Friday Nov. 15, 2019

T.W.A.S. (This Week At School...)

Another busy week in Portable 888!  Progress Reports were sent home with students today.  Please ensure that your child shares it with you and their goals for the next term.  

Congratulations to both the Junior Girls and Boys Basketball teams who represented Nottawa at the area tournaments last week.  I had the honour of helping coach both of these amazing groups and couldn't be more proud of their growth over the last month!  Way to go Nighthawks!!!

We are moving right along in our Holes novel study.  Students have read to the end of Chapter 10 and as I suspected, they never want to put it down!  We will have a M/C quiz on the latest five chapters on Monday.  We will also continue with our character development and our vocabulary and comprehension work.  

We are in the middle of our Patterning unit in Math where students have been analyzing, creating and extending patterns.  

In Science, we are wrapping up our first two units.  The Grade 4s will complete a review early in the week and then have their Rocks & Minerals test on Thursday.  The Grade 5s are completing a couple of experiments this week on Physical and Chemical changes of Matter.

In Health, the Grade 4s are completing their Healthy Eating partner "Nutrient Research Posters" while the Grade 5s will be demonstrating their knowledge of the importance of Ingredient Lists and Nutrition Tables on food packaging.  

In Social Studies, all Grade 4s have now presented their Province/Territory Research projects and will be comparing/contrasting their chosen one to another student's.  I must say how incredibly proud I am for their outstanding efforts on this task!  They will soon begin learning about different physical regions and land forms across our country.  The Grade 5s have completed their Prime Minister Trading cards and will be trading them this week to learn about other Prime Ministers.  We will then begin to shift our focus to the Provincial level of Government.

Finally, student-led conferences commence on Monday and continue throughout the week.  There are only a few families that have yet to sign up for a 15 minute time-slot.  Please refer to the email that was sent home by Mrs. Beattie with the link to the online form if you still need to choose a slot.  I look forward to meeting with each of you!

  Important dates next week:

***Due to the short week, there will be no Word Study or Spelling Quiz next week***

Monday - Friday:  Student-led conferences
Thursday:  Grade 4 Rocks & Minerals Test
Friday:  PD Day (no school) 

Friday Nov. 1, 2019

T.W.A.S. (This Week At School...)

Congratulations to Grace Hutchinson and Hunter Rowbotham on being recognized for the character trait of Co-operation at our assembly this week!

Well we started our "Holes" novel study this week and the kids are super excited.  One of my favourites for sure!  They are to read Chapter #4 on their own this weekend.  Again, if they ever forget their book at school, they can access it here (I encourage reading the text as opposed to listening to the audio).

http://esl-bits.net/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks/Hoyos/01/default.html

We will be focusing on the setting and developing character profiles this week.

We have wrapped up our Data Management unit.  They will complete a culminating task where they are to sort their Halloween candy into categories, tally them, and then return with their results on Monday to compare with a partner and finally, create a double bar graph of the two sets of data.  They will then have their unit test on Tuesday.    Later in the week we will be starting our next unit, Patterning.

The Grade 4s have begun to present their Provinces/Territories research and so far, I have been thoroughly impressed with the efforts they have put into their slides.  They are taking some time and I hope to get the rest completed next week.  

The Grade 5s have been researching past Prime Ministers in Social Studies and will be creating "trading cards" to share with each other.  They are due this coming Thursday.  They will also be writing a quiz on Wednesday on what we have learned thus far in regards to the federal level of government and our recent election.  A "What to Study" tip sheet was given out this week.            

Good luck to the Junior Boys and Girls Basketball teams next week as we compete in our season-ending tournaments!

  Important dates next week:

Monday:  Picture Retakes
Monday:  Junior Girls Basketball Tournament at Admiral (all day)
Tuesday:  Data Management Test
Tuesday:  Junior Boys Basketball Tournament at CCI (all day) 
Wednesday:  Grade 5 Social Studies Government quiz
Thursday:  Grade 5 Prime Minister Trading Cards due