Newsletters

Week of March 9th, 2020

Math:

• Pattern Strategies & looking for patterns in skip counting
• Multiple number patterns
• Unit review for quiz next Tuesday
• Next Unit Addition and Subtraction

Language Arts

• Continue with sequencing and asking questions in reading comprehension
• Words their way tasks
• Guided reading activities - small groups reading with the teacher

Science

• Sound absorption and reflection
• Terms review: Absorb, reflect, vibrations, sound waves, sound travels, echo

Week of March 1st, 2020:

Welcome to my first entry into our weekly updates. A few things to note: 

• Students need to be reading at least 20 minutes nightly to be increasing their reading levels this year. When tracking on Raz Kids I have noticed that some students rarely log in and are not reading at home. If students are reading a book at home, that is also beneficial, as I know screen time can be an issue. However, if students are not being read to, reading to somebody else, or reading regularly they will fall behind. If they are already reading at a level below what is expected, the gap will continue to increase. Our school has opted to purchase and utilize Raz Kids for students because it allows students to read books at their level and practice a wide variety of the comprehension and fluency techniques that are integral to student growth in reading abilities. Please remember that strength in reading can also predict student abilities in social studies, science, and math. Help your students to become better readers by reading to them, finding the books they will love, and promoting reading at home. 
• The same goes for math. Students should be practicing math at home through any one of the different applications I have provided: XtraMath, Prodigy, Freckle etc. All of these applications will align with what they need to focus on at their level and help them grow no matter where they are now. While practice doesn't always make perfect, it sure helps students progress more than not!

Coming up this week:

MATH:

• Patterns in T-Charts
• Measurement patterns
• Solving Problems in Patterns
• Mental Math Week 4 & a Problem of the Week looking at reading a table and answering questions associated with it.

LANGUAGE

• We will have a new set of Words Their Way this week for students to progress through
• We will be looking at Cause and Effect, Organization, & Determining Important Information - Reading Strategies

SCIENCE

• We already learned that sound travels in waves, as well as sound makes vibrations that our ears can hear. We also learned about pitch and frequency of sounds, and that sound can be heard better when you are closer to it.
• This week we will be looking at how sound can be absorbed.

Weekly Freckle Report:

Congrats on all the work you've done on Freckle last week! Our class has answered 760 questions so far this year, with 341 questions answered this past week—great job! The most improved for this past week are: Jayden J in Fractions, Alston K in Operations & Algebraic Thinking, and Maranelo M in Geometry. 

Do you have questions on specific domains? You can ask these classmates for help: Rachel K in Measurement & Data, Jayden J in Fractions, Galen H in Operations & Algebraic Thinking, Jayvier W in Quadratic Functions, Sophia R in Base 10, Sophia R in Geometry, Rachel K in Financial Literacy, and Ming Kee L in Counting & Cardinality. Here's to another great week with Freckle!


Have a great week!

(Happy reading!)
2019 NEWSLETTERS:


Week of November 25th:

MATH

• Collecting Data
• Drawing Graphs
• Interpreting Data

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES

• Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox - Story and Writing
• WTW - second last set of the year
• Story Writing - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books
• Reading Comprehension - Reviewing

SCIENCE:

• Final unit - Built on Inquiry - Pulleys

Week of November 18th:

MATH

• Measuring Capacity and Volume
• Unit 3
• Constructing Pictographs
• Choosing appropriate scales for graphs
• Collecting data

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES

• Publishing our final poems
• Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox - Story and Writing
• New WTW - On Tuesday
• Reading Comprehension - Reviewing

SCIENCE:

• Finishing up our Minerals small group labs
• Unit Quiz on Friday!
• Please study and understand:
• 3 Types of Rocks and how they are formed: Sedimentary, Igneous, Metamorphic
• The difference between rocks and minerals
• What is the hardest mineral around? - Diamond
• What is Erosion? Weathering?
• What are the physical properties of minerals? Think about our mineral lab: we looked at hardness, streak, colour, lustre (shiny, metallic etc), and transparency
• Remember how to use the Mohs Scale of hardness - a mineral that is rated a 1 - like talc, cannot scratch a mineral, like a diamond - rated a 10. A level 8 mineral would scratch a level 4 mineral because it is rated as a harder mineral.

REMEMBER TO BE READING!! You need to read 600 minutes by December 9th. I told some of you 6 hours, but I was wrong. We agreed to 600 minutes before December 9th, which is 10 hours! We can do it!

Week of November 11th:

MATH:

• New unit - Chapter 11
• Sketching faces
• Making 3D Shapes
• Measuring Mass & Capacity
• Modelling volume

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

• Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox - Story and Writing
• Poetry Unit - Finish up poems - Diamante 
• Reading Comprehension - reviewing learned skills

SCIENCE:

• Testing minerals
• Finishing up unit
• Quiz next week before moving onto Pulley Unit

Week of November 4th:

MATH:

• Quiz on Monday
• Test on Friday - Please see "Textbook" tab for the review pages. Extra practice on Prodigy and Freckle will help prepare students.
• Finish up Fractions & Decimals Unit
• Add and Subtract Decimal Tenths/Hundredths
• Decimal Hundredths
• Relating Fractions & Decimals

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

• Continue on with Words Their Way
• Autobiography Poems
• Work on Reading comprehension
• Reading Tests to begin - from here until the end of the year, final tests

SCIENCE:

• Rocks/Minerals lab - classification
• Finish up erosion
• Life Cycle of an Aluminum Can
• Science Test next week - so we can move to our final unit on Pulleys.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

Your student needs to be practising nightly on RazKids (or reading books) for at least 20 minutes a night, and working on some of the math applications. It would also help them to start reviewing for the upcoming science test. Please ensure your student is working regularly on this! We will also be having the last push for a reading party at the end of the year. 

Each Student will need to read 600 minutes by DECEMBER 9th to be included in the reading party. I prefer this on Raz Kids because kids are not able to cheat and it teaches them to be accountable and independent for their own reading minutes. We are aiming for 15000 to have the reading party the last week of school!

Week of October 30th:

MATH:

• Mid-Unit Review
• Finish up POW and MM from last week

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

• New Words Their Way words this week
• Finishing up reading comprehension from last week
• Halloween stories

HALLOWEEN THIS WEEK - Art and Trick-or-treating on Thursday - Finishing up Art's Night decorations.

Week of October 21st:

MATH:

• Fractions & Decimals! - Chapter 12
• Switching from Mixed to Improper, and back again
• Switching between decimals and fractions
• fractions/decimals greater than 1

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES

• Final copy of their ancient civilizations papers are due TUESDAY
• Finish WTW
• Haiku Poems done - working on Autobiography Poems
• Thesaurus and Synonyms

SCIENCE:

• Rock/mineral lab - learning about the different ways we can classify

Week of October 14th:

MATH:

• Multiplication/Division Quiz Tuesday
• Starting Fractions this week - another very important unit!

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES

• Editing of the rough drafts of ancient civilizations papers
• Reading Comprehension Week 21 - Author's purpose, compare and contrast
• Continue working on WTW (Please see WTW tab for current week lists)
• Poetry: Limerick poems & Haiku

SCIENCE

• Types of rocks - sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic

Week of October 7th:

Sport's Day this Friday!! Please make sure you bring a hat, wear sunscreen, and have your water bottle with you! We will be outside most of the day, but there will be tents set up to get rest from the sunshine.

MATH:

• Division - Long Division
• Ontario Curriculum expectation:  divide two-digit whole numbers by one-digit whole numbers, using a variety of tools (e.g., concrete materials, drawings) and student-generated algorithms;
• Mental Math - working with 9's - Example: 19.99 + 15.99
• Problem of the week: Working with time - Hours and adding
• REMINDER: The textbook is fully posted on the blog, you will need to click on the part that says "click here"

LANGUAGE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

• Begin our Poetry Unit - Start writing our own poems
• Review nouns, verbs, adjectives etc
• Continue working on Ancient Civilization Research Papers - Rough copy due October 9th
• We will start editing this week
• Reading Comprehension: Cause and Effect, Fact and Opinion, Determine Important Information, and Ask Questions - As all strategies have been taught, we are now reviewing weekly from here on out to ensure practice makes (near) perfect!

SCIENCE

• Different types of rocks
• sedimentary
• igneous
• metamorphic
• Rock Cycle

Have a great week!



Week of September 30th:

Good Morning parents and/or Guardians (and students),

I will update this way instead, making the newsletter and adapting the template takes a lot of time, when this will suffice.

This week we are working on:

MATH:

• Multiplying by bigger numbers (one-digit by two or three digit)
• Using arrays
• Expanded form
• Standard algorithm

LANGUAGE

• Reading Comprehension
• Main Ideals and Details
• Sequencing
• Words Their Way
• Please check the words their way tab for which week we are on. I will be moving onto a new set of words next week - We are going to try to go through a set every 2 weeks to try to cover more by the end of the year. 
• Research Paper writing (also part of social studies)
• Finish up outline (due October 1st)
• Work on how to write a research paper - Rough draft due October 9th

SCIENCE

• Different types of rocks
• sedimentary
• igneous
• metamorphic
• Rock Cycle

Have a great week!

Week of September 3rd:

Week of August 26th:

Week of August 19th:

Week of August 12th:

Week of May 13th:

Week of May 7th:

Week of April 28th:

Week of April 22nd:
Sorry about not posting the last few weeks, it has been a busy one with Spring Into reading, and my own coursework to complete. Here is our newest one with details on our Reading Competition:

Week of April 2nd:

Week of March 25th:

Week of March 17th: