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This week in learning:
ELA: finishing newsarticles/newspapers and putting them together.

FLA: I am trying to help the students write a short story in preparation for the PAT's, but their ideas are so far off course that it has become almost impossible to do so. As a young author, they need to write about things they know to make their story believable. Today some of the ideas thrown out there were: a mad scientist captures you and takes you to area 52; a mummy comes out of a sarcophagus and torments you. While these may be great ideas for other stories, they do not fit the model for the PAT's. They need to keep the ideas simple or they will run out of time to complete them. Also, in correcting the opinion letters, students are still not adhering to the format. If they do not, the results will be reflective of that...just a heads up.
This week: quiz on poem and passé composé Wednesday.

MATH: we are almost done with geometry and there will be a test next week. This week, we are looking at perimeter, area and volume of shapes.

Science: finishing air and aerodynamics. Test next Monday. We will also start the unit on flight this week.

Social Studies: continuing with Provincial Government. Have a chat with your child and let them know who your MLA is. Tests will go home this week to be signed and returned (Jack finally came back from holidays and has written the test)!

Health: quiz on how to read food labels this Wednesday.

Music: presenting research on musical instruments. We had 2 today that will be tough to beat!

Spirit day on Thursday and it is Crazy Hat day and bring a toonie for kids cancer.
 

I hope your Easter weekend was both restful and Blessed.

Last week 2 tests were sent home to be signed and returned; math and science.
This week:
Wednesday April 19th we have the pleasure of welcoming Cameron Fisher, Iain's dad, who will help us better understand the aerodynamics unit in Science. He is a pilot for the Canadian Air Forces and is on leave this week. I am looking forward to learning from him.

I am finding that some students are getting behind in their work, as they do not take due dates seriously. The further behind they become, the more difficult it will be to get caught up. I am no longer nagging for missed work. If they want something corrected and added to their mark, they need to see me.

Francais: Opinion letter is due Wednesday. We have worked on it last week and rough copies were due Tuesday. They are to be done on a Google docs and sent to me.
ELA: Rough copy of newsarticle due Wednesday so we can type them on the chromebooks. Also, chapter 7 reading was assigned last week.
Social: working on Provincial government. I corrected the tests over the weekend and if students studied, they did well. They will go home Thursday to be signed.
Math: continuing measuring triangles and naming them. this unit has a lot of vocab, so students should be reviewing every night.
Religion: Continuing the Easter season with Pentecost.
Sante: Students are to keep track of their daily intake again, concentrating on carbs, fibers, protein, etc. They will have a quiz on reading food labels April 26th.
ART: painting our papier mache sculptures Friday. Sketchbooks are due April 26th.

Welcome to Holy Week

This week we have a few tests to finish units, so  your child has hopefully been studying since they were announced last week.
I am sending home a letter for the human sexuality unit that we will begin in May. It needs to be sent a month prior to instruction. 

This week:
ELA: kids are going to work on two projects.
1. Newspaper for the school in groups (will help with the functional  writing portion of the PAT)
2. Reading and questions from Shadows of Disaster. They should all be read up to and including chapter 6 at this point. We will continue to read chapters 7-9

Francais: Working on finishing our poetry unit wih 2 written poems and one quiz to analyze a poem.
Writing an opinion letter (again to practice for PAT functional writing)

Science: moving onto aerodynamics

Math: unit test tomorrow on fractions, percentages and ratios.
Starting geometry, area and perimeter.

Etudes Sociales: Unit test on Thursday for  municipal government. Beginnning Provincial government.

Religion: finishing the stations of the cross and preparing ourselves for Holy Week and the Tridiuum.

A reminder that if your child is absent from school, THEY are responsible to make up the missed work. THEY need to see me to see what they missed.

TOMORROW: wear old clothes or apron because we are doing papier mache.

Where has the year gone???
Hope you all had a restful break and are ready to get down to business. 
The most important message so far is the fact that the PAT for the writing portion of FLA and ELA are May 9th and 11th respectively. That means a lot of practice wrting stories and coming up with interesting ideas as Cathy Beveridge taught us. The rest of the PAT's will be in June and will send a schedule out next month.

Speaking of June...I also want to let you know that the FAREWELL is on Monday June 26th so you can mark your calendars and book the afternoon off. More information will be forthcoming for that as well but I would need you to dig out some of those ancient photos for a powerpoint presentation that I will put together. The "yearbook" is usually a parent-led souvenir, so hopefully someone comes forward to put that together. email me and let me know if you are interested in spearheading that and I can help with sending out mass emails and I have also been taking pictures all year.

OK now for this week...
Math: finishing percentages and will have a unit test on Monday April 10.

Sciences: We are just learning the Bernoulli principle of flight. We will have a quiz on Friday on JUST air and it's properties.

Religion: we continue Lentopoly and hopefully you have seen your children doing noce deeds around the house and neighbourhood. We are also going through the stations of the cross to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

Social Studies: finishing municipal government and how school boards are implicated in politics. Test soon...I just have to find a date that works.

FLA: writing stories and opinion letters. We had a super fun class in poetry yesterday.

ELA: continuing with reading Shadows of Disaster, but will have some writing practice in there as well, especially newstories and short stories.

ART: next Tuesday...wear sloppy clothes because we are doing paper mache and it will be messy.
Music: finishing research project on musical instrument.

I'm exhausted! cheers

So with preparing for the interviews last week, I dropped the ball on the BLOG so here is this week's update:

First of all, thanks again to Teresa Cowan for organizing the Bake sale and for the students who helped "man/woman" the station (if I don't write both the students will accuse me of sexism!) Also, thanks to everyone who came to the interviews...the last one of the year! A common comment was the fact that we have 4 very intense months together and the work will be augmenting. Between subject chatter needs to stop to get everything done.

Math: working on fractions, mixed numbers (2 1/2) improper fractions (5/2) and this week ratios (4:5    4 to 5    4/5).

Science: continuing air and more flop experiments...I'm getting better but definitely science happening! Get kids to think about things that need air, use air, everyday items that need air, air pressure (ex:tires, pumps)

Social Studies: finishing Local government, how they are elected.

Religion: starting a game called LENTOPOLY...all about doing good deeds and making small sacrifices.

ELA:  Last week, students worked on descriptive paragraphs and some were quite good, leading me to believe that they are following my directions for good writing. This week we are reading Shadows of Disaster. Every other day we will work on a chapter; reading and questions. This Thursday, we have the privilege of having the author of that book, Cathy Beveridge, come and speak to us about the writing process and to help prepare us for the PAT writing portion of the exam. Please try not to miss that day.

French: doing a short poetry unit, mostly with respect to comprehension and finding the theme of the poems. 

Health: healthy eating. Food diaries were due today. What did your child eat last week. 

Thursday is also THEME DAY: fictional characters.

March already! YIKES
This week seems to be busier than normal but in field trips.
Monday the students did a great job at Speed skating...other than sore feet and a few blisters they will be ready to go again Wednesday! If blisters are a problem, maybe wear thicker socks and get a larger pair of skates to help out.
Thursday we are off to Madeleine d'Houet. We will leave in the morning and return around 2ish. Thanks to Shannon, Elizabeth and Zeina for joining us. 

Francais: we have finished the film study and will be working on a few more homophones and reading comprehension this week. we also just wrote a letter to another French Immersion school somewhere in Canada to see who gets their letter replied to the quickest. We were invited to participate in this from a school in Nova Scotia. 
Science: we are having fun watching Mme Colette fail at air experiments. 
Math: we are starting our unit on fractions. Have your children work with measuring cups to figure out how many 1/3 to make       4 and2/3 cups.
Etudes Sociales: still learning Local government, but almost done...test sometime soon in the next 2 weeks.
ELA: working on descriptive writing. Even with all of my nagging and teaching about not always saying "it is..." "it has...", students get lazy in their writing. I want them to vary their sentence structure and come up with great descriptive words. 
Religion: finishing the presentations on Social Justice.
Sante: Looking at food labels and how to make healthy eating choices.

Report cards go home this Friday.