Happy New Year everyone! I hope your holiday was a good one with family and friends in abundance. Now it is time to start semester 2 - that is right, grade 5 is half over - 50% gone. It was a great semester and this one is shaping up to be even better.
There is no regular home learning this week as I want students to have the time to publish their poetry on Google Docs.
Most of our units are continuations from before the holiday. Our writing unit on poetry will see a stronger emphasis on student written poetry as each student completes a poetry collection. Students have already selected a topic of interest and will now explore the writing of a minimum of 20 poems. By the time they are done, these poems will make up their collection/anthology of poetry.
Our reading unit is also on poetry and has students studying stories in verse. These are much more complicated than regular poetry so they deserve an intense study into their form and function. As we have already studied 15 different forms, some of these verse stories will be very familiar to the students.
Our current math unit is on ratios or the comparison of groups of numbers. It is a short unit and I expect to have it complete prior to the Lunar New Year break. The previous unit assessment will go home on Monday and since it was only three lessons long, there were no exit slips for this unit.
Our unit of inquiry on governance will begin to look at the various forms of government around the world inn much moire detail. We will also do a look into historical governments and their positive and negative features.
We are also working on various aspects of our independent learning as we prepare for Exhibition next month. I do hope to have everyone with their topics of understanding and essential questions by the first week of February. I will then assign them a mentor as we officially begin exhibition on February 17th.
Please remember that this week is a 4 day week with Friday being part of the Lunar New Year holiday. If you have any questions please let me know.
