daw.com - October 21

I want to thank all of you for attending the parent-teacher conferences.  I hope that the discussion we had was beneficial and that it gave you some insight into your child's learning so far this year.  We have moved forward in a steady direction all quarter and will continue to do so for the rest of the year.

One common theme throughout most of the conferences was in regard to the improvement of writing.  This is an area that takes years of learning and practice to become really good at and the expectation each of year of school is that students will get better and better.  In grade 5 we do a lot of writing in the forms of reports, non-fiction writing, fiction stories, biographies and presentations. We study words, look at spelling conventions, grammar and learn more about writing in paragraphs - including transitions between paragraphs.  This is the first year that students are going to learn about researching and obtaining information about topics they are working on.

This week there are several important things happening.  Here are the students who are in charge of current events;

Tuesday - Leo
Wednesday - Cici
Thursday - Ada
Friday - Angel

Friday is also the annual Jedi Jugglers event.  It starts at 7:00 in the evening in Gym 2 and I hope that many of can take the time to come and watch/support these wonderful students. They have been practicing for the last two months and really put on a great show.

We will complete our biographical sketches this week.  This is the culmination of research on a specific person and has included how to write up a bibliography.  We have used books, videos, databases and websites to gather the information on four questions that were determined by the class.

This week will also continue our exploration presentations. I am hoping to have the class complete their presentations by the end of the week.  The students have four choices in the presentation they complete - book launch, news report, drama/puppet show, infographic or exploration brochure.  It will be interesting to see what they choose and how the present their research.

IN math we are continuing with our look at multiple operations in expressions.  These include a continued review of the exponents we used in the last module.  Problem solving continues to be at the forefront of our math learning.  Having covered eight of the ten strategies, we will learn the last two in the coming weeks.

As always, if there are any concerns or questions you have, please let me know and I will gladly find a time that we can meet.

daw.com - October 14

What a great event the International Day was here at ISB.  It was truly a sight to behold as the students reflected the best their country has to offer.  We had a great day.

Current events next week are as follows;

Tuesday - Poppy
Wednesday - Leo

I have had one report of Newsela.com not working at home but it appears to be a login problem.  When students sign in they need to use what ever account they set up here at school, including the password they selected.  Then everything should work just fine.  If it is down, there are three other sites they can use in our class email group on Office365.

Students took a nose dive into research this week looking up information about for their biographical sketch and also for their exploration project.  It was amazing to see how the students can dive into books to look for answers to question about their particular topic.  Next week students will look at databases and video on the same subjects and learn how to take notes from both sources.  We have also been keeping track of our books in a bibliography which will be part of the final product.

Next week is a short week with only three days.  Thursday and Friday are parent teacher conferences and I hope that you have all signed up for one.  I look forward to this as it is a great way for me to bring you up to speed on the learning of your student.  If you are a non-English speaker please arrange for a translator to attend with you.  Report cards are issued electronically on October 19th.

Students have been asked to get a form signed for the use of the POLAR wrist bands.  The data we collect from these is an important part of our Human Body unit after Christmas break so please sign the form so students can return it ASAP.  I thank you in advance for this.

That it is for the week.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me and I will arrange a time that we can meet.

Harold Daw

daw.com - September 30

Since we were out at camp last Friday, I was unable to get a blog post prepared and published.  It is going to mean that this one is longer than usual.

Camp was a HUGE success.  The students bonded with each other, learned more about the teachers and administrators, did some art, science and PE activities and had a host of other things to keep their minds busy.  The setting was serene in a deep valley with lush growth all around and a stream passing nearby.  Today the students will bring home their camp newspaper with the articles they wrote this past week.

Today is Terry Fox run and being a Canadian it is especially important since even after many years, he is still a national hero.  Just imagine running a marathon (26 miles) every day of your life for almost 4 months and this with a prosthetic leg.  Although he never made it, I was on the University of Calgary committee to welcome Terry when he finally made it to Calgary.  It would have been an even unlike any other.  Today we honor his legacy to raise funds for the Cancer Society of China by doing 20 minutes of running here at school.

Our class elections for STUCO are over and Eric is our representative with Brandon the alternate.  I want to congratulate these two and also thank everyone who ran for office.  You did a great job with your speeches and I was impressed with the details you brought forward for the students.  Eric and Brandon have already had their first meeting with many more to come.

Next week is the national holiday week and I hope everyone takes a well deserved break.  Rest and rejuvenate is the theme of the week.

Last Monday we hosted Luca in our class.  He is the son of one of the prospective candidates for Head of School.  The class took to him very fast, and he became one of the class very quickly.  While his dad was not successful, I know many of the students would have loved to work with Luca next year.  We do wish him all the best in the future.  I was quite proud of the class in their manners and helping attitude.

When we return we will continue with the writing of our biographical sketches.  Most everyone has selected their historical figure and now it is time to research and write about them.  Lessons in this area will include taking notes, identifying important information, preparing paragraphs and proper research/bibliographic procedure.  This will come in handy in their future since many more research projects are ahead of them.

We will also continue with our Exploration projects.  In these projects students choose from 5 projects and then prepare to present their explorer.  It need not be an explorer from long ago as some people want to do underwater explorers, space explorers, scientific and medical explorers and other famous people/explorations.  They have a total of 5 questions they must answer as part of their presentation and when it is all done, they will present this to the class who will do a critique for them to learn from.  I have shown them examples and prepared a scaffold of learning for the students.

Our next math module us a continuation from the first one but now looks very heavily at the operations of decimal fractions and whole numbers.  We will begin this on the Monday when students return to school.

I have been asked by several parents about Current events and want to make sure that everyone knows that on the night of this assignment, the homework is strictly optional.  I want students to put a true effort into their Current Event so they are fully prepared to present this to the class next morning.  We do four a week unless someone is absent and then their make-up will be with someone else.

After the break, here are the people doing Current Events;

Tuesday – Naoko
Wednesday – Michael
Thursday – Annabel
Friday – Robinson

Friday October 14 is the International Day here at ISB.  A form went home this week and I would ask that it be returned as soon as possible please so I can have it ready for the parade component of the day.  If anyone wants to stay after school for the rest of the event, I need to know who they will be with, where they will be picked up, and how they are getting home afterwards.  I thank-you in advance for this.  On this day I do hope students will wear things that represent the country they are from.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know and I will gladly set up a time to meet with you.

Harold Daw

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