Term one is behind us and we are now looking towards putting the same effort into second term.  Our focus over the next couple of weeks include...
Grade 6 (Blended):
Religion: Our focus is on Lent.  Please join us for our Ash Wednesday mass, this Wednesday at 1:00pm in our school gym. Looking even further ahead, Confirmation will take place the first week of June. More details to follow.
Math: We continue to work through our Data Management Unit.  Students will be explore the concepts of Mean, Median and Mode.  They continue to develop their skills on how to plot data using a variety of graphs (broken line, bar, scatter plot, pie, stem and leaf) and are learning how to choose the most efficient graph to represent given data.  We have a quiz on these concepts after we return from March Break on Thursday March 20.
Language:  Students recently finished reading Iqbal, a social justice story.  They were completely engaged in this book.  Students created a narrative piece from the perspective of one the children in the book.  Looking forward, we will be working on developing our informational writing skills.

Grade 5/6 (Extended):
Physical/Health Education: Basketball skills and continuing to develop our understanding of the importance of a healthy/active lifestyle is our focus.
The Arts:  Our focus is now directed to music.  Students will look forward to a special presenter joining us every Friday (last block) who will help us to develop our musical understanding.  We look forward to showing everyone what we will learn.
Science and Technology:  Students wrapped our current units of study this week (grade 5 - conservation of energy and resources; grade 6 - space).  After the march break, we will begin our new strands.  Grade 5's will continue to develop their understanding of Properties of and changes in matter and the Grade 6's will continue to develop their understanding of Electricity and electrical devices.  Both of these strands welcome a number of hands on inquiry activities that students will enjoy.

Happy New Year!!!

How quickly the Christmas holidays seem so far away.  We have all settled back into our routines.  The next couple of weeks will be jam packed as we approach the first term report cards.

In math, students are focusing on measurement expectations.  Students are developing skills on how to solve problems relating to area.  We can now solve for the area of rectangles, parallelograms, and triangles.  Our measurement text is next Monday, January 20.

In religion our focus has been on the Epiphany.  You are welcome to join us for our Epiphany mass this Wednesday, January 15 at 1:00pm in our gym.  

In language, students began today presenting their Christmas recount media presentations.  I am very impressed with both the quality and preparedness that students showed during class today.  These presentations will continue tomorrow.  I look forward to learning all about everyone's Christmas holidays.  

In Science, we continue to look at both forms of energy (grade 5) and planets (grade 6).  Students did a wonderful job last week presenting their group inquiry task (researching a particular energy form/planet).  They learnt key information from each other!

In Visual Arts/Physical Education, we are beginning this week our mixed media print artwork.  Thank you to everyone who brought in media print so that we could complete our masterpieces.  The subject of their artwork is active lifestyles.  Stay tuned to see how they turn out.  Also, our gym focus is currently badminton.

Please remember to regularly check your child's agenda for upcoming assignments/test or requested materials.  

December is shaping up to be a jam packed month!!!

This week, we joined Mrs. Eddy's grade 6 class for our first advent liturgy. We lit a purple candle and discussed it's meeting - hope.  My afternoon group, participated in their first teaching mass presided over by Father Steve.

In language, the grade 6's continue to explore how to write efficient reading responses using APES. Students created a bump it up wall and are now using it to help them improve their responses. Moving forward this week, students will develop their skills on how to give effective feedback to each other that they can use to improve their work.  

In Math, we have been learning all about input/output patterns. Students know how it identify recursive and linear patterns and our focus next week will be on solving patterning word problems (sample EQAO questions).

In grade 5 our focus in science this week, surrounded renewable and no renewable resources. In grade 6, our space unit had us exploring the various components of our vast solar system. 

Our focus in health and physical education this past week surrounded pedestrian skills (special presentation) and cooperative games. 

In visual arts, students have been learning all about Wassily Kandinsky. His unique abstract art is our inspiration for our most recent 2-D art work... Stay tuned to see a picture of our finished projects. 

Both groups have had a chance to activate and become familiar with edmodo. It is going to act as a great online tool towards meaningful talk.  Students have been familiarized with what is considered acceptable participation and understand that being a member of our edmodo account is a privilege not a right. Please ask your child to log onto edmodo (www.edmodo.com) and show you the discourse our class is developing.

Happy Snow Day everyone!  We definitely had some empty seats in our class today!   Hopefully everyone had a chance to get out and enjoy the white stuff!
This week, we continue to work on patterning and creating pattern rules.  I am impressed at how everyone works collaboratively on all inquiry tasks in math.
In language, our focus continues to be on using 'APES' to create strong and concise reading responses. Hopefully our 'bump it up' wall will take shape before the week is out.  Please take a minute to explain to your parents how our 'bump it up' wall works.
In Science, we continues to explore forms of energy (grade 5) as well as planets (grade 6). I will be encouraging students to bring their own electronic devices on occasions where further inquiry is needed.

This week was anti-bullying awareness week and our class completed a number of activities around being an upstander rather than a bystander. We assembled in the gym and became honorary W.I.T.S. constables.  A big congratulations to Wipada and her grade three buddy who won the anti-bullying poster contest. They will get to be principal and vice principal for the day.... Stay tuned to find out when.

In Science, the grade fives have begun exploring how they use energy everyday (energy devices, how forms of evergy are used and where they come from).  The grade sixes have begun learning some interesting facts about planets in our solar system.