Dear Parents,Each week there are students in charge of a current event. I have sent home a reminder with these students but I will also list them here.
Monday - Sabrina
Tuesday - day2, no current events
Wednesday - Christos
Thursday - Nikhita
Friday - Brock
Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids
Things are really hopping here in 5C1 with a multitude of projects currently underway. Some are continuations of what we have been doing in various units and others are preparing for events coming our way.
Our big event this week is the Author visit on Friday. Derek Landry is here in Hong Kong for the annual literary festival and he has consented to come and talk to all the grade 5 classes. He is the author of Skuldugery Pleasant. The library has copies of this book but for the next while it might be a little hard to get them. These talks are good for students as they see what professional writers do and how it is close to what we do in the class. Sometimes it inspires students even further in their writing.In our Civil War unit we have now completed 1863 with a look at the Battle of Gettysburg. This week we will concentrate on the Emancipation Proclomation and Gettysburg Address - both very important events from the Civil War. Students hve been very busy adding to their journals/portfolios and this week we will get this caught up as well as adding in some other neat things.
We will also continue to prepare for Student Led
conferences which are next week. It is my understanding that sign up for this starts this Tuesday. If you have any questions you can call the office and they can help you out.We will complete our current unit in math this week with the final assessment later in the week. There is also an open response to complete for this unit and some other problem solving exercises. The final Math Olympiad test is this Tuesday. Awards for this will be given out at the end of the year ceremony.
Students will start their second round of Literature Circles/Book Talks. This time they get to select the book they will read rather than having it assigned. Which book they choose will also determine the group they are in for their talks and discussions.
I am a little concerned about reading at home. There has been a general decline in this over the last few weeks and I would like to encourage a strengthening of this imporant element in the reading program here at HKIS. Students should be reading for a minimum of 20 minutes per night, 6 nights per week. This needs to be recorded on the weekly reading log attached to the homework packet I send home. Please help me boost this back to previous levels. There is no free reading time in school at the moment and this is the only time students get to be totally in control of their own reading.The pictures this week are from our class in their Civil War uniforms. Students will get their pics in sepia tone and an additional army photo to place in their journals. If you want your students pics please let me know by email and I will forward them to you. There are 3-5 of each student and are fairly large - please make sure your email client can hold large attachments.
As always, if you have any questoins please feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Harold Daw
