September 8th, 2016

Today we started Math. We will be doing some multiplication review over the next few weeks. It is important that students have mastered their multiplication facts to their 12x tables this year, so frequent practice at home is encouraged. We started our review with two pretty easy times tables; it is still the first week after all. This week we are reviewing our 1x and 0x tables. 

Each day, students will be practicing their 0x and 1x tables as part of their morning Board Work. We will also be learning and playing Math games that students can use to help them to practice their facts. Today we learned a game called "The Noisy Game." Students really enjoyed this game! It was great to see so many students engaged and enjoying practicing their facts. You can find "The Noisy Game" and other Math games that we play in class below:

This slideshow will be updated throughout the year as we learn new games. You can find it on the Math page. 

The students in our class are going to be members of a micronation. We will be creating this micronation tomorrow and next week. This nation will serve as a way for us to build a classroom community and a shared classroom identity. Today we worked to choose a name for our micronation. Students brainstormed together using Thesauruses to assist them in choosing different words. In the end, we have selected Famousy. Tomorrow we will be working on creating an emblem and a motto for our micronation. Stay tuned for next week when we are going to create our passports and flag. 

The students and I also discussed Mindfulness today. Any students who attended Timberlea last year, participated in a Health and Wellness Fair for Grades 4-6. Students were able to attend my session on Mindfulness in which I discussed some of the reasons why I used Mindfulness in my classroom and provided some examples. Today our class took part in this same session. 

I have students practice being mindful on a continual basis throughout the year. This builds stamina in focus and attention. It also helps students to gain self awareness and self regulation skills as they learn to attend to the present and to focus with intent and purpose. We begin with very small listening and breathing exercises and slowly build up to larger tasks. To read more on Mindfulness please visit the following: 

​Mindfulness in the Classroom - Child Mind Institute

​To help the students better understand the goals and benefits of mindful practice, I show the follow video: 

We will begin our daily practice either tomorrow or Monday. 

Agenda 
Language Arts:
- Read 20 mins.
- Writer's Notebook Covers (due Monday) 

Other:
- Comment on the Blog or Instagram 

​Welcome Back BBQ - September 13th from 5:30-7:00 pm (please RSVP)