HAPPY YEAR OF THE HORSE!

KUNG HEI FAT CHOY!
Wishing all of our families celebrating the Chinese New Year a very Happy New Year. Enjoy all your wonderful celebrations and may the year of the horse bring you great happiness. 

Thank you to a group of students who did a presentation for us on Thursday on the Chinese New Year. They brought in many interesting artifacts and explained their Chinese New Year customs to the class. We also watched an amazing dragon and lion dance video, I have included the video link above.

Enjoy the pictures...

 

 

  

Math Congress - Here is a sample of today's math congress problem. The students were placed in random groups of either 2 or 3 and worked very hard to solve this problem. Many of them used trial and error as the effective strategy. Try solving it yourself and then verify your answer with your child.

MATH CONGRESS

Friday January 31, 2014

Myra’s book on space adventures has 85 pages. Some pages have printing only and the rest have both printing and pictures. There are about 200 words on a printed page and about 50 words on a pictured page. The book has about 11,000 words in all. How many of the pages have pictures?

Use pictures, numbers and words to solve this problem.

Math Unit test - The grade 5's will have their unit test on Monday February 3, 2014. This test will cover converting fractions to decimals, decimals to fractions, adding and subtracting fractions as well as multiplying and dividing fractions by 10 and 100. Our next unit will be Perimeter, Area and Measurement.

The grade 4's will have their unit test on Tuesday February 4, 2014. This test will cover the chapters in the multiplication and division unit. Students will be asked to multiply numbers and divide, using the long division strategy discussed in class (D, M, S, B). The acronym stands for: divide, multiply, subtract and bring down. We have done many examples of these in class and I encourage the students to come and see me if they have any questions. Our next unit will be Perimeter, Area and Measurement.

New read aloud book - We have finished reading and completing several follow up writing and small group activities to Hana's Suitcase. By now, all the students should have handed in a good copy of their letter to a character from the book. They were asked to include a picture with this letter as well. I am still waiting on a few letters. Once I receive them, I'm hoping to put together a class book to share with all the families.

This week, we started reading, We All Fall Down by the famous Canadian author, Eric Walters. The book is set in New York City. The main character is Will, a grade nine student, who spends the day at his father's workplace on September 11, 2001 as part of a school assignment. Will isn’t excited about this one day assignment as he’d rather sleep in and do nothing with his friends. He feels that his father doesn’t even have an exciting job like his best friend James’s father who is a fireman. Will’s dad works for an international trading company. He has to wake up early every morning to commute to his office on the eighty-fifth floor in the south building of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

This is a fast-paced and dramatic novel that I think the students will really enjoy and learn a great deal from. As Will's teacher clearly states the day before Will goes to work with his dad, "tomorrow might be an experience that changes your entire life." The students will be asked to respond to the material through written reflections and higher level thinking questions and prompts. I'm sure your child will tell you all about the book as the story unfolds.

Visual Art - We are learning about the famous graffiti and pop artist Keith Haring in class. Haring had a very unique and exceptional style to his graffiti art as well as his paintings (see below). Students were given a one page sheet to complete on Haring's life. This small assignment is due on Wednesday February 5, 2014. If students would like to complete it this weekend, then I encourage them to do so. They will require access to the Internet when answering the 10 questions. After this is completed, the students will be drawing and colouring their own Keith Haring masterpiece in class.

Reminders:

• Friday Reports are due on Monday February 2, 2014
• Please send in running shoes (labelled) for your child to keep at school
• Grde 4's - please continue to practice your multiplication tables daily (1-12X tables)
• Math test - grade 4 is on Tuesday February 5th; grade 5 is on Monday February 3rd.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

Mrs. Mendelson

Grade 5 Human Body Projects - take a look!

Congratulations to all of our future doctors who presented their models and detailed information on a specific organ from the human body. Their work shows extreme creativity and outstanding research skills. 

I am so proud of each and every one of the grade 5's for all the effort and hard work they put into this Human Body Project. 

We have many future doctors in the making!! Enjoy the pictures...

DR. PJ WILSON - EXPERT ON THE BRAIN

 DR. JOYCE LI - EXPERT ON THE EYE

 DR. VICTOR NOVAKOV - EXPERT ON THE LIVER

 DR. NICOLE ROGERS - EXPERT ON THE LUNGS

DR.OSCAR HOLLAND - EXPERT ON THE BRAIN

DR. JENNIFER ZHANG - EXPERT ON THE STOMACH

DR. HALLEY HALIM - EXPERT ON THE HEART

                                                              

                     DR.  ZED MEHTA - EXPERT ON THE PANCREAS

DR. JEREMY XIE - EXPERT ON THE SPLEEN

GREAT WORK GRADE 5'S!

Another busy and exciting week!

Hello families of room 205s. I hope everyone had a a great week! It was nice to have a full class this week and have all of our students back with us, feeling healthy and strong. Below is a picture of the t-shirt PJ was wearing this week which I thought was very cute and worth posting! 

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.

                                                                                 -Arnold H. Glasow

Quote of the week - The students reflected on the meaning of this quote in their BFYB journals this week. As a class, we discussed the meaning of a true friend and the students described qualities they feel make a true friend. They gave examples of friends that stood by them when they were down or when they needed someone to talk to. They also gave examples of friends that broke their trust and betrayed them. As a class. we agreed that trust was one of the most important qualities that makes a friendship strong and meaningful.

Hana's Suitcase - This week, we watched an interactive video produced by the CBC called, Inside Hana's Suitcase. It is extremely engaging and the students really enjoyed watching it. The characters, George Brady and Fumiko, were interviewed throughout the video and shared their stories. Many artifacts and information from the book were explained in further detail in this video. If you are interested in watching this with your child or family, I have included the link to the website below. 

http://www.cbc.ca/hanassuitcase/experience/index.html

Letter Writing Assignment - As a follow up to the novel, students are asked to use the formal letter writing process introduced in class to write a one page letter to a character in the novel. They are asked to chose a character that had an impact on them emotionally or a character that they connected with while reading the story. This assignment will require the students to write a first draft of their letter, have it edited by an adult and then write or type a final copy of the letter. They are asked to include a photograph of themselves along with the letter as well. I will collect all the letters and have them bound in a book that will eventually be sent home for each family to read. The final copy of this letter is due on Thursday January 23, 2014. 

Visual Art - This week, while studying line and colour in visual art, the students created beautiful "Warm and Cool Line Designs." They are displayed in the showcase outside our classroom. The learning goals for this assignment are posted clearly in the showcase as well. Please enjoy the pictures of the students outstanding line designs and geometric shapes coloured in warm and cold colours. The challenge for this assignment was to create a design with only ONE line that starts and ends at the exact same place!

Special presentation - Today, Max's grandfather, Otto Friedman, came in to speak with the class about his experiences in the Holocaust. Otto is a Holocaust survivor. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1934. Otto's father was taken by the Nazi's and forced into a labour camp where he was killed at 40 years old. In 1945, Otto, his mother, and the rest of his family lived in a ghetto for two months. He said his experiences there were  horrible. They all managed to escape being sent to a concentration camp and were saved by the famous, Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg saved over 100,00 Hungarian Jews and spared them from their death. The students asked Otto some excellent and thought provoking questions which he answered very honestly.

Thank you very much Otto for coming in to speak with us and thank you to Elyse Friedman (Max's mom) for setting up this presentation for our class.

Reminders:

• Friday Reports are due on Monday January 20, 2014
• PA Day - Friday January 24, 2014
• Final copy of letter to a character from Hana's Suitcase due Thursday January 23, 2014
• Grade 5 - Human Body project and presentation due Wednesday January 29, 2014
• Grade 4's - Please help your child learn their multiplication facts. There will be a quiz on Tuesday January 21, 2014 on 4-7 times tables. Thank you for your assistance!

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT.

Mrs. Mendelson