daw.com - January 23

I am a little worried that my students have not continued on with some reading every night at home,  You may recall that I do not assign this and do not place a time on it, but I do ask that everyone read as often as possible - preferably every night.  IT is the only way that reading stamina is going to improve. Remember, there is no requirement but it sure is an easy and fun way to see great improvement.

This coming week being a four day week, I  predict it will pass quite quickly.  It is also a week where many units end and new ones begin.  We will also return to our regular home learning packet next week having taken this week off to assist with the publishing of our Poetry Anthology.

The Poetry Anthology is almost complete.  We have started with the final publishing stages and figure to be done by Wednesday or Thursday next week.  Each student will have their own Anthology as well as contributing to a class anthology.  They will also be part of a Poetry Cafe where grade 4 students come to listen to them while sipping on mugs of hit chocolate.  No date for this yet as there are a lot of other things to consider first.

Our math unit on Ratios has seen us working on 5 different activities this past week.  Now that these are over we will have a day of review and then the final assessment for the unit.  I expect this to be either Wednesday or Thursday.  Our next three units are on Decimals with an emphasis on decimal fractions, multiplication and division of decimals and converting fractions to decimals.

Our next reading/writing unit is on the argumentative essay with this leading into exhibition.  We will look at a specific topic as a class and then students will choose their own topic to write an essay about.  In this unit there are lessons on determining good research, how to properly search the internet, and knowing both sides of an argument.  If there is time, I may put in a debate about a topic as well.

I do need some help at home with being prepared for school.  For the foreseeable future, the use of computers in the class will be very high.  This means it is paramount that students arrive to school with their laptop fully charged.  Just before they go to bed they should plug it in, check that it is charging, and then unplug it in the morning.  There are only so many plugs in my room to charge computers.  It is also a good habit to get into for middle school where the use of computers is much higher on a daily basis.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.  Have a wonderful Lunar New Year holiday and I look forward to seeing all the students again on Tuesday.

daw.com - January 20

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.