Welcome to Winter!

With the cold weather outside at recess, and warm temperatures in the classroom it is best to layer. Please make sure your child has a warm coat, gloves and a hat for recess time.

READING: During Reader’s Workshop over the next few weeks the students will be looking at Non – Fiction Story Elements. The lessons will focus on considering some of the differences between online media and paper media and composing alternative viewpoints of a selected text. The class will be choosing a variety of Non – Fiction books to study and read from both our classroom library and Elementary library. They are already well in tune with their Non – Fiction reading and I am looking forward to the discussions that will take place among my learned pupils.

WRITING: We have begun our unit titled ‘Breathing Life int Essays’ and I am excited by what the students have begun noticing about the world around them. Their homework over the coming week is to think like a writer and notice the everyday ‘grit’ of life around them; they are to then take what they notice and connect it to a bigger idea.

MATH: We have begun Unit 6 on Using Data and Adding and Subtracting Fractions. The students should bring home a study link to complete on 3-4 nights a week and are also reminded every day that they should revise over the lesson they did in class, especially if there were concepts they needed reinforced.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We are beginning our Migration Unit which is being nicely complemented with the read-a-loud novel ‘Home of the Brave’ by Katherine Applegate. Students will be looking at various types of migration and answering the essential questions:

Why do people migrate?
What is human migration?
How does migration impact the environment of where the people come from and where the people go to; how is one’s cultural identity changed through migration?

I will be in Manila for a Literacy Conference from Thursday to Sunday so Ms Leary will be teaching the students. She is an Elementary teacher and also a parent to one of my students from last year, Isabelle Leary, and has subbed for me before. I will be leaving plenty of work for the students and they will be in excellent hands. Although I will miss them (and my own children) I know they can be trusted to work hard in my absence as they are a truly talented class.

FINALLY…ASA’s began yesterday and will continue for the next 5 weeks.