Update from a short week - April 24, 2019

Hope everyone had a great Easter Break!  Last week was a short one and this week will be as well.  Nonetheless, we will make good use of every minute we have together :).

Here's a short update from last week.  Friday I will have an even shorter update for this week :).

Math:
- Last week we started working on fractions.  We are continuing with this work this week.  Fractions tend to be very scary but so far so good :).
- We also continued working on Mathletics earning even more certificates.  I handed out 8 certificates today for the last two weeks.
English:
- Last week we continued our Autobiography projects.  We will be using Book Creator to write our final stories sometime next week.
French:
- We are continuing to read "Les bas du pensionnat".  It is not an easy topic and we do take time to address questions and discuss important points that are raised in the story.
Coding:
- Last week we also continued working with Scratch.  The games for Coding Quest are now in full development.  This week, we are also taking some time to learn how to code in Scratch as we continue to work on our projects.

Religion / Art:
- Below are pictures of the watercolour art we did last week representing the night Jesus died on the cross for all of us.  Some of the students did not get to make one, hence the fewer paintings.  Each one has a unique way of representing the sadness and hope of that night.

In Art, we also did a bit of Photography last week.  We had a variety of items and shapes to find and photograph in our class.  We then followed this up with finding and taking photos of garbage in our school backyard.  We will be using these photos to promote the need for a backyard cleanup event or events for our school.  More to come on this.

For Easter, we also had a game where students had to work with partners to solve some puzzles in French and earn chocolate Easter eggs.  The students found these puzzles fun even if some of them were more challenging.  We also learned that hard work pays off - even in chocolates sometimes.

Finally, for Earth Day (April 22), we created Agamograph Art.  Not all are finished, but here is a sample.  They are very cool and help us remember that the Earth is a precious place and the only place where we humans can live.  As such, we need to take much better care of our beautiful home.

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Spring Variety / Talent Show

APRIL 25, 2019 @ 6:30 PM

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LENTEN FOOD DRIVE

Although our school is small, we still pulled together a good amount of food for the Lenten Food Drive.  This will truly help many less fortunate.  Thank you for everyone's generosity.  Here are some photos of our school's boxes before they were taken.

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Homework: 

NO HOMEWORK THIS WEEK!

Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, April 22
- EASTER MONDAY - NO SCHOOL

Tuesday, April 23
- PD DAY - NO SCHOOL

Wednesday, April 24 (Jour 6)
- Gym
- Chess Club @ lunch

Thursday, April 25 (Jour 1)
- Variety Show @ 6:30 PM

Friday, April 26 (Jour 2)
- Hymn Sing, Grade 1 Buddies, Gym
- Chess Club @ lunch

LOOKING AHEAD:

- Thursday May 16 - Weaselhead Glenmore Park Field Trip with Gr. 5,6
- Friday May 17 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL
- Monday May 21 - Victoria Day - NO SCHOOL
- Thursday May 23 - SAIT Arcade (Coding Quest) - Tentative
- May 27-31 - Scholastic Book Fair

Have a lovely evening! 

Easter is fast approaching - April 13, 2019

A full week with many things accomplished but with much more left to do next week.  A quick update below...

Math:
- This week in Math we finished area and perimeter.  We have a lot more to learn about that but for the time being we will be moving onto fractions and more exploration will be done a bit later in area and parameter again.
- We also continued working on Mathletics earning even more certificates.  Some of the students have also begun looking at grade 5 material in Mathletics.  I am truly proud of the progress each and every student is making in their math and critical thinking skills.
English:
- We started a writing project this week.  It is an Autobiography.  We have created the outline in Google Docs and will begin adding more detail as the weeks progress.  We will be using Book Creator to write our final stories.
- We have continued working on our Planet Protector project as well.  The students finished their "Eat me first signs" and took home their Mission Files as well.  Please help them complete their missions to reduce food waste.

French:
- We continued correcting our grammar booklets.  We will continue working on these and will finish correcting them this week.
- We have also started reading "Les bas du pensionnat".  It is not an easy topic and we do take time to address questions and discuss important points that are raised in the story.
Music:
- We have continued with our notes this week.  We took some time to do a quick revision and then started working on more notes.  One day we did have to abandon the lesson as our listening skills were not quite what they should have been.  We will once again pick up where we left off this upcoming week.
Coding:
- This week we also continued working with Scratch.  The games for Coding Quest are now in full development.  Some games are further ahead than others but we have some talented coders and researchers doing great work.  The goal is to have a fully working game ready very soon so we can all prepare to make it to SAIT.  We are all working hard to make it happen.
Science:

- This week we continued working with the Escape Room activity, though it has been challenging us in terms of saving our data.  We will attempt to finish these this week and start looking at the other topics in science like Light and Shadows as well as Plants and their Growth.  We still have the sunflower seeds from Santa that need to be planted. :)
Religion / Art:
- As Easter is coming up and we are reminded of how God sacrificed his son Jesus for us, we decided to do a small Art activity portraying this sacrifice.  Final pictures will be posted on the bulletin board next week but here are some pictures of the process.  We used watercolour paint to create the backgrounds.The students did a great job cleaning up after themselves and a special thanks to Scarlett and Stephen for giving up their recess and cleaning up the paint with me.  A quick thanks to Addison and Rowan as well for sweeping up at the end of the day!

Money Mentors:

In addition to all the hard work we did this week, we also had a visit from Money Mentors to talk to us about money, savings and what it takes to save towards a goal.  We all created piggy banks where we put our dream / goal, we figured out its cost and made a savings plan with a target date figured out in the end.  The visit started with the reading of a book which Money Mentors donated to our classroom.  We are truly very lucky.

Elections - in the school

On Wednesday afternoon we also did our civic duties and voted for the next party of Alberta.  Although the students were quite nervous at the start, they did an amazing job and were quite excited about having done this.  The grade 6 students did an amazing job running the whole process.  Here are some photos.  Apparently, on election night, we will be able to see the student vote results as well on the bottom of our screens.  I am very much looking forward to this. We also got to use our super cool ID cards that we made in class. :)

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Spring Variety / Talent Show

APRIL 25, 2019

Please return forms sent home this week for Talent Show so we know how many will be in attendance.  The show will take place April 25th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM.  I will be there to watch 😉

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LENTEN FOOD DRIVE

We still need your help collecting donations for the food drive.  Thank you to all who sent in items, but we still really need your help.  Let's make sure we look out for all our neighbours during Lent so that everyone can have a blessed and joyful Easter.

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CHESS CLUB

As you may have already seen in the Newsletter, we have now started a Chess Club at the school.  These are taking place every Wednesday and Friday during the Lunch Recess at the Learning Commons.  Everyone from Grade 3 and up is welcome.

Although I have 8 Chess sets and an online tool where students can learn about chess, I could use more Chess sets as there is a great deal of interest.  

I would also love to hear from Chess Masters or just anyone out there who loves to play chess to volunteer during these sessions to help me get around to everyone.  

We will be wrapping up this great year with a Chess tournament in June.  

More details will be made available in May. 

Pictures courtesy of Mme Tardif.

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Homework: 

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment April 8 - 12) - due April 15

- Math Homework - Week 25 - due April 15

- English Homework - Week 9 - due April 15

- French Homework - Ponctuation - due April 15

NO HOMEWORK NEXT WEEK!

Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, April 15 (Jour 2)
- Healthy Hunger (Mucho Burrito)
- Hymn Sing
- Grade 1 buddies
- Gym

Tuesday, April 16 (Jour 3)
- School Council Meeting (9:00 AM)
- Variety Show Previews

Wednesday, April 17 (Jour 4)
- Library
- Chess Club @ lunch

Thursday, April 18 (Jour 5)
- Sammy's Pizza
- Easter Liturgy @ 10:00 AM - EVERYONE WELCOME

Friday, April 12
- GOOD FRIDAY - NO SCHOOL

LOOKING AHEAD:

- Monday April 22 - Easter Monday - NO SCHOOL
- Tuesday April 23 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL
- Thursday April 25 - Variety Show @ 6:30 PM

Have a restful weekend! 

Long overdue, but finally here - April 5, 2019

This blog post has been a long time coming, but it is finally here.  It is one that will bring in some changes as we are fast approaching the end of the year, and we have so many amazing things to still do and learn.  As started before the March Break, I will now be doing a blog update once a week only and this on Fridays.  I will try to capture all the amazing things the students accomplish within that week and give a bit of a heads up as to what will be happening in the upcoming week or weeks.  Should anything change along the week or something even more amazing happens, I will make sure to update the blog then too. :).

Now... a summary of the recent events and a few of the items we covered these past weeks.

Math:
- This week we officially started working on Area and Perimeter and we will continue working on it next week.  We used blocks to help us understand how area can be calculated.  We still love manipulatives :)

- We are also continuing to work in Mathletics, doing our daily multiplication quizzes and working on weekly math word problems to sharpen our reading and understanding skills.
English:
- We finished Wonder and we watched the movie just before the break.  A few tears were shed :).
- We will be starting "A Wrinkle in time" next week.  Do not watch the movie at home!!!!
- We will also start a writing project next week.  More details coming soon.
- We will also continue with our Planet Protectors Academy work.
French:
- We continue to work within our grammar booklets.  We have started correcting many of these together and we will be diving into some French poetry next week.
- Before the break we started talking about "Les bas du pensionnat" and now we will start reading the book too this upcoming week.
Social:
- Finished Kokopelli Flute Player Pictographs (Art) and I finally put them up for display.  These turned out amazing.

- We are exploring the Cree and other First Nations Languages as we continue to explore First Nations and the history of Alberta.
Art / Music:
- Starting next week we will start working with music and electronic composition.  We will finish all our notes as well and will try to challenge ourselves with more difficult songs soon.
Coding:
- This week we also continued working with Scratch.  We now have the groups for the Coding Quest and we started exploring the topics and the types of games we might be creating.  Next week we will have lots more time assigned to this project.
Science:

- We finished wheels and axles and most of simple machines.  We created our own little cars from clothespins and buttons (wheels need better solution than hot glue as these broke off quickly when not used quite as designed :)).  Nonetheless, while I was hot-gluing, the students were designing their own race tracks from recycled (leftover) cardboard.  They then tested their vehicles and made some observations about what made them work better.  Here are some pictures.

In Science we also started an "Escape Room"-type activity I created for the students.  They need to get through a variety of challenges, answer questions, solve puzzles and many other tasks online to demonstrate their knowledge.  I may turn it into a race to add a bit more excitement to the tasks :).

Elections - in the school

Today we had the pleasure of welcoming the Grade 5s and 6s in our class to talk to us about the Alberta elections and to help us create personal Identification.  With these IDs we will be performing our civic duties and voting next Wednesday.  Armed with knowledge on how to vote, we will then encourage our parents to do the same. :)

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Spring Variety / Talent Show

APRIL 25, 2019

Please return forms sent home this week for Talent Show so we know how many will be in attendance.  The show will take place April 25th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM.  I will be there to watch 😉

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Homework: 

- Raz-kids French books (Assignment April 1 - 5) - due April 8

- Math Homework - Week 24 - due April 8 

- English Homework - Week 8 - due April 8

- Spelling tests for next week will be posted soon: English, French 

Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, April 8 (Jour 3)

Tuesday, April 9 (Jour 4)
- Library
- Money Mentors visiting

Wednesday, April 10 (Jour 5)
- Popcorn day
- Chess Club @ lunch

Thursday, April 11 (Jour 6)
- Gym
- Math Quiz

Friday, April 12 (Jour 1)
- Spelling Tests

LOOKING AHEAD:

- Thursday April 18 - Holy Thursday Liturgy @ 10:00 AM
- Friday April 19 - Good Friday - NO SCHOOL
- Monday April 22 - Easter Monday - NO SCHOOL
- Tuesday April 23 - PD Day - NO SCHOOL

Have a beautiful weekend!