daw.com - April 11

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 - Tara
Tuesday - Jonas
Wednesday - day 2, no current event
Thursday - Zehra
Friday - Trey

Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids



This is a very long letter today and it is filled with a lot of important information about coming events, new units and a host of other important news flashes. Please read carefully. I will include subheadings for this letter to make things easier.

Civil War
I want to thank all the parents that attended our unit Finale. I hope you all enjoyed the readings, marching and sharing of Journals. The pics and movie this week are from this events. Students will NOT be bringing their Civil War materials home this week as there are just too many students not complete with various assignments. We will complete this week.
I want to thank Jonas, Sabrina and Stephen for their excellent service during this unit. The leadership they provided was exemplary. Our new class executive is Kaori as president, Brock as Secretary and we will elect a Vice President on Monday.

Walk-About
May 7th has been assigned as our annual Grade 5 Walkabout. This is a day where students are in groups and visit various places in Hong Kong to complete a Photo Essay as part of their Memoir writing unit. Before we can begin to plan for this day I need parent volunteers. The general plan is to drop off at City Hall by 9:00 and return from City Hall by 2:00. I would need parents for this entire time to supervise student groups. If you can help me with this, please let me know and I will put you on my list. You can also expect students to start talking this up at home since we need to start the planning for this immediately.
Math
Our last unit is complete and all the final assessments will come home in the Monday folder. Our next unit is on Using Data and Algebra Skills and Concepts. The family letter is attached to the email I sent home. Please save for future reference.

This week starts the first of two class math challenges. It is hung outside the classroom for the students to work on as they have time. They have about three weeks to complete the first one. It is to use four 4's to equal all numbers from 1 to 100 (ie. 4+4+4+4=16). They can use all the operations they are use to (+, -, *, /) as well as square root, exponents and one that I will teach them on Monday called a factorial. Written as 4! it means 1*2*3*4 which equals 24. One of the more unique pieces they can use is 4 to the power of 0 which equals 1.

Writing
This week will see the spring Writing Prompt take place. It is the same format is in the past. Students will be given two prompts and must choose from one of them. They will then have three writing periods to complete their piece; planning, drafting and editing, publishing. This will start on Tuesday. The two prompts the students can choose from have to do with an event in their life or an important change in their life.
We will also start our last two writing units this week. Poetry will be using different forms of poetry to construct their own poetry tome. Memoirs will have weekly topics and students will complete a published piece each week from now to the end of the year. In order for the students to do a good job of this it helps out if discussions are held at home about what students have been involved in, what they were like as an infant, special events reminders, discussions about grandparents, uncles, aunts and other extended family members. These discussions should go one through out the next two months. This weeks memoirs will be on the home - the different homes they have lived in, the way a home is organized, chores, visitors, comings and goings, special places in the home, etc. It is not about the family in the home - that comes later.





Reading
We continue with our Literature Circles which have been going very well. I am impressed with the depth of discussion that is starting to evolve through this. We do this twice a week with books students chose from my library. We continue with this through out the rest of the year.
We will also continue to look at summarizing books and stories. This will include general summaries and plot summaries. For this we will mostly use the books students are reading. I must reiterate how important it is for students to be reading at home 20-30 minutes each night for a minimum of 6 nights a week (I prefer all 7). Students should be keeping track of their reading on their weekly reading log. I would appreciate any hep you can offer on this as it is rather inconsistent. YOu will begin to see their summaries show up on their reading blog.

Science
We will prepare to start our last unit of study for the year, Variables, this week. Just a quick heads up on some important things about this unit. In about two weeks or so I will assign the Variables Olympics project which is fully done at home. It will involve the scientific process that we cover in class and have lots of options to best fit with the students own choices. This will become part of the weekly homework. This project will reflect the learning in the unit which is on planes, boats, and catapults. It is a great project and one that always brings some interesting results.

You can now view your students pollution video on their website. It took a lot longer than I thought to get these up and working but they are all there now for your perusal. Ask your student to show it to you.

Reminders
This week is the start of the last session of after school activities (ASA). I have a list posted in the class and it would help to remind your student if they are registered in one.

This week students start their Trash Kids projects in art. This will be on Wednesday so they still have two days to bring in the things they might want to use on their projects.

Home work starts again this week. Please help students get back into the swing of things with this. You can also count on computer use every week now so please help where this might be a problem at home.

Here are some dates to start keeping track of;

Apr. 30 - PD day, no school for student
May 2 - Field Day
May 7 - Grade 5 Walkabout
May 21 - holiday
June 4 - Grade 5 Fling
June 8 - 5C Awards Ceremony
June ? - Poetry/Technology Cafe

There are also Middle School transition events in there to be calendared. I will keep you informed as these come up. We will also do our unit on human development and adolescence sometime in the first two weeks of June.

As I thought before I started, this is quite lengthy but filled with a lot of important information. As always, if there are concerns or questions, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Harold Daw

daw.com - March 28

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 - day 2, no current events
Tuesday - Christina
Wednesday - LucasThursday - Michael
Friday - holiday, no school

Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids

Just a brief reminder that this week is only 3.5 days. Dismissal on Thursday is at 11:20 with buses leaving at 11:30. If anyone is planning on leaving for the holiday early or coming back late please let me know so I can plan properly. Thanks in advance for this.


I will need all three sheets for Middle School registration in before holiday break this week. Please note that one of the forms is two-sided. Students and parents need to sign these forms. Please review all of them with your student prior to signing them. Thank-you for your assistance with this. It really makes transition in the fall much smoother.
A reminder that the parent night for Middle School transition is this Tuesday in the Black Box Theater in the middle school. The start time is 7:00pm. This is a forum for prospective parents to ask questions of the middle school administration and teaching staff.

The end of the Civil war is close at hand. Our unit finale will be held this Wednesday from 2:00-2:50 and all parents are invited - bring a camera. We will start on the 5th floor playground so wait for us there. We will do some military drilling there and then come back to the classroom for some readings from our Civil War journals, the Gettysburg Address and some time for parents to look over the journal before it is time to pack up and go home. Students will take their Civil War uniforms home at this time as well. They may keep them.
We will complete our math unit this week with the final assessment later in the week. We also have an open response to complete that is related to the learning from the unit. Our next unit will start right after the Easter break.

For homework this week students have three vocabulary lists to look over and learn. One each night with a vocabulary test the next day. These will be in the same fashion as previously with the definitions given and the students correctly spelling the word. There is no homework over the Easter break but I do want to request that all students continue to read everyday.

This is also the week students have to have their trash kids materials ready. Any plastic bottles, plastic containers, lids, trays etc. that you might throw away make perfect materials for the construction of their Trash Kids. We have boxes in the room for the collection of this material. It would be a great help if all the materials are pre-washed.

Our school Easter Chapel will happen on Tuesday morning from 8:15-9:00.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please contact me.

Regards,

Harold Daw

daw.com - March 21

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 - Halle
Tuesday - Max
Wednesday - Faven
Thursday - Stephen
Friday - Claire

Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids

Thank-you to all of you for participating in your students Student-Led conference. There was a l of great conversation that was started during this time. Since there is so much of the students work on-line, these conversations should be easily continued at home. Sometimes the generic, "So, what did you learn today?" does not elicit the response wanted, but a conversation about learning can have long lasting positive effects.

This week will see us continue with our Civil War journal. Students will work on a Biography, two maps and a spreadsheet all that will end up in the journal. Lots of interesting work in these journals/portfolios and something that students will be proud of for many years to come. I still have students, who are now in grade 10 & 11, writing me and telling me about how they have kept their Civil War journals and occasionally look through them. Kind of nostalgic.

We are well underway with our Book Talks. Each student has chosen a book and the groups have met once. This week they will meet again and talk about the 5C's of reading - clarification, connections, comments, context and continuation. Since this is the second time this year, these book talks are really taking on an interesting tone and discussion.

In math class we will continue with coordinate geometry and also begin to look at area, volume and capacity. Some of this is done with experiments that prove certain points. Very interesting learning here. Students will also complete a second exemplar involving area.
We have a special guest speaker for our Chapel this week. He is a member of the Friends of God and he will be in to talk about his religion and his relationship with God. We use to have a teacher here in the UP that was a member and when she gave this talk the students always learned a lot about the worship of other people. Should be an interesting talk.

Students have been busy collecting used cans, bottles, cartons, plastic trays, etc. as they are getting ready to construct their Trash Kids. Please help by giving students all the left items after a meal or that are no longer needed in the home. Make sure that they are properly cleaned out and washed. Thanks for your help with this. In the past these sculptures have been a highlight of the students art year.
I am a little behind with the movies from our last Pollution Unit but hope to complete these and get them up on our websites by the end of the week. Students have been anxiously awaiting these for quite some time now.

Please make sure that students are reading at home for 20-30 minutes each night for at least 5 nights a week. There is little time in class to do this so it really helps if they have time at home to complete this important part of their learning.
Students are going to need about 20-30 minutes on a computer each night this week as they are now commenting on other students blogs. We have practiced this in class for the last couple of weeks and now it is time to put it into action. Please help with the computer time if necessary. Next year this will not be a problem since each student will have their own lap-top.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Harold Daw