Hello everyone and welcome back for the final four weeks of the 3rd quarter. The time really flies between now and the end of the year so make sure you use your time wisely at home to stay on top of tasks at school. In four weeks, Spring Break will be here and your 3rd quarter reports go home. After Spring Break vacation we have our parent teacher conferences and then the time flies even faster until your elementary years come to a close and summer begins.
Please remember to add to your blog this week by posting an entry about how you spent your Chinese New Year break. The blog must have a link or a photo with it, this link or photo should be related to your vacation. Good Luck.
Here is a photo of me…

Hello Students, I hope the fireworks aren’t keeping you awake. We had a great time setting some off on the weekend and we are really enjoying having some time off during this exciting time of year in Shanghai. Remember there is a prize for the student who has the time, energy and inclination to create some interesting blogs over the Chinese New Year Holiday. It is not essential that you add to your blog but I would love to see you trying out some new things and having a go at practising your adding of links and photos.
Bye for now 5KP, see you in a week.
Mrs P

Dear Students
As I sit at my desk getting ready to leave for the day, I just wanted to wish you all a really happy and restful break. When you come back, the time will go very quickly between now and the end of your elementary school time. Before you know it, you will be in middle school, whether it be here in Shanghai or somewhere else.
Over the break, don’t forget to blog, if you get the chance and if you have something to blog about and remember to try and add some links or pictures if you can, as it makes your blog more interesting.
Relax and enjoy your time away from school.
Bye for now
Happy Year of the Pig!
Mrs Power

During every school week, the Grade 5 team try and have a few sessions of Sustained Silent Reading (S.S.R) or Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.) time. Some weeks are too busy to do a lot of reading but we fit it in when we can as the kids really enjoy it and it is great for their reading development. Our tech guru Mr. Utecht, sent us a great link this weekend to a site which discusses the changes occurring in S.S.R. and D.E.A.R. around the world. Have a read and see what you think.
http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/mahlness/2007/02/is-this-ssr-20.html
Bye for now.
Here is Paige enjoying some reading ‘the old fashioned way’…

Here is a shot of the wonderful 5KP taken on Halloween last year.

Here is a picture of 4 of the teachers children here at Sas Pudong last Halloween. I am still just working on some new skills like uploading my photos from flickr etc.

We have been working on Limericks this week and the kids seem to be really enjoying it.

There once was a school down the way

Who always had something to say

The students were great

All ran through the gate

Excited to start every day!

Enjoy reading our limericks…

Today in Science class during our Mixtures and Solutions Unit, 5KP had the task of discovering ‘How much salt can you dissolve in 50 ml of water.’ The class worked in groups of 2 and 3 and were given materials to work with from the materials station. They put 50 ml of water into a capped bottle and then put a sticky note onto the outside of the bottle to mark where the water level was at the beginning of the experiment, then they began adding salt in 5 ml spoonfuls.After each salt addition they shook the solution and made sure the salt had dissolved. Most of the groups ended up adding 20-35 ml of salt to the water and then noticed that some of the salt was not dissolving. They had reached saturation! But the experiment was asking how much salt can you dissolve, not how much have you added. So groups set about weighing their salt solution with their scales. Check out their results on any of the students linked blog sites. It was a fun experiment.