One week before winter break.

Ok, there's a bit more than a week, but here's what we need to know before we go on a break for two weeks:

Cold Weather: Please make sure your child is adequately dressed when they come to school. Clothes are available to borrow at the school for emergency situations only. Students will be staying indoors for recess and lunch if the temperature, with windchill, is below -20 degrees C.

Breakfast Club & Cold Weather: If your child comes to the school for Breakfast Club, please note that the doors are not unlocked until 7:45 AM. If your child arrives before that time, they may have to wait outside as there might not be an adult at the school to let them in. For their safety, students in breakfast club should not arrive before 7:45 AM.

Candy Cane Sale: The patrol candy cane sale has been canceled.

Caroling: Tuesday December 13th, 1-1:30 PM

Christmas Store: December 13th, 1:55 PM. Students may bring money to make small gift purchases. This event is sponsored by parent council.

Human Sexuality Unit: Will take place next week. Further information was sent home about it earlier today.

Homework: Students are working to identify their next steps in their Martian Dwelling Design project. They will know by the end of next week if they are behind schedule or not.

They are also working to finish up a novel study before the break, but several have told me they might not be finished on time. Ask your child if they are one of the few who won't be finishing on time. I will expect their finished work on the first day back from the break.

Immunizations: Grade 5 students who have missed immunizations will receive catch-up vaccinations on the afternoon of December 8th.

Mayor's Food Drive: Non-perishable food items are being collected at the school until December 14th, when they will be delivered to the Calgary Food Bank.

LAST DAY BEFORE BREAK: December 16th.

FIRST DAY AFTER BREAK: January 3rd.

VERY IMPORTANT DATES!!

Field Trip Forms must come back TOMORROW.

Professional Development Day on Friday, November 25th. NO SCHOOL.

Scholastic Orders are due Monday, November 28th.

Parent/Teacher Conferences can be booked online now via your CBE Online Account. Conferences will be the afternoon of Thursday, December 1st, as well as the morning of Friday, December 2nd. Students do not have school the afternoon of the 1st of December.

Update: What have we been working on?

We have had a busy time of year in Room 6.

In the last month we have begun our inquiry work into discovering what it would take to successfully build a house on Mars. To help with this, we have learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, and had two guest speakers: The first was an expert on basic survival who happened to win on the popular outdoor show Mantracker. The other was a finalist in the competition to join the Mars 1 colony project. Talk about learning from the experts!!

 

We also had to learn about air pressure and the properties of air are, using balloons, bottles, and some fun experiments. Ask your child about the properties of air!

 


Students were then ready to start working on their designs.



In math, students have been working on new strategies for understanding math word problems.

Our class is also just about finished our first round of independent novel studies.

Also, we are continuing to read I Am Malala, the memoirs of Malala Yousafzai. This has given us great opportunities for learning about Freedom, Justice, Equality, and Representation in Democracy by examining changes in her world as she champions the rights of children to receive an education and combats ignorance.

We have recently begun learning about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ask your child if they know any rights and responsibilities they have as a member of Canadian society.

Important Dates (October 24-November 4)

Things are getting busy in Room 6.

Leadership Club will be having a battery recycling event on Tuesday, October 25th. Please bring any household batteries that you have at home that are waiting to be recycled.

On Wednesday, October 26th, students in Leadership Club will head to WE Day.

Scholastic Orders are due on Friday, October 28th.

Mr. Smith will be attending a workshop on Monday, October 31st, so Ms. Phillip will be with us this day.

October 31st will also be Orange and Black Day here at CJFS, so feel free to wear orange and/or black clothes. Note: We do not wear Halloween costumes to school, nor do we have Halloween parties. This allows us to minimize disruptions to our learning.

On Friday, November 4th, students will be getting a visit from another expert guest speaker to help us with our inquiry of what it takes to colonize Mars. No spoilers, but please try not to be absent this day!!

This week in Room 6

Two big tasks have been taken on in Room 6 this week:

Firstly, students have started researching conditions on Mars. Over the next few weeks, we will be learning about what would be necessary to design and build a habitat for human life on the red planet. You may find lots about Mars in the news. Discuss any of the information you find with your child, or send it in to school. Students should also be able to show you their research notes on Google Docs.

Secondly, students have been assigned groups to work in during our next series of math lessons. Some students will be working with Ms. Scott's class, and some of her students will be working with ours. Both classes will be looking at strategies for solving math word-problems. Specifically, students will be learning strategies for figuring our the equation(s) that a problem is asking them to solve.

Kindly remember as the weather gets cooler and wetter that your child needs to have indoor and outdoor shoes at school. It is also expected that they be dressed to spend recess outside, unless the temperature is -20 or cooler.

Students are continuing to work with independent novel studies. Ask your child what their novel is. This can be worked on during your reading practice with them.

Photos

Reminder that photo orders are due Thursday, October 13th.

No school Friday/Monday

A reminder that there is no school Friday, October 7th (due to parent/teacher conferences) or Monday, October 10th (due to Thanksgiving).

Students should spend at least 30 minutes per day reading. They have access to books they can borrow from the school, and can also access Tumblebooks online.

To use Tumblebooks, head to http://www.tumblebooklibrary.com/ 

Username: cjfscott

Password:  reads

Last Chance: Book your Parent/Teacher Conference Appointment

A reminder to everyone that Parent Teacher Conferences are this Thursday evening, October 6th, and Friday October 7th.

Please note that in order to prepare for conferences, Thursday is an EARLY DISMISSAL day this week.

How to book your conferences

There are 3 ways you can book your conferences:

• Online, via your CBE Account (link)
• email me, and I will respond with some available times.
• you can also book appointments over the phone by calling the school and speaking with me, or the office.

Kindly note that my available appointments remaining are

• Thursday, October 6th, between 4:00 PM and 5:30 PM
• Thursday, October 6th, between 6:30 PM and 8:00 PM
• Friday, October 7th, between 10:30 AM and 1:00 PM

It is my hope to meet all of my students' parents and families. If none of these times work, I am happy to set something up on a different day, just let me know.

I look forward to seeing you soon!!

-Mr. Smith

What is Society?

This week, we learned about what makes up a society. As a class, we decided that all societies have certain categories of things that makes them distinct. Then, working in pairs, we identified lists of things in each category that goes together to make up a society.

The mindmap below shows the result. Start a discussion by asking your child if they see any ways that the items in different colors are connected.

After we examined how some things in the different colors are connected to each other, the class came up with this definition for society:

Society is a system of living people and nature, in the same place, working together to keep each other safe, and healthy.

Multiplication Games

Today, we had a great discussion about what multiplication is.

Some students struggled to explain what multiplication is. Many had troubles drawing a picture of what it looked like in their minds.

Here are some great math games that will help them gain familiarity with multiplication.

http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/multiplication-games.html

Important dates: Code word

As a contest with our students to make sure they're checking our blog, there is a prize for the students knowing our codeword tomorrow.

The codeword is: "Growth Mindset".

Tomorrow we will work to define what that means. See you then!!

-Mr. Smith

Important Information - Week of September 20th

Here are some key dates to remember:

Thursday, September 22nd: Picture day

Friday, September 23rd: Professional Development Day -- NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS --

Monday, September 26th: Scholastic book orders due

Thursday, October 6th: Early Dismissal

Parent Teacher Conferences will be held Thursday October 6th and Friday October 7th. Please note that there is no school on the Friday, but there will be school Thursday morning. You can book your appointment here. If you require an interpreter, your interpreter will schedule your appointment for you. 

Ask your child about our Maker Challenge. Photos and videos to follow.

Lastly, please make sure you send back any forms and fees to the office as soon as possible. If you need to make payment arrangements, please drop by our office.

Week 2 Announcements

What you need to know this week:

-Sports club starts Monday.

-Many of our students will be away to celebrate Eid al-Adha on Monday. Eid Mubarak!!

-Pancake Breakfast on Friday, students must be accompanied by an adult.

-Start of school forms are due. Please let us know if you need to make arrangements to pay fees, or stop by the office.

-Fire drill on Wednesday.

-Indoor shoes: there are still a few students without these. Let us know if you cannot afford them and we will see if we can find some for you.

Week 1 - Recap

WEEK 1

It's hard to believe we've been working together for a week already!

Students began their year by organizing their lives here at school. This includes several forms which should be returned to the school as soon as possible. Also, don't forget indoor shoes!! If you have any problems or concerns, you can always call me at the school or email me.

We will be using binders primarily for all subjects. They have also been given subject dividers. There is no need for students to bring their own binders. We have also decorated our own take-home folders, so that we can take individual sheets home without having to worry about them getting wrecked in backpacks.

Students worked on some illustrated stories of their summer. It looks like many students had enjoyable holidays, and like to spend time outdoors.

Students have been exploring fractals, learning about reading strategies, and exploring our inquiry focus question for the year: "What is success?"

After learning to use a Frayer Model to build our vocabulary, students worked in groups to figure out what success means to them. We then looked at the life story of Albert Einstein, a successful academic, and used what we learned to refine our thoughts.

Finally we decided on the definition we will use as a class:

"Success is when you complete something as best as you can and ask questions so you can improve."

Daily At-Home Reading Practice

Reading at Home: The Most Important Thing We Do.

Much research has been done showing that reading at home is critical for children to succeed in every subject at school.

This week, we have been working on how to do a Five Finger Test, which helps students identify whether a book is too hard or too easy for them. Students in Grade 5 and 6 should be able to read for 15-30 minutes every night. Even weekends. 

To make that process easier, each student will be going home with a Five Finger Test bookmark today. Have them demonstrate this for you.

If your child needs more items to read, there are many options available:

They may want to visit the public library. You can get a free library card at any library location, but your child will need you to go with them the first time so you can sign their permission forms.

Our school Learning Commons offers book exchange throughout the day, however your child will not be able to sign out a book unless they bring a plastic bag to keep it in.

Lastly, you can access our Tumblebooks account. This website features online books, which students can read, or listen to and read along. 

To use Tumblebooks, head to http://www.tumblebooklibrary.com/ 

Username: cjfscott

Password:  reads

Reminder About Full Day on Friday:

Early dismissal starts next week. This Friday, we will have a full day of school. Students who stay for lunch will need to bring a lunch with them.

Welcome Back!!

If you're reading this, then you have successfully made it to our class blog.

This week, we will be going over routines and rules for our class and school. You should ask your child if they understand the rules, and if they don't, encourage them to speak to me.

In addition, please review the School Handbook below. You may also access it here. Once you've done that, please indicate you've read and understand it on the form that was sent home today.