Bonjour! Nous avons passé une bonne journée.

Both grades were able to start their new math unit today. We are working on measurement. The Gr. 4’s started out by looking at calendars. We discussed the use of calendars, but also, the correct way of writing the date. In math this year, students are encouraged to use the metric form of writing the date. For example, today’s date would be 2013 02 11, or simply 13 02 11. Students will continue to practice this. The Gr. 5’s are looking at the following units of measurement: mm, cm, and m. We discussed referents that could be used for these units (the thickness of a nickle, the width of our pinky, the width of a door), but we also looked at the relationship between these 3 units. We discovered that a millimeter is 1 tenth of a centimeter, that there are 100 cm in a m, and that there are 1000 mm in a m! Here are some examples:

Eg.

400 cm = 4 m

400 cm = 40 000 mm

We did have some difficulty working backwards (eg. from m to cm, or cm to mm) and will continue to look at this concept tomorrow.

In French today, the Gr. 4 students started to discuss their birthdays! Well… there are some things that we have to learn before we can just tell someone our birthday. Today we looked at the days off the week. Students practiced (lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche) and we learned that in French, you do not capitalize the days of the week! You also do not capitalize the month. We will be reviewing le sept jours de la semaine, et les mois next class. We will also be reviewing the numbers that we learned earlier this year. After all, we need those number in order to give a correct date! For example, today’s date would be lundi le onze février.  This is all a part of our “C’est Moi!” unit. We have discussed our personality traits, how to introduce ourselves, and are now looking at age and birthdays. Next we will cover our likes and dislikes, and our physical traits.

The Gr. 5 students are continuing to look at clothing. Today they discussed: Qu’est-ce que tu portes quand…? We discussed the weather, and how weather can affect our clothing choices. For example: Il fait du soleil! Je porte des lunnettes de soleil, un t-shirt, et un short. Next class, students will be using magazine images to be able to answer the following question: Qu’est-ce qu’il/elle porte?

Homework: Multiplication Quiz (Friday)

                         Read 20 minutes

                         Reading Journal (Friday)

                         Spelling Test (Friday)

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pgs. 126-127 #1-9

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 124-12 #1-16

                         Computers: Powerpoint Assignment (Friday)

                         Health: FRIENDS 6A and 6B (Wednesday)

                         Family Science Night – Wed. @ 6:00 pm

                         Class Science Fair – March 4th

                         School Fair – March 7th

                         Book Order – February 22nd

Spelling Words: chocolates, coaches, catches, school, choose, chose, teach, latch, echo, ache

P.S. Want to sing-along to the days of the week? Check out the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVHzu60QVKI

Au revoir!