Good afternoon!

We started off our morning with some reading comprehension. Students will be completing reading comprehension every Tuesday for the next couple of months. This gives students the opportunity to put into place some of the reading skills that we have learned this year (eg. comparing, predicting, etc.) and we are currently using a book that contains Grade 5 Social Studies content. Students are reading and responding to questions on the Geography of Canada, and how geography impacts lifestyle, community, and development in the different regions of Canada. This workbook also has creative writing responses, which students will be expanding upon in some of our writer’s notebook sessions, focusing on adding details, showing not telling, and continuing to practice good sentences, paragraphs and editing.

In Science today we completed an activity called “Small to Big”. We created paper and straw wheels similar to the wheels on our boxcar racers. We then slowly turned the axle and discussed the movement of the smaller circular face (the axle) in comparison to the larger circular face (the wheel). We will be expanding upon this activity, using our wheels again, tomorrow.

We also worked on some 6+1 Traits writing again today. As mentioned in previous entries, students are focusing on adding detail to their work. Students were asked to practice showing, not just telling in their writing. To do this we examined different sentences and discussed how they could be changed. For example:

Cassie was excited about PALS training.

vs.

Cassie jumped up and down at the thought of PALS training.

We will continue to work on this concept, and will be discussing other ways to add description to our writing. We also introduced the apostrophe today, and discussed how it is used to show possession. This will be the first grammar note added to our writer’s notebooks tomorrow!

Homework: Multiplication Quiz (Friday – 8x and 12x)

                         Read for 20 minutes

                         Reading Journal – Friday

                         Spelling Test – Friday

                         Language Arts: Decorate Writer’s Notebook (tomorrow!)

                                                         Button Characters (Thursday)

                         Science: Classroom Science Fair – March 4th

                                           School Science Fair – March 7th

We also looked at the following website today in class. It has information on how to organize a Science Fair display, how to complete a Science Fair project, and some ideas that students can use. The link is:

http://spartasciencefair.weebly.com/project-examples.html

I hope you find it helpful in your planning!