February 17th, 2017

Phew! What a busy week! Thank you to everyone who came to our 3 Way Conferences. It is always nice to get to touch base with everyone and to share what we have been learning, our growth, and the next steps with everyone. 

A quick summary of what I didn't blog about this week:

Science: Wow! We have been KILLING it in Science, lol! The students are working really hard during their experiments, getting them done in record time, and constantly impressing me with the respect that they treat the materials. This week we completed experiments on: short circuits and conductors/insulators. Next week we will move on to series/parallel circuits. In fact, we are almost ready to start working on our culminating project for this unit which is one of my favourites of the year. Stay tuned! 

Social Studies: We were able to complete our Biography Poems on some of the Black Loyalists as part of our History unit, and in honour of Black History Month. We are looking forward to moving on to our next topic, First Nations groups of Canada and how the regions/land impact their lives. Students are going to be working in groups, similar to when we studied the regions of Canada. Students were given their groupings today. We also discussed the difference between an archaeologist and an anthropologist yesterday, because students are going to need to be both during this topic. 

Language Arts: Students are still studying poetry. This week we focused on imagery. We discussed some of the ways that we have already been adding imagery to our writing (eg. using our 5 senses) and reviewed similes and metaphors. Students then took the time to write a Simile Poem in their Writer's Notebooks. We also reviewed nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and are looking forward to moving on to adverbs next week. 

"Hooray for Health" Healthy Cup: Did you know that we WON the Hooray for Health classroom activity challenge this year from Alberta Health Services and that we get to display the Healthy Cup in our room/school for the remainder of the year? I submitted our class for a variety of our classroom projects/activities: planning and making our own healthy Halloween snacks, Mission Possible and our Kindness Challenge, and students' Healthy Fundraiser projects at the end of our Patterns and Equations unit. We didn't win for one of these specific activities, but were recognized for our efforts to make healthy choices whenever possible that support healthy living, eating, and wellbeing. Students who attended the HASS Conference on our behalf this week were able to share with the other schools in attendance the other activities we work on such as our smoothies for Valentine's Day, our mindfulness activities, etc. A quick thank you note to ALL of our parents. Most of the activities above couldn't have been completed without your generosity and support. This is your win as well. Thanks you!  

Canada Games Activity Challenge - We have been completing team challenges each day in honour of the Canada Games' 50th and Canada's 150th anniversaries. Each activity is meant to promote physical literacy and we are working on movement skills like tossing, catching, jumping, etc. We're also having a lot of fun. Check parent emails for access to student accounts so that students can complete the challenges at home as well. 

Agenda
Language Arts:
- Read 20 minutes

Math:
- Practice 8x, 9x, 3x, 6x, 12x, 5x, 10x, 7x, or 11x tables

Health:
- PEAK Basketball (Wednesday)
- FRIENDS Home Activity #8A (Wednesday) 
 
Music:
- Recorders (Wednesday)

Science:
- Classroom Science Fair (March 9th)
- School Science Fair (March 15th) 

NO SCHOOL MONDAY - Family Day
Pink Shirt Day - February 22nd
Destination Conservation (CG Recyclers)- February 22nd (return permission forms)
Hot Lunches - due February 20th (https://timberlea.hotlunches.net)
Tech & Trades Academy - Mondays (3:00-4:00 pm)
Grade 5/6 Guitar Club - Thursdays (2:45-3:45 pm)
CG Recyclers - Day 1 (lunch recess) and Day 4 (lunch)
Girls Basketball - Mondays, Wednesdays (2:45-3:45 pm)
Boys Basketball - Tuesdays, Thursdays (2:45-3:45 pm) 
Teacher's Convention Break - Feb. 27th-March 3rd (return March 6th)