Sorry for the short post today! I have a meeting to get to. However, I wanted to post the AGENDA information.
Agenda:
Spelling Quiz – Monday
Math: pg. 22 #1-6
Mathletics – 5 mins./day
Science Project – Oct. 28th
Picture Day – Wednesday
Student Council Campaigns: Tuesday – Thursday
Student Council Election – Friday
Monday – IT’S A SECRET, but technology can come to school
Have a great weekend, see you all on Monday.
Another great day in 5N!
We started our day with our Term 1 Writing Prompts. Before we started the prompt, we reviewed the elements of the plot by looking over “Story Mountain” again. Students are also to be drawing a plot diagram for their Reading Journal response this week. We also reviewed the 5 parts of a story that students should do their best to include: character, plot, conflict, theme, and setting. To help us review we looked at this fun video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6I24S72Jps
This video provides a great description of each of the elements of story writing. Then students were shown the picture prompt. As always, students are given 10 minutes of planning time. They can plan their story in whatever manner they choose, but I encourage them to consider the elements of a story while planning. Some make jot notes, others use bubbles, and some used our plot diagrams and drew their own mountains! Students are also allowed to share and talk during the planning phase. This allows them to discuss the prompt and to gain ideas from other members of our class. After our planning time is over, students are given 1 hour to write their story (an extra 30 minutes is available when needed). I told students to do their best and to not be stressed! This is really just a benchmark to help us plan where we need to go for the rest of the year.
We also did some current events today in Social Studies. We discussed Terry Fox, and watched a short educational video about him. Then we discussed Jamie McDonald. Jamie is a young man from the UK who is currently attempting to run across Canada without a support team. Not only will he be the first person to do so if he is successful, but the main drive of his journey is to be raising money for SickKids and other children’s charities. He posts videos along the way and you can also follow him on facebook and twitter. We watched the first video today, and will be watching more throughout the term as we follow Jamie’s trip and cheer him along. There are some pretty special people to me in some of the videos, so keep an eye out and ask your students all about it. His website is below:
Our Terry Fox walk turned out great. The rain held off and we had a wonderful time. Thanks to all the students for putting so much effort into your beautiful signs. Your postive attitude made for the perfect afternoon!
AGENDA:
Read 20 mins.
Reading Journal (tomorrow)
Book Orders (tomorrow)
Spelling Quiz (Monday)
Math – pg. 22 #1-6
Mathletics – 5 mins.
Science Project – Oct. 28th
Picture Day – Oct. 2nd
Sports Day – tomorrow
Student Council Campaigns – Oct. 1-8th (See Ms. B or the Classroom Meeting folder to sign up)
Monday – IT’S A SECRET, but you know what to bring!
Good afternoon!
What a great day! Today we started learning how to write equations, using variables to represent missing numbers. For example:
Marie had 30 pencils. She gave some of her pencils to Joe. Now Marie has 10 pencils. Write an equation to help you solve this problem.
30 – p = 10
Once students write their equation, they can solve for p. In order to do this, I find it is good to remind students that all equations have an equals sign and are true. What we mean by true, is that both sides of the equals sign are equal to one another. So to solve equations, we make both sides equal.
30 – p = 10
30 – (20) = 10
10 = 10
Students know that p=20 because 20 is the only amount that will make the left side equal to 10, so that both sides match. Students are to be practicing this tonight at home.
Today we completed a quiz on Mapping. Students were asked to label to provinces and territories, as well as their capital cities. Many students struggled with this task. We are going to be doing some review, but please make sure that your student is studying their Canada maps at home. This is a Gr. 5 outcome that all of us would like to achieve before we start studying the regions of Canada. A good place to study is our Social duotangs, where we have a labeled map. Students can also use that map from their AGENDAS to help them. Want to practice at home? You can also play some of the games that we used in class at:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Canadian_Geography.htm
In French today we labeled our classroom. Students watched “Dans ma salle de class” for Watch It Wednesday. We then took the vocabulary words that we learned and labeled parts of our classroom. Students will be using these labels throughout the unit, and we will keep adding to our current knowledge about classroom vocabulary. See some of our labels below!
We had our first visit to the Library today. Students did a great job. I have asked students to sign out a non-fiction and a fiction book each time we visit the library. Students have until the following week (Wednesday) to finish and return their books. Not finished a book? Bring it back on Wednesday and sign it out again! Please try to remember that Wednesday is our library day, and to return all books to the classroom before this day. If books are left at home, often students are unable to get a new book that week, which can be disappointing.
Agenda:
Read 20 mins.
Book Orders – Sept. 27
Reading Journal – Friday
Spelling Quiz – Monday
Math: pg. 22 #1-6
Mathletics – 5 mins.
Science Project – Oct. 28th
Terry Fox Run – Tomorrow!
Picture Day – Oct. 2nd
Rock Star Day – Tomorrow!
Bullying Awareness Representative – Audition by tomorrow!
Student Council Campaigns – Oct. 1-8th (see Ms. Barrington or the classroom meeting book to sign up!)
Hello everyone!
What an amazing day, full of lots of fun and activities today. We started our morning off with some Math. Each student was given their Mathletics username and password today. Mathletics is a website aligned to the Alberta and Canadian programs of studies. Students have the ability to use the site to work on lessons, gets tips and hints, look up concepts and definitions, or to get some basic math fact practice through the live Mathletics. I recommend everyone accessing the site from home as much as possible throughout the year. As a teacher, I really enjoy the Mathletics because I am able to easily change tasks or activities based on student ability and understandings, so that everyone in our class is being challenged at their own level. The activity we worked on today was a little tricky. We will definitely have to work on these concepts some more as a class before we try it again. To access your student’s Mathletics, just visit www.mathletics.ca and log in with their username and password. Many of our students have used it before and can show you around.
We also had our Wetlands trip today! We walked to the storm pond in the beautiful sunshine. Students each had the opportunity to attempt to scoop a Wetlands creature from the pond using small nets. Students would take their net back to their group and empty the net into the container of water to see if they had anything. We found some amazing things! We found some springtails, a mayfly nymph, a huge dragonfly nymph, predacious diving beetles, whirligig beetles, backswimmers, water boatmen, leeches, fairy shrimps, waterflees, and sideswimmers! Students were also allowed to try and isolate certain organisms into ice cube trays using a turkey baster, to get a closer look. Everyone did a wonderful job. All of our creatures are in a watertable in Mr. Rutledge’s room, and we will be taking another look at them tomorrow or Thursday. We also had a visit from a family of ducks!
Our Reading Journal prompt for this week is all about plot. I have asked the students to draw me a picture of a plot diagram about something that they’ve read this week. We went over how to do this in class, but I promised to post pictures online so that students can consult it if they would like. If anyone is unsure, feel free to send me an email or students can ask me in class. One method we discussed was using our story mountain template (see below). I am also posting the link for our reading journal sheets. Students have been asked to draw their own sheets this year, as part of our efforts to go as paperless as possible. However, some of our students wanted to know if they could print the sheets themselves at home. Absolutely! Just click on the link below to open up the word document.
Remember that the next time you want to access it, you can search the word “NINJA” on our right hand side search box. That will bring up the posts where it is directly mentioned.
Agenda:
Read 20 minutes
Book Orders – Sept. 27th
Reading Journal – due Friday
Spelling Quiz – Monday
Math: Pg. 19 #1, 2
Mathletics – 5 mins.
Social – Mapping Quiz (tomorrow!)
Science Project (Oct. 28th)
Terry Fox Run (Thursday)
Picture Day (Oct. 2nd)
Cowboy/girl Day – tomorrow
Dear Families,
As part of the Fort McMurray Public School District’s partnership with the Fort McMurray Food Bank, Timberlea School has been given the opportunity to assist the less fortunate in our community. In the month of September, Timberlea School will host a spirit week that will encourage students who dress up to bring in food bank donations of their choice. Please remember that perishable items will not be accepted.
Spirit Week will run from September 23rd – September 27th
Monday – Hat Day- Canned goods
Tuesday – Pajama Day- Personal hygiene items
Wednesday – Cow Boy/Cow Girl Day- condiments/ food kits (eg;taco, fajita)
Thursday – Rock Star Day-Pasta’s
Friday – Sports Day- cereals
Thank you for your donations. They are going towards a very worthwhile cause!
Good afternoon!
We had a wonderful day today. We began with our classroom meeting. Today we played an energizer called “Arubisha!” The students begin by saying, “Arubisha, arubisha, arubisha shah!” then we add an action. For example, “Arubisha, arubisha, arubisha shah, hands on your head!” All the students repeat and perform the action before it passes to the next person. The next student gets to add a new action to the sequence. They might add, “Arubisha, arubisha, arubisha shah, hands on your head, touch your toes!” As you can imagine, the sequence of actions gets to be quite long before we come to the end of the group. After our energizer, we reviewed our 4 tribes agreements (right to pass, mutual respect, attentive listening, and appreciations – no put downs), and began our meeting. We had a suggestion in our classroom meeting folder that the students wanted to discuss today. During Math Centers, AGENDA, etc. or other times throughout the day when group work is going on or the students need to maintain focus, we write QUIET on the board. One student is given one of our whiteboard erasers and if the class becomes too loud, that student erases a letter. At the end of the day we add up the remaining letters for classroom rewards. This week we have been working towards extra DPA time. Each letter is worth 5 minutes, and we have earned 15 extra minutes of DPA for next week. The suggestion from the students that we discussed today was to have a way that students could earn the erased letters back. We discussed it as a class, with students sharing some positives and some possible negatives. Then we took a vote. The students voted in favour of using the new system. We then discussed what times of things THEY thought they would have to do in order to earn back letters. We came up with: quiet attentive listening during AGENDA, working together as a team during Centers or group work, lining up quietly in the hallways, and giving genuine appreciation statements during activities and group work. We have decided to use the new system for the next 2 weeks and then we will discuss the QUIET board again on our Oct. 4th meeting. We closed by having students answer the TRIBES question this week. This week we asked, “What was something new that you learned this week?” I heard a lot of answers about Wetlands, variables, equations, etc. It was wonderful to hear what some people learned about this week.
In Science today we began a small experiment. We have been discussing water sources and the importance of water. Today we discussed water pollution and how it can affect wetlands ecosystems. We have placed a white carnation in a container filled with pollution (green food colouring). On Monday we will be able to check our carnation and note the impact the pollution had on the plant. This will lead us to begin discussing cycles and food chains. Then, we went outside and cleaned up some pollution. We participated in Fall Cleanup, taking our yellow bag provided by the municipality outside to find some garbage on the school grounds. In the end we filled up at least 3/4 of our bag just in our designated area alone! Well done everyone!
In Art today we continued our discussion of colour by reviewing the primary and secondary colours. Students were then asked to paint with watercolours, using 2 primary colours. They painted from dark to light (changing the value of their colour), and they overlapped in the middle. We will be adding some dark silhouettes to the pictures next week. Check out some of our completed and works in progress below!
Good evening!
Sorry that there was no post for yesterday. The internet in the school has been sluggish, and I couldn’t access the blog yesterday evening. We started our day off today with some Math. Students are now working towards identifying patterns in graphs, and using these patterns to help create expressions with variables.
Eg.
Write an expression for the following pattern: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,…
| Term Placement | Value |
| 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 9 |
| 4 | 10 |
| 5 | 11 |
Since the pattern rule for this chart is: Start with the Term Placement and add 6 to determine the Value, then students should be able to shorten this to the expression: p + 6
As you can see, this is a difficult concept, and students may require extra assistance. Please let me know if anyone is struggling. We will be providing review sessions next week.
Students have begun to research a Wetlands organism for an upcoming project. The project will not be due until the end of our unit, but I wanted to provide students with an ample amount of time to research and complete their presentations. Attached are the research criteria, rubric, and project sheet for this assignment. We will be going over this in class on Monday, and students will be provided with a paper copy. Feel free to print a copy off at home, and to get started early! This project will be due on October 28th.
Agenda:
Read 20 minutes
Book Orders – Sept. 27th
Reading Journal – tomorrow!
Spelling Quiz – Monday
Math: pgs. 15-16 #1-5,7,8
LA – Notebook Covers (tomorrow!)
Social – Mapping Quiz (Wednesday)
Science – Wetlands Project (Oct. 28)
Terry Fox (Sept. 26)
Picture Day (Oct. 2)
Science Field Trip (Sept. 24)
Agenda:
Read 20 minutes
Books Orders – Sept. 27th
Reading Journal – Friday
Spelling Quiz – Monday
Math – pg. 8 #7
LA – Notebook Cover
Terry Fox – Sept. 26
Picture Day – Oct. 2
Veggie Fundraiser – TOMORROW
Science Field Trip – Sept. 24th or Sept. 25th
Another Monday finished!
We started today off with some Math. We corrected our homework from the weekend together on the Promethean Board. We will always allow for time to go over the homework, so that questions that students were uncomfortable with at home can be reviewed and discussed. If students are still having difficulties, then they can arrange to have help during recess or silent reading. Please encourage your students, if you notice they are struggling at home, to come and speak to me right away. There is always time for us to go over something again if needed!
We also had our Monthly Virtue Assembly today. The virtue this month is Humility. We will be discussing this virtue together on Friday during our classroom meeting. Once a month we honor students in our class who are positively contributing to our classroom and school. We do so in a number of ways: Monthly Awards, Howler Award Winners, and Howler Lunch Winners. The Monthly Awards are: Star Student, Timberlea Spirit, Classroom Citizen, Reader of the Month, and the Apple Schools Award. Congratulations to all the award winners from our class! We’ve had a great first couple of weeks, and I would love to see this positive energy continue all year long! The Howler awards are given out to students throughout the month if they are caught doing something good or exhibiting one of our virtues. They may also obtain Howlers for making healthy choices. Students bring these howlers to the office and each month students are selected from the box. There is a main prize for Div. 1 and Div.2, as well as the opportunity to win a fun lunch filled with games, our Howler lunches. The administration joins these students for these lunches as well.
In Social today we completed our map of the portable. Students combined their individual maps into one large map. I asked students to make their maps colourful and to include a compass and legend. They did a great job, and the finished product looks great. Well done everyone!
In Language Arts today we completed another round of Making Words. Students are given letters that they must reassemble into as many words as they can. Students are then able to share some of their favourite words with the class. This is a great way for students to practice different spelling strategies and to work at their own level. Not all students have to find the same words. It is from these words that we pick our weekly spelling words. The strategy that we discussed today was the use of “s” to make plural words. This means that students can essentially double their word lists by finding the plural form of words if possible.
Agenda
Read 20 minutes
Reading Journal (Friday)
Book Orders – Sept. 27th
Spelling Quiz (Monday)
Math: pg. 8 #7 in Journal
LA: Covers (due Friday at the latest!)
Terry Fox (Sept. 26th)
Picture Day (Oct. 2)
Veggie Fundraiser (Sept. 18th)
Spelling Words: crosswalks, across, walk, sack, rack, rock, lock, sock, crow, slow
Reading Journal: Are the characters in your book realistic? Are they like people in real life?
Good afternoon!
We had a wonderful Friday. We started our day off with our usual classroom meeting. Our energizer was a game called, “This is a What?” In this game you pass on object around the circle and ask the students to tell you what it is. They can be as creative in their responses as they would like! For example, today we used a blue bowl. I started off by telling the students that, “This is NOT a bowl. This is my hat,” and I placed the bowl on my head. I hear so many great responses! We had a drum, space helmet, frisbee, blanket, crown, face, etc. Of course, in our Classroom Meeting circle, we always respect students’ right to pass. We had no new classroom news to share, but I did commend the students on how well they have been doing with our classroom fidgets. Our closing TRIBES question was to share an appreciation statement about someone in our class. What a wonderful way to end the week; hearing that you are appreciated. Thank you very much to everyone that shared.
In Science today we finished our Wetlands definitions. These definitions are going to become very important as we move on to the next section of this unit. So far we have discussed the importance of water and where water is found. Next we will be discussing the different types of Wetlands. Look below to see how great our Science Board is beginning to look!
In Art today we learned how to map a face. This is a VERY difficult skill, and we did it as a whole class. Of course, the first time you do anything can be challenging, but everyone was very brave and willing to try, and I think we all learned some tricks that we can use when we are drawing faces in the future. Then we started a self-portrait project. The students were each given a colour, and they must draw a self-portrait of themselves using their colour. When we hang all of them up on our bulletin board, what a beautiful rainbow of students we are going to have! We have a lot of pictures from Art to share today, so make sure you scroll all the way to the end!
Agenda
Read 20 mins
Book Orders – Sept. 27
Math: pg. 8 #1-6
LA Cover – Monday
Spelling Quiz – Monday (we moved it!)
Terry Fox (Sept. 26)
Picture Day (Oct. 2)
Veggie Fundraiser (Sept. 18)
