Did You Know…? Ambisinistrous is the opposite of ambidextrous – being no good with either hand.

Good afternoon,

Our Grade 4 students had a test on Whole Numbers today. Students are actually bringing home their Math test this evening. Take a look at the test this weekend with your student and then please sign and return the tests to me. Any questions or concerns can be sent to me via email or shared at Parent-Teacher Interviews next week!

In Language Arts today, students completed their revision of their paragraphs on which season they would like to see all year long. Students were asked to make sure that they had finished these paragraphs and were given time today to revise them using their editing checklist:

Questions YES NO CORRECTED
1. Did I re-read my writing to check for mistakes?
2. Did I start each sentence with a capital letter?
3. Did I end each sentence with a period, an exclamation point, or a question mark?
4. Did I space my words and write neatly?
5. Did I indent at the beginning of each paragraph?

After editing their paragraphs, we were actually able to type and publish our writing today as well during our Computer time. I’m excited to see some of the improvements that I’m already seeing in student writing since we published our first paragraphs. We also started a new writing activity today called “POWER” writing. POWER stands for:

  • P – lan
  • O – rganize
  • W – rite
  • E – dit
  • R – evise

This is all about practicing and making a writing process a part of our routine when we write; which will help us to make sure that we are turning in a draft that truly represents our best work. Today we started a piece of POWER writing using a video prompt to get us started. The prompt asked students to consider, “Should schools ban junk food?” Today students started the P section of POWER writing – Planning. Take a look at my planning page below:

LA1

You can see that I thought about my audience, 3 reasons for my opinion, and tried to come up with some initial ideas to defend my opinion. I can’t wait to move on to O – organization, next week to get my ideas in order and to stretch them out a bit. I am really excited to see students’ opinions on this topic. I know we had quite a few students who strongly disagreed with me. I can’t wait to read your defense!

The Gr. 5 class had a presentation today from Canadian Mental Health on Internet Safety. Take some time this weekend to discuss with your student some of the information that they would have learned in this presentation and to consider if there are any choices or decisions that you can make as a family to make sure that your student is being responsible and safe online.

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Language Arts:

  • Book Club Reading (schedules on Reading page)
  • POWER writing – Planning Page (Monday)
  • Words in Motion Poetry Contest – extended (due Feb. 18th)

Math:

  • 11x Tables Quiz – Monday

Science:

  • Gr. 5 – left-hand pages, interactive notebooks (Monday)
  • Data Collection Check-In – February 16th
  • Classroom Science Fair – March 7th

French:

  • Colours, Shapes, Numbers 0-31 Quiz – February 17th

Parent Teacher Interviews – February 9, 10th (sign up at http://timberlea.fmpsdschools.ca/)

Family Valentine’s Dance – February 11th, 6:00-8:00 pm, School Gym (entrance by donation)

National Cupcake Day – February 29th (Details TBD)

Grade 5/6 Floor Hockey – Wednesday, 3:00-4:00 pm

STEM Club – Monday, 3:00-4:00 pm

Grade 5/6 Basketball – Tuesdays, 3:00-4:00 pm