Welcome parents and families of Division 11.
I will hope to use our classroom blog to keep you up to date with what we are doing in the classroom, and to inform you of special events that are coming up. November has been a busy month. Here is a overview of the main subject areas:
Language Arts or the Daily Five: The Sandwich Book projects were very well done, and the students are enjoying sharing their projects and learning about new books to read. We have also been researching Jeff Kinney, the author of the popular series The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Nearly everyone in our class has read at least one of his books. They are incredibly popular right now. We have written letters to the author, and although we now know he is not able to respond to our letters, we will enjoy sharing them. Spelling will continue with the Words Their Way routines, unless it is a short week like last week where the students used words from their personal writing or their own choice words.
Science: Thank you for supporting the Weather in a Canadian City project. We will now use that data to compare to our weather here in Victoria and to create graphs to illustrate the differences.
Math: We are just finishing up our review of addition and subtraction. Another quiz will be coming home this week so show their latest progress. We will be going on to a unit on graphing and will begin focussing on learning the multiplication facts. Some students still need to work on learning their basic adding and subtracting facts for faster recall at home. Those students will bring home a practice booklet this week. Please work with them nightly to build strategies. If your child doesn't bring home a booklet, his or her fact skills are fine and they are working on multiplication.
Social Studies: We are presently reviewing the of the map of Canada to locate the cities used in the Weather project. This will then lead then into our study of the various First Nations groups of Canada. We will also be discussing the salmon life cycle.
We have just finished our series of chess lessons. Mr Churchill was pleased with their progress and sees real potential in our group to be strong player for the Rogers Chess Team that competes later in the spring.
In Gym, we are focussing on cooperation and sportsmanship. We are building basketball skills and enjoying various minor games.
We have been enjoying working with our little buddies on Friday afternoons. There is a lovely art display outside the Grade One classroom of a joint project they completed.
Personal Progress folders: I have been sending home tests, quizzes and project marks for you to review and sign in a duotang that then should come back to school. Most of the students have returned them by now but a few still need to come back. Please check for these at home if there is a note in the agenda this week.
More news will be coming as we begin to prepare for Christmas. If you have any questions or concerns please send along a note in the agenda. Thank you!
