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Happy Monday, 5B families!

After our assembly today, we learned about prime numbers, prime factorization, and making “factor trees”. Students who requested a chance to redo the multiplication quiz should study at home this week in preparation for the Friday rewrite. Thank you so much to families for supporting this practice at home—see our past blog posts for studying tips.

In Language Arts, we began our new novel study on “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. I introduced the book with this example of “Book Talk” below, which also served as an example of the book talk assignment that students will be doing in March.

I will support our class in working through a “Study Guide” on Hatchet that will help promote reading skills, critical thinking, and dialogue, while also teaching enrichment vocabulary.

In addition to this ongoing study guide work, after we complete the last chapter of Hatchet, students will demonstrate their depth of understanding of the novel through writing a reading response paragraph (a criteria sheet and template will be provided). As well, students will be writing a poem inspired by the novel and then work with a small group to create and present a “book talk” about it.

Here is a sneak peek at the self-reflection students will complete at the end of the novel study unit…

In Spelling, this week we are studying the following 25 words, and will have our test on Friday. We will continue to work in class with these words this week, yet I asked students to take home their Spelling duo-tangs today so they can study as well at home.

AGENDAS:

I thank you in advance for continuing to encourage your child to use and bring home his/her agenda everyday. (I do “spot checks”, but do not do personal agenda checks every day; so that is another thing parents can support their children at home.)

Students at the grade 5 level are expected to develop their personal organizational skills and take responsibility for learning.

As well, if families solely rely on the class blog for important homework and dates, then students who have additional personalized homework written in their agendas for extra support will miss those details.

Also, the practice of daily agenda use is important because agenda use will be vital in future grades and they could be the main (or only) form of communication coming home to parents.

We appreciate you so much for your help in fostering this valuable life skill!

Hello, 5B families!

Happy New Year! It is wonderful to be back to learning with our class, and we have started strong. Please enjoy a scroll below to see what we have been exploring and to learn what is coming next.

Hello, 5B!

Welcome back to our classroom blog! We represented our learning about the Christmas story, and students worked with creativity and heart to make their own nativity scenes. They presented them to one another and the kindergarten and grade 2 classes. We invite you to enjoy a tour through the wonderful little worlds below. (Keep scrolling to the bottom to learn more about our “Grade 5 Talent Showcase”!)

Today was also special because we held our first “Grade 5 Talent Showcase”. We had singing, stand-up comedy, dancing, a puppet show, drumming, basketball skills demonstration, an animation, an artist’s talk, and more! Wow! Students were invited to take the stage and try using a microphone to get more comfortable with projecting their voices, and we enjoyed a few rounds of karaoke to warm up together. We were so proud of the courage of these students! By popular demand, we will bring back more talent shows in the new year!

Hello, 5B families!

We hope you enjoy the performances below and some details on our latest learning activities!

An optional activity I presented to students today was to make a construction paper box (see above for the tutorial we created in class) and to fill it with fun and creative Christmas-themed questions. If your child made one of these question games, you could use it to spark great family discussion and creativity.

It’s possible your child was still hard at work on his/her nativity scene construction today and didn’t get a chance to make the game; so here are the questions below to use as you like. An idea to jazz things up and create a longer lasting game is to write out the questions on craft sticks.

• If you had to name your child after a reindeer, which one would it be?
• What baked goods do you love to eat around Christmas time?
• What dish do you hope to see at Christmas dinner?
• If you had to name the new 10th reindeer, what would it be?
• Imagine you are a chef at a burger restaurant and you need to come up with a new burger for the menu called “The Christmas Burger”. Describe it! What makes it so “Christmasy”?
• What do you think would be a really thoughtful Christmas gift?
• What is a fun festive activity for a Saturday afternoon in December?
• What is one of your favorite Christmas smells and why?
• What is one of your special Christmas memories?
• What is the best way to spend Boxing Day?
• What is the best Christmas drink?
• What is your favorite Christmas cookie?
• What is your least favorite holiday side dish?
• What is a memorable Christmas gift you have received?
• What is the most annoying Christmas song?
• What item would make a really silly or strange Christmas ornament?
• If Santa gave you $100,000, what would you buy with it?
• If you could travel anywhere in the world for Christmas, where would you go and why?
• If you got a yacht for Christmas, what would you name it and where would you take it?
• If you had to make tree ornaments from just one type of item, which would you choose?
• If you had to decorate a Christmas tree using only things that symbolize the events of this last year, what would be on it? 
• Invent a new Christmas-themed breakfast cereal. 
• What ingredients would be in it?
• Is there any Christmas gift you definitely don’t want?
• Name a store you’d love to get a present from.
• Challenge: name five foods that are green and five foods that are red.
• Sing the first lines of the first Christmas song you can think of.
• What would you love to see dress up as Santa Claus? Why?
• Fill in the blank: Christmas isn’t Christmas without _______.
• What is a favourite Christmas memory you can share?
• What is a fun new Christmas tradition you might like to start?
• What is the silliest or strangest thing you have seen or heard of being done by an “elf on the shelf”?
• What role do you believe Mrs. Claus plays in Christmas?
• What makes a nice Christmas morning breakfast?
• List three things you remember receiving in a Christmas stocking?
• What are three things you would like to see in your own Christmas stocking?
• Imagine you are getting a new puppy or kitten for Christmas? What would you name it?
• Whose singing voice just “sounds like Christmas” to you?
• Who in you family does most of the dishes after Christmas dinner—or how does the clean up work get done?
• Name a Christmas movie you have seen or heard of?
• What is your favourite Christmas song?

Hello, 5B families!

We have spent this week enjoying Christmas crafts, buddy time, making creative DIY nativity scenes, decorating our mini-Christmas trees, making snowflakes, and practicing liturgical dance with ribbons and flags in preparation for the January Mass that grade fives are helping to lead. Here are two videos for you…

As well, the students have enjoyed some creative Christmas writing activities…

“White Elephant Gift Exchange”: On Friday morning, we will do an anonynmous gift exchange of second-hand or regifted items. No need to spend money! Some gifts will just be silly or small…like a spoon or paper clip or an old Paw Patrol figurine. Basically, choose and wrap one random thing in your house that you don’t need or want anymore (so long as it is clean and “school appropriate”).

There are two main purposes of this acitivity: (1.) it is silly fun, and (2.) it’s a great opportunity to model and practice social skills and language around gratitude, even when we recieve something unexpected. Don’t worry if you can’t think of anything to bring because I already have enough “white elephant” type gifts for each student, but students often have more fun choosing, wrapping, and bringing their own “junk items” to regift, so they are welcome to do so. We ask students not to bring more than two items maximum. 🙂

Civvies Friday: Remember to wear red, green, and white clothes for fun this Friday. We will have an assembly this day at 10:30am. Then it is early dismissal at 12:00pm

Hello, 5B families!

I created some tutorial videos to show the “box method” of multi-digit multiplication. Polling my students over the years, I have found so many end up loving and preferring this method over others—even if they resisted learning it at first. Check it out!

The BC Math curriculum emphasizes the importance of empowering students to apply flexible math strategies, rather than narrowing using simple tricks that may leave students without a sense of the bigger picture of how numbers work together. The box method in particular offers students a tidy way to increase their accuracy and understanding of the meaning of what they are doing, especially when multiplying those larger numbers.

In our class, we have also been teaching the traditional multiplication algorithm; I will be assessing students’ use of both methods this term.

I have encouraged students to use their rounding and estimating skills to check the reasonability of their multiplication answers. As well, we have asked students to try the traditional method directly after using the box method to note the differences and use it as a “double check” of their work.

*At this stage in the year, it is completely fine for students to use their multiplication charts to help them find smaller values (such as the 6, 7, 8, and 9 times tables). Of course, I’d like them to learn these by heart eventually; but for now, accuracy when applying the multi-digit multiplication methods is the priority goal.

If you are helping your children study at home, you might ask them to demonstrate the box method for you, and if they are struggling, please have them watch one or more of these videos. Thank you!

Hello, 5B families!

In Religion class we are learning about Advent and preparing our minds and hearts for the season. Prayer has been a key focus, and we have explored the history of Saint Nicholas.

A key question for research and reflection has been, “What is the meaning of Christmas?”

We have started a new cross-curricular challenge in Religion, ADST, and Art where each student creates his/her own unique 3D nativity scene from scratch use crafting materials, recycled bits, or found objects. We discussed the important features of a nativity scene and looked at many examples online for inspiration.

Students may use any safe materials they like in this open-ended project that is due by Dec. 21, and I have modelled in class how to use simple classroom supplies like crumpled paper, tape, a paperclip, and some foil to make a set of characters. (For more ideas, scroll down to the very bottom to see some photos from around the web of handmade nativity scenes.)

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In Math this week, we continued reviewing multiplication up to one-digit by four-digits numbers. We have focused on the traditional method so far, but also brought in the box method for those who were interested.

We are emphasizing the meaning of multiplication using base ten blocks, arrays, and mental math strategies, and we are considering real world scenarios (e.g, “If I have 18 students and each student needs 6 cotton balls to make a snowman craft; how many cotton balls do I need all together?) Next week we will go deeper with two-digit by two- and three-digit multiplication. Here are two tutorials videos that can help:

We had fun this afternoon with our little buddies from the grade 2 classroom today. Students acted as leaders, teaching the little buddies the paper engineering skills they developed during our ADST “index card challenge” earlier in the term. The theme this time was to construct an “ice palace” and to choose one or more goals: make it tall, strong, and/or beautiful. Students could only use the index cards—no glue or tape; so the structures you see below are balancing beautifully on account of our students’ great problem solving! Well done, teams!

Now, please enjoy our “WRITERS’ SHOWCASE” featuring the 5B students’ wonderful field trip reflections… (more to come)

And now, here are some more images found online during a Google search of “nativity DIY” and “handmade nativity”…

Hello, 5B families!

We have had a lot going on: big essay projects, Term One Math Tests, Advent concert preparations, reading assessments, and a visit to “Ms. Poirier’s Christmas Tree Farm”!

We are now starting a big unit on multiplication. We reviewed some basics, starting with arrays.

Hello, 5B families!

Today we were treated to another fascinating guest speaker presentation that connected to our learning in Career Education and Science. Marita, a paediatric nurse joined us to go into more depth about hormones in the blood, specifically insulin. We learned about diagnosis and treatment for diabetes, type 1 and 2, and we learned more about preparing for a career in healthcare. The students had so many great questions and enjoyed rich discussion. Thank you, Marita!

In Social Studies, the students have been exploring an inquiry into “Canadian Identity”. We are investigating this topic from a variety of angles and students will synthesize their learning by writing a poem.

In Language Arts, we have been working on a larger essay project: a Field Trip Reflection Essay. I gave students a detailed instruction guide with examples and templates, and we went through the assessment criteria together. I have asked students to invest a solid effort on this essay and try to make this their best writing sample of the term. Students should hand in a proofread and edited copy this Thursday. They have had several blocks for planning and writing already and the focus of tomorrow’s Language Arts block is both giving and receiving peer feedback on their drafts.

I am eager to read students’ own ideas in this essay, yet parents are always welcome and encouraged to provide support as needed for spelling, punctuation, and grammar as a valuable home learning process. Spending time editing at home is especially important for students who enjoy writing longer, more detailed essays (or who struggle to focus in school) and who have thus spent less time in class in the editing process.

Students are welcome to print or type their essays.

Please see the photos of the assignment instructions below.

Hello, 5B families!

In Language Arts, we have started brainstorming and planning for our next major essay writing project. I won’t set a due date for this yet because the most important thing is that students work hard to create essays they are proud to share and that meet the assignment criteria—I know that takes time!

Once these essays are complete and in “Good Copy” form, we will illustrate them with watercolour eagle paintings—I’m so excited about this project. We will create some really special works to share with you!

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Here is a look at the feedback form I will use when assessing essays. I will ask students to incorporate my feedback and do corrections to turn in a polished essay.