I hope you've had a great week! Pictures were sent home today. All students will receive a class photo when they come in. If you would like to order individual prints, you can do so online or ask the office for an order form. Our next round of class Scholastic orders are due this coming Thursday (Oct. 31).
Thursday is Halloween - always exciting at school. In our class this year, we will not be sharing food. If students feel compelled to bring a treat for their friends, dollar store stickers, erasers, pencils, glow sticks or spider rings (you get the idea) are great non-edible options. Students may come in costume if they choose, but please refer to the Principal's email for safety instructions. I believe this includes no masks (face paint is good) and no fake weapons. Save this stuff the evening. We still have Financial Literacy on Thursday, and we still have other work to do, so please reinforce to students that they must still be responsible learners and model good behaviour for younger students on this day. We will definitely squeeze in some time for fun as well!
In math, we have started our work in data management. Happily, we remembered how to make a simple bar graph. Each group collected data on a different question, set up their axes with choices and a scale and filled it in as a first activity. We have reviewed or learned the terms: moyenne, mode, médiane and étendue and have practiced calculating these based on data. Please ask your student what these words mean!
We have also all gotten connected to Netmath, a great French online math site. Through Netmath, I am able to assign activities and track each student's progress. Our homework this week is through Netmath.
One of the assigned activities is to do with line graphs - this may be a new way of presenting data for our students. We looked at some newspaper cutouts and some of my old bills today and we talked about when a pie graph, double bar graph, line graph are each useful, and when they're not. For instance, in a line graph, you can show the growth of money over time, whereas in a pie graph, you can only really see one result for one point in time, but if that's the goal, it gives you a very clear picture (e.g., for a yes or no question). Next week, we will continue looking at and creating various types of diagrams.
In Financial Literacy yesterday, we talked mostly about debt. Is debt good or bad? Can it be both? We reviewed how much it costs to get a post-secondary education and talked about two options for paying for it: a bank loan or OSAP. Anna outlined how they differ in how and when they must be paid back and students shared lots of opinions on which option sounded better. Then, we met our 6 characters. Ask your student what they remember about Lena, Wei, Andrew, Omar, Jayda and Kumar. Each character comes from a different situation. They may have a health issue, their family may be new to Canada, their parents may be together or separated, they have varying amounts of money in the bank, and each character has different interests and goals for the future. Based on the background information given, each group had to make a big decision for a character - will they go into debt and go to university? Will they work for a while and save up but not pursue their dreams? It was a challenging task because any choice had an impact on their overall happiness, stress level, health etc. Next week we will see the consequences of each group's decision!
In French, though many of us are still finishing our revisions in our personal narrative stories, we used our computer time today to start typing up our good copies. We are being very careful to make the changes suggested by our peer editor and myself. The writers are typing their story in a Google Doc that they have shared with me.
In Science, all students have now had at least a double work period to work on their brochure or report. Our students are a little ahead since I've been giving them time during our English periods. The updated due date for the grade 6 brochures/reports is next Wednesday, for grade 5s, next Friday. On this day, they will have more time to finish up in class, so many students did not have to bring anything home. I strongly advised that if students were not half done by the end of today, that they bring it home to work a bit before next class. Please follow-up with your student to see if they brought it home, or if they should early next week. I don't think many of room 317 students should need to do this as homework.
Last week, grade 6s got to do some hands-on science centres which included rubbings, looking at specimens under a microscope and sorting animal cards into groups. We used our notes to try to determine some characteristics of insects, in particular. Grade 5s will have some hands-on centres next week!
Have a great weekend!