Week 7 Update

 Dear Parents,

Wow! This was a busy week. We covered a lot in all of our subjects. In language, we began learning about visualizing when reading, and writing procedural text. In math we finished our unit about 3D shapes and had a small assessment on Thursday and Friday. In science, we continue to work on our structures unit and this week we learned about how to alter the strength of materials by changing their shape.

In language we read  an old EQAO story called "Building Nests is for the Birds". We talked about how to answer short response questions by using the method linked here, and how to highlight important information by first reading the questions that we needed to answer. In writing we began learning about what procedural text is and its main features. We developed our understanding of this type of text by identifying the steps to carve a Halloween pumpkin and then filling out a graphic organizer to help us plan our writing about it. We carved a pumpkin (I had some of the students draw the face on it) for the Halloween Spirit Week next week and will be further decorating it next week just for fun. 

In math, we finished up our 3D shapes unit. We had a short assessment of this unit, both on paper and using Prodigy. In class we use a program called MathUp, which is very language based, while Prodigy relies heavily on multiple choice, so using both programs gives me a good overall picture of a student’s understanding. Our next unit will be addition and subtraction of numbers less than 100. In this unit we will be learning how to add and subtract in a variety of ways including mental math and the standard algorithm.

In science we learned about altering the strength of materials by changing their shape. We built a bridge out of books and paper and then tested the paper bridge to see if it would hold anything. We found out that it would not. Then we folded in half to see if thicker paper would hold, but it also would not. Finally we folded the paper in an accordion style so that it had many triangular shapes and found that this  shape could hold quite a lot of weight.

Next week is the st. Anne Halloween Spirit Week! Please see the poster below for the events for each day.

Finally, progress reports will be coming home on November 9th. I am currently in the process of working on them and will be sending home an assessment folder with a number of samples of your child's work, mostly in math and language. I will send it home on November 2nd. Please look at each item in the folder and sign it so I know that you have seen it.  Please return your child's folder by November 6th. . 

As always, I thank you for your support and if you ever have any questions about your child's progress please feel free to contact me.

Yours,

Chris Pouliot