September 5th, 2017

​Good afternoon! Welcome to the first day of school for the 2017/2018 school year. My name is Ashley Barrington and I am really looking forward to being your child’s grade five teacher this year! We will have many exciting learning experiences and activities and I am going to enjoy getting to know your children. We have begun our school year establishing classroom routines and expectations, and having the students get to know their classmates.

Students will be using a combination of duotangs and notebooks this year, and will be organizing all of their work based on subject using these materials. Students are expected to maintain these items, keeping work for each subject in the respective duotang, notebook, or section of their binder (student portfolio). Students also have a shelf in the classroom that they can use to store their extra materials such as pencils, erasers, glue sticks, etc.

Student agendas are an excellent way to help keep students organized and to also help keep parents aware of homework, student activities, and upcoming events. Students will be responsible to copy down important dates and homework into their agenda each day. Our agendas have been ordered but they haven't all arrived yet, so thank you for your patience. Hopefully they will arrive early next week. Also, our classroom website is updated with homework and class activities on a daily basis. This is the best place for parents to check the dates of assigned work, activities, and upcoming events.  
I have sent home a letter requesting email addresses. If you have not received one, ask your child and I will ensure that it reaches you promptly.

My expectations for the class are straightforward. I expect students to be prepared for class and on time. They need to be responsible for their belongings, keep their desk and personal space tidy, have the materials needed for class, finish homework, and return it as requested. I also expect students to follow the 3 R's of our classroom: respect yourself, respect others, and respect the environment. We will continue to explore these areas in the upcoming weeks.

Home reading will be assessed using monthly book reports or book talks assigned to each student. These will focus on reading strategies such as making predictions, connections, etc. Starting next week, students are expected to complete the assigned twenty minutes of nightly reading.

I will be teaching all subjects except Music (Mrs. Power), French (Ms. Gates), and Phys. Ed (Ms. Gates).

We will be starting our year with the following units:

Science: Weather Watch (Grade 5)
Social Studies: Mapping Skills and Concepts
Math: Data Analysis
Language Arts: First Steps Reading Strategies (Predicting), Home Reading, Paragraphing, and Grammar (Capitalization, Proper Nouns)

It’s going to be a busy year and I’m looking forward to meeting you all. If you have any questions please feel free to email me or call the school and I will get back to you promptly.

Agenda:
- Visit classroom website (If you are reading this, you were successful! Yay!)