing our 'My Life' timeline.  We will be determining some of the key moments of our lives, and then arranging them in chronological order so that we can make our 'My Life' timelines.  This project will lead into an autobiographical writing project the following week.

Social Studies

In social studies this week we will be preparing our play about slavery for a performance for our grade one reading buddies on Thursday.  We will also be learning about the Fugitive Slave Laws and how these affected slaves that escaped via the 'Underground Railroad'. 

Grammar

We will be looking at prepositions.  We will learn what they are, and how they can be used in our speech and writing effectively.

I hope everyone has a great week.  Looking forward to seeing you all at the Family Night this Friday.  Thanks for reading,

Jordan