Happy March!

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he/she knows that you are slightly cracked.

                                                                      -Bernard Meltzer

Hello families and students. Happy March to all of you. Let's hope that this month brings us some warmer weather, sunshine and a feeling that spring is just around the corner! The quote above was used for our quote reflection this week. The students wrote and shared stories about their friendships and what the term "slightly cracked" means to them. We had some laughs and had a very good discussion on character traits we look for in our friends

Class Visitors - Today in class we had 4 visitors spend the morning with us. Joe Belliveau, who is the head of Special Education for the Southwest region of the TDSB, organized an observation morning for himself and 3 other teachers. Our class was very warm and welcoming to these guests. They enjoyed observing the students during media literacy where we viewed some smoking ads from the 1950's and then we went on to dogonews.com and read about Sochi and their intentions to bring in tourists in the future. We culminated with teachkidsnews.com where we read about the Great Lakes and how they are 90.5 percent frozen this year due to the polar vortex. They observed the students working in groups during math congress to solve a VERY challenging problem. The feedback from our visitors was that they were most impressed with the level of knowledge and understanding the students have in many curriculum areas and how open and forthright they were in sharing this knowledge. They also commented on how respectful and friendly the students in our class are  Thank you to all the students for making our visitors feel so welcome!

We All Fall Down - We finished our read aloud novel this afternoon. The students begged me to finish reading it today! They could not wait until after the March Break to finish this book. We were very surprised by the good news at the end of the book...the main characters, Will and his dad, survive the climb down 84 flights of stairs in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Their story is quite unbelievable and Eric Walters does an excellent job writing about this horrific event through the eyes of a 12 year old boy. We will complete some written follow up activities involving plot and characters after the break.

Math - The grade 5's will have their unit math test on Perimeter and Area on Tuesday March 18, 2014. This test will cover all of the chapters in Unit 9 of the textbook. Our new unit for both grades will be Transformational Geometry. The grade 4's will have their test on Tuesday March 25, 2014 as their unit is slightly longer and covers more material.

Dance performances - This past week, six different groups in our class performed their dances using the success criteria outlined in class. They were great and very entertaining! Most of the students used their class time well and worked hard to create a synchronized dance routine that involved at least 6-8 different dance moves. The following songs were chosen for the performances: Radioactive, We Will Rock You, Safe and Sound, You Make My Dreams Come True, Roar and What does the Fox Say?

Recorder - Our recorder class has changed from day 4 to day 3 as there was a change in Mr. Ungvary's schedule at Forest Hill. This means that the students will have recorder on their first day back after March Break, Monday March 17, 2014. Mr. Ungvary is encouraging all students to continue to practise for at least 5 minutes each day. This practise makes a big difference in their overall recorder progression.

March Break - Friday March 7th is a PA Day and there is no school. Students will be off for a week and will return to school on Monday March 17, 2014.

I hope everyone has a restful holiday. If you're travelling, please be safe and enjoy your vacation. I look forward to seeing everyone well rested in a few weeks. Students will not be required to write a Friday Report during the March Break. I do not expect them to do any homework at all. If they wish to work on their book report, then that's great but there are no expectations to do this.
The book report and presentations for grade 4 and 5 is due on Monday March 24, 2014.

Thank you for your ongoing support. Have a great March Break!!