​Today we had our Terry Fox Walk. We were fortunate enough to be joined at our assembly today by Fred Fox, Terry Fox's brother. He was able share with us some stories and memories of Terry, giving us a much better understanding of what the Marathon of Hope meant to Terry. Afterwards, we were able to participate in our own Terry Fox Walk. Did you know that Timberlea Public School and Christina Gordon Public School together raised almost $5500? Thank you so much everyone for your support and generosity! 

Today we had our first quiz of the year. Today we had a quiz on our provinces and capitals. We have a routine that we use to help us with quizzes/test:

- Read the test/quiz through twice - once together and once on your own; wake up your schema! 
- Do a mindfulness activity to focus before we get started. Breathe deeply and focus. 
- Don't know the answer or understand the question? Skip it! Come back to it at the end - your schema has had more time to find the answer. 
- Finished but you still don't know the answer or understand the question? Ask Ms. B if she can help you. She might be able to rephrase things for you. 
- Finished finished? Read until everyone has finished. Respect one another's process; be quiet and respectful. 

Another important thing to know about quizzes/tests in our class is that we always get the opportunity to do them twice. So, not sure you have mastered your provinces and capitals yet? Keep practicing! We'll review our quizzes on Monday and students who need to try again will be given more time to study and review before the retest. 

Today we also entered the Telus Wise Comic Contest. Students were given different scenarios of problems they might run into online. Students create a comic explaining how they would handle the problem. There are some great prizes for this contest, including $500 for the winning students as well as up to $3000 for their school. Didn't get to enter today? Check out the Technology page and follow the link to enter at home. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (Tuesday)

Picture Day (Monday)
Bring Volleyball Permission Forms (Monday)
​Bring Guitar Club Permission Forms (Thursday)

Today in Math we began reviewing our 8x and 9x tables. We are working on our 8x tables because you can actually use a strategy that we learned last week, doubling, to help you with your 8x tables. 8 is double 4, so all we need to do is double our 4x tables to get our 8x tables. Check out the relationship between the 2x, 4x, and 8x tables below:

We also learned a trick that you can use to help you with your 9x tables today:

So far we have only used skip counting, doubling, and this 9x table strategy. We will be working on our multiplication tables throughout the year, and adding strategies to our repertoire as we go. I just don't want to give too many strategies at once and overwhelm anyone! Follow the flipchart on the Fact Practice page (as seen below) to see which strategies we have completed. We will add to this flipchart throughout the year.  

Today we had the opportunity to learn a little more about Terry Fox with our ECDP buddies. Thank you everyone for encouraging your buddies to watch the video. Our Grade 5's also helped their buddy to draw a picture and to write something important that they had learned about Terry Fox. 

In Science/Social today we added a Math component to our ongoing "Best Weather in Canada" project. Today students were asked to complete their research on the highest temperatures for the capital cities throughout the months of 2016. Today, students took the completed research from their charts and worked to create a double bar graph that they could use to compare two capital cities. We will be finishing these bar graphs early next week. I love that this project has asked us to use our knowledge of reading temperatures from Science, or knowledge of capitals from Social Studies, and now our knowledge of bar graphs from Math. Lots of connections being made. I can't wait to tell everyone the next step in this ongoing project! 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes
- Book Orders (due tomorrow!)

Math:
- Practice Pgs. 104-109 (Seren, Lucas)

Social Studies:
- Provinces and Capitals Quiz (tomorrow!)

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (tomorrow)

Volleyball Permission Forms - due to Miss Gates ASAP
Guitar Club Permission Forms - due to Mrs. Power ASAP
Terry Fox Walk - Tomorrow around 9:00 am
​Picture Day - October 3rd 

I am away today at Tech & Trades training. I can't wait to see everyone and share some of the things that I have been learning! Get ready for some Tynker and computer coding being added to our Language Arts lessons. See you tomorrow. Make sure you complete any homework left for you by the substitute teacher. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes
- Fri-yay Reflections
- Book Orders (due Thursday)

Math: 
- pg. 274 #1 (NO HOMEWORK)

Social:
- Provinces and Capitals Quiz (Thursday)

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (tomorrow)
- Terry Fox Donations/Forms (tomorrow!)

Picture Day (October 3rd)

​Terry Fox Walk (Thursday)

Today was Day 4. Usually on Day 4 we will be having a small Math quiz. These quizzes are summative not formative. That means that I don't use them to determine a student's "final" grade. I use these as a way for me to see how students are doing and to determine who needs extra support, practice, etc. They are short, usually only 1-2 questions. The questions are taken directly from the practice questions we have already been working on in class. However, as we are only beginning our Math unit, today we had a multiplication review quiz instead. We used Kahoot again today, to further review and solidify our understanding of the 0x and 1x tables. Tomorrow we will be finished with our review of the 2x and 4x tables, so stay tuned! We will be working on the 8x and 9x tables next, and they are a little more tricky! Practice at home if you can. Practice counting up by a number while riding in the car, use your Mathletics account, get a family member to quiz you, etc. But PRACTICE! We definitely want to master our facts.

In Language Arts today, we continued to work in our Paragraphing books. Today we practiced using our brainstorming to help us create body sentences. A good strategy to help you create a concise paragraph, is to group your ideas. I used a highlighter to organize my thoughts. Ideas that don't fit together, probably won't fit into your final paragraph - and that's okay! 

Grouping your ideas together will make it easier to form your sentences. When writing your sentences, remember that a good sentence begins with a capital and ends with end punctuation (periods, question marks, exclamation marks). In paragraphs, you also want to vary the lengths of your sentences. Have some short and some long sentences. Try using different forms of end punctuation to keep your writing interesting. Remember, not all the ideas from our brainstorming will fit! Editing out ideas is important. It will keep your paragraph focused and concise. 

Next, we will be learning about writing topic and concluding sentences for our paragraphs. 

Today we had Buddies for the very first time. We are going to be buddies with Mrs. Luco's ECDP class. This is a wonderful opportunity for students in our class to get to be good leaders and role models. It is also fun to take a break and to get to play for a little while! This year we will be helping our buddies with different activities, reading them stories, and helping them learn different routines. Today we helped them get ready to go home at the end of their day. Everyone did a wonderful job! 

In Science/Social today we did some work with our Chromebooks. Today we began organizing our Google Drives. We learned how to create file folders to keep them organized. I also shared a document with students so that we could practice saving and moving documents into our drives. Today we moved "Best Weather in Canada" to the Science folder. We also discussed how to share documents and what to consider when sharing documents. How many people will be editing it? Too many can be difficult to manage. We all tried to edit a document at the same time. It was tough! Do you want people to edit it? For example, I didn't want the assignment "Best Weather" to be edited. So, I needed to change the sharing settings for this document to "View Only" so that no one could change it. We will be learning more and more about our Google accounts in the upcoming weeks. Today we also continued to work on the "Best Weather in Canada" assignment. This is a great cross-curricular activity. Students are researching the weather across Canada, which relates to our current units in Science (Weather Watch) and Social Studies (Canadian Geography). Students are going to be using their data to create a double bar graph comparing two capital cities, bring in skills we are acquiring in our current Math unit (Statistics and Probability). I can't wait to keep working on this assignment. Stay tuned for our final results. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes
- Book Orders (due September 29th)

Math: 
- pg. 268 #1 (NOT FOR HOMEWORK)

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (tomorrow - class only)
- Terry Fox Donations/Permission Forms (due Monday - Safiya, Danica, Dhilini, Vaso, Kadin, Rukaya, Manish, Teona)

Spirit Week: Friday - PJ Day ($2 or Cheese Strings)

Terry Fox Walk - September 29th

Picture Day - October 3rd

Today we started to use collected data from tables to create our own double bar graphs. Up until know, we have been discussing data collection, and examining the attributes of bar graphs: title, axes, legends, etc. We have also practiced interpreting single and double bar graphs. Students have now progressed to creating their own double bar graphs. We will continue to explore this concept in upcoming classes. 

In Language Arts today, we began the "My Writing" section of our "Writer's Notebooks." Today students were given a topic to respond to. The topic today was: If you could be guaranteed that one item you currently own would never break, wear out, or get lost, which item would you choose? Students are encouraged to write as much as possible; paying attention to their description and word choices. We had some really interesting choices! Many students chose a piece of technology, such as IPads and phones. Others chose their pets or family members - imagine them never getting old or dying. Students will sometimes be given a topic to write about, such as today. Other times they will be allowed to work in their notebooks during "Work on Writing" or if they choose Writing as a "WORD" activity when they have completed classroom work. During these times, students may free write in their books. Remember, an exemplar of our Writer's Notebook can be found on the Language Arts-Writing page. 

In Language Arts today, we also continued to practice Predicting; one of our ongoing reading strategies. Today we reviewed what we have discussed in previous classes: good readers make predictions using information from the text and information from their schema. In order to demonstrate how this works, we used the above Pixar video, "For the Birds." Even students who have not seen this video before are able to make accurate predictions about the ending. Using the information from the text: what they are observing about the telephone line, how it is stretched out, the weight of the birds, etc. and information from their schema: knowledge of elastics or slingshots, knowing what will happen when the heaviest bird is removed, etc. students are able to make a good prediction about what will happen. We will continue to practice this strategy in upcoming classes. 

In Art today, we started a new project using Colour and Line as our Elements of Art. We continued discussing and exploring how Line and Colour can be used together to create texture. Today, we used the direction of the lines to create an optical illusion. Check out the Op Art Snakes that we are currently working on in the pictures below, or visit the Art page for the full lesson. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes
- Book Orders (due September 29th)

Math: 
- pg. 268 #1 (NOT FOR HOMEWORK)

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (Friday)
- Terry Fox Donations/Permission Forms (due Monday)

Spirit Week: Thursday - Crazy Hair Day ($2 or Fruit Snacks/Bars)

Terry Fox Walk - September 29th

Picture Day - October 3rd

​Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes
- Book Orders (due September 29th)

Math:
- pgs. 264-265 #3, 4, 5

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (tomorrow)
- Terry Fox Walk Donations/Forms (due Monday)

Spirit Week: Wednesday - Sports Day (donation of $2 or Granola Bars)

​Terry Fox Walk - September 29th
​

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read for 20 mins.
- Writer's Notebook, Idea Pages (due tomorrow)
- Book Orders (due September 29th)

Health:
- PEAK Basketball on Wednesday
- Terry Fox Donations (due Monday, September 26th)

Spirit Week: Tuesday - Backwards Day ($2 or Apple Sauce Cups)

​Terry Fox Walk - September 29th (Permission Forms due ASAP) 

Happy Birthday Safiya! 
​
Today we began by playing a game of Kahoot! This is a fun way to practice or review any facts. We used it to review our 0x and 1x tables that we have been working on in class. Want to play at home? 

0x and 1x Table - Kahoot! 

We also completed the Colour/Line project that we began yesterday in Art. Students did a wonderful job. It was really interesting to see how different everyone's projects looked. Some students did thicker lines, some did skinnier lines. Some used markers, others used pencil crayons. They all look amazing! 

Today we also had the opportunity to use our Chromebooks to explore some of the topics we will be learning in Science and Social Studies. In Social Studies this year, we will be learning about Canadian Geography, History, and Identity. To begin, students have been asked to memorize the provinces and territories of Canada, as well as the capital cities. Want to practice at home? Why not listen to the following song or try out the following game? We used both in class today. We will continue to work on this next week. 

All About Canada - Review Game

​In Science, we are beginning our unit on Weather Watch. Today, we began researching the weather in different communities across Canada. Stay tuned to see what we will be doing with this information? I'll give you a hint, there is a Math connection. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
-Read 20 minutes

PEAK Basketball - Begins Monday (bring appropriate footwear, clothes, and a water bottle)

Bring headphones

Spirit Week - Monday: School Colours (donate $2 or Whole Grain Cereal eg. Mini Wheats)