Monday 2 November 2015

Week of Nov 2nd - 6th

lundi le 2 novembre, 2015

Dear Div 6 families,

Students have an exciting week of learning ahead. In Language Arts we are continuing with our French phonics program, story writing and reading on a daily basis. For the next couple weeks, students are reading one-on-one with me to assess their reading level for term 1 report cards. New this week will be the introduction of verb conjugation. We will start with the irregular verb "avoir" (to have) in the present tense. We will learn it through song, visual and oral activities. By the way, the reason we don't say "Je ai" is because in French we drop the e when the following word starts with a vowel.

J'ai (I have)
Tu as (You have- singular)
Il/Elle a (He/She has)
Nous avons (We have)
Vous avez (You have- plural)
Ils/Elles ont (They have)

In Math, grade 2's are continuing to skip count up and down by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 25s. In the following weeks, they will be building numbers with base ten blocks, writing and reading numbers to 100, learning greater than and less than, estimating quantities to 100, recognizing coins and using coins to skip count.  They will also continue to review patterning, and work intermittently on speed and accuracy with addition/subtraction.  Gr 2s need to be able to add and subtract with ease and speed to 18, and have strategies to add and subtract to 100. Please consider practicing any and all of these skills at home as well:)

In grade 3 Math, students are continuing to practice addition and subtraction of large numbers up to 1000. They are learning and sharing many of their strategies, such as mental math, borrowing, making groups of 10 and rounding. New this week will be an introduction to graphing using candy and other topics of interest.

In English, grade 3's are practicing their spelling and learning how to make sentences with these words. They are encouraged to practice these words daily at home. If you have internet access, spelling words are posted at spellingcity.com/egarcin/. This is a fun way to do homework!

In Science, we are wrapping up our Environment Unit and starting our study of solids, liquids and gases. Starting with solids, students are making predictions about water volume changes when transforming water into ice (will it expand or contract?). As a fun extension activity today, students were given ice cubes with their little buddies to see how long they could prevent them from melting. There were some great ideas, such as shade, covering up it up with leaves and avoiding skin contact. We will continue to do some fun hands-on science experiments such as sinking vs floating and colour mixing.

On Friday, in preparation for Remembrance Day on November 11th, our weekly art activity will be poppy printing and painting. By the way, parents are invited to join us for our annual Remembrance Day Assembly in the morning of Tuesday, November 10th. Please note that Wednesday November 11th is a statutory holiday and there will be no school.

Last week we missed our gym block to do pumpkin carving! This week we will continue to learn and practice different ball handling and movement techniques in the gym. We will continue doing our regular jogs around the school. Starting this Thursday afternoon, we have a weekly neighborhood walk to the pool and swimming lessons. Please help your child pack their swim suit, towel, hair brush and hair tie on Wednesday evenings.

Have a fabulous week!

Mme Garcin