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 - Faven
Tuesday - Stephen
Wednesday - Claire
Thursday - Christina
Friday - Day 2, no current events
Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids
I am still looking for two families to supply turkeys for our annual Holiday feast on Dec. 9th. If you can help me out please let me know. You might also want to mark this day on your calendar as parents are invited.
We finished our Cultural Encounters unit last week and this week we move on to our Pollution Unit. Some of the students have already started by reading some of the non-fiction books I have on the subject in preparation for their poster project later this month. They are also taking notes on the books they read in the form of answering questions about our essential questions for the unit. This should be part of their regular nightly reading. This week we have a special speaker for our pollution unit. Should be some interesting insights. Students will also be bringing home a particle detector which needs to be hung or placed somewhere in the home where there is movement of air - it can also be outside as long as it is a place where the detector will not be blown away or get lost.
We started our math unit on division last week. This is a fast unit with a look at three division strategies and algorithms. The final assessment for the last unit is in the Monday Folders this week as is the remainder of the work for the unit.
If you have not already done so, have a look at your students reading blog. They now have their first reading response blog posted and from the ones I have already read, they look pretty good. In another two weeks they will post their next response. These responses come from the books they are reading at home and here at school.
We are also well into our unit on summarizing a story. At this moment we are looking at the 5 w's for the stories we read in class and also as we share reading. It is also going to be a part of guided reading for the next two months.
Students should complete their Realistic Fiction stories this week and will publish them on their website when completed. Have a look there to see it later in the week.
Students have now completed their camp webpage with goals, a story about camp and their reflection. They did an excellent job on this so have a look see. Links to their pages can be found here.
On Friday the students have their annual Field Day. Our class color is RED so I am hoping that students can beg or borrow lots of read garments to wear as part of this day. We will leave just before lunch, have lunch at the field in Tai Tam and then return in time for dismissal. Water bottles are important for this day.
I took a 3 minute video of students participating in Project Adventure as part of their PE this week. Have a look and you can see what they are doing. This is an excellent problem solving unit for students in PE. Kudos to Mr. Bilington and Mr. Watson for making this available to students.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Harold Daw
daw.com - November 1
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 - Alex
Tuesday - Christoffer
Wednesday - Halle
Thursday - day 2, no current events
Friday - Max
Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Good News Daily
Science News for Kids
Time for Kids
A few quick notes first
1. After school activities begin this week. I have a list of the activities students are registered in, posted in my room.
2. Monday is a day 5 - students will start project adventure so they must have proper sneakers for PE. Please assist with this as it is a real neat part of PE and I am sure students would not like to miss this.
3. Please resume temperature checks every morning and complete the form. It wastes a lot of class time if I have to get students temperature checks done here at school. 22 students takes almost 15 minutes to complete. Please make sure this is done daily.
4. We will have our annual cluster seasonal feast early in December. For this I need three families to prepare Turkeys. If you could volunteer for this please let me know. More details later as we get closer.
5. Student pictures, for those who paid for packages, will be distributed on Monday to go home. If you are unhappy with the picture return the packet an I will see to a retake in January. Please make sure all pieces are in the packet when it is returned.
Camp was a great success and students will be talking about it for some time to come. So much to do and so little time was the typical response I got when we returned. My thanks to all the parents that attended and especially the ones who helped us overnight in the cabins. A big thank-you also needs to go out to the TAs as they are the real ones responsible for getting it all together. I have pictures up on our class website which can be seen here. I have also placed a video in this blog from the Water Sports Center which was one of the highlights. If anyone has more pictures or videos they would not mid sharing with me please feel free to send them along.
Students spent some time with the MacBooks making a book talk video. These videos are now up on their reading blogs. While not perfect (it was their first time), you can see the excitement about reading they have and how much they enjoyed the video components of the laptops they will be using next year here at HKIS. If you do not know your students reading blog address it is linked at our Grade 5 website here. I hope to continue this again after the Christmas break with another video on their reading.
Reading for the next several months will look a little different. The times are still the same - 30 minutes per night for a minimum of 6 nights per week. Students still need to be reading their choice of fiction books for their reading blog but there will be a book or two assigned per week about our next science unit on pollution. Students will also have to take notes on these books.
After two weeks away from homework I do expect it might take some getting use to again. However, it does resume to its fullest this week. With all the holidays and special events it was not possible to get the homework package out to students earlier than tomorrow. Some students may not get it all completed this week. They will have a vocab test on Friday so it will take the highest priority.
I am sending home two incomplete pieces of work this week with Monday Folders. I was hoping to use the time after camp to complete our personal profiles and time line projects. This was not possible and I do not foresee more time in the future. If students have some time at home they can complete these projects. They are not required to however. Students fall writing assessments are also coming home this week. Please remember to sign the Monday folders and have them returned by Thursday if possible.
This week will see us complete our current math unit on Geometry and move on to our next one on Division. Special games and other resources can now be found on our class website here. There is one piece on this page students are required to assist with - a math vocabulary presentation. It is a Google Presentation that I have shared with my entire class. Students can define the words, use pictures, find movies or whatever to help us better see and understand some of the unit vocabulary. The math Family Letter is attached to the email I sent out on Sunday.
Several students asked if they could bring their own laptops from home to use at school. I think this is a great idea for two reasons; 1) Next year this will be the norm - maybe not the computers they are using now but the same idea and 2) I plan on continuing with all the online applications we have started this year and any computer can access these. There is also the fact that we have only 14 computers in our room so not all can use them at the same time. I wanted to mention this here since I do allow it and think it would be kind of neat for the students. If student bring the electrical connection I can supply power strips to plug into.
I do want to share one observation I made while using the MacBooks; student's writing is both longer and more detailed with a computer. I am not sure why at the moment but this was very evident while we had the computers. Of course, it goes without saying that typing skills are a major part of this.
Whew! This is a long one and I hope I did not burn you out. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Harold Daw
daw.com - October 18
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 - at camp, no current events
Tuesday - at camp. no current events
Wednesday - at camp, no current events
Thursday - Nikhita
Friday - Brock
Here are some student friendly sites for Current Events.
Daily Good News
Science News for Kids
Time For Kids
Many thanks to all the parents who attended parent conferences. I was pleased to see you all and hope that you came away with a better understanding of your student and what is going on in our classroom.
Next is a great big congratulations to Nikhita, Sabrina and Christina for having their cover designs chosen for the camp booklet this year. Not bad considering only four were chosen. A job well done.
This week is camp week. We leave from school on Monday at 8:15 and arrive back at school on Wednesday about 2:30 or so. Students will have regular dismissal on Wednesday.
For Monday all students need the following in a day pack to be carried around with them all day; lunch, drink, snack, water bottle (full), swimming togs, change of clothes for after water sports, hat, sunscreen, water shoes and camp booklet (which they can pick up at school on Monday). They will not be able to access their luggage on Monday so please do not put anything needed for Monday in the luggage.
The camp packing list was sent home with the permission slips abou
t a month ago but in case you need it here is the digital version.Thursday we will provide pizza for lunch, so students only need to bring snack, drinks and desserts. I know they will really like this day. They also have a free swim period on Thursday so towels, suits and swimming attire will be needed. Great way to cool off from a long hot day.
Since the following week is a holiday there will not be a class letter for two weeks. There is no homework over the holidays but I have asked students to read everyday for this time period. I would also like to suggest that students read aloud once or twice a week as this helps with their fluency and expression. Please have students complete the book log as they finish a book. The link is in their email.
Friday is a half day and students are dismissed at 11:20. This means all that students need is a snack since they will be at home for lunch.
I do want to make it clear that Thursday and Friday are complete school days. We are moving along in our Math, religion and reading over these two days as well as completing projects in Cultural Encounters, websites and Writing. I do expect all students present for the day and a half. Students will also have PE (swimming) Music and Chinese over the two days. Thanks for your assistance on this.
As always please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Regards,
Harold Daw
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