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