Weekly Update Grade 4/5 October 12th

Dear Parents, 

I hope everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving long weekend. The weather was beautiful! 

Thank you to all parents who were able to join us last Thursday for our Thanksgiving liturgy. Many of our grade 4/5 students were readers and they did an excellent job! 

Check out the Padlet that our class created last week about what they are thankful for: https://padlet.com/ruth_stratford/dq4c0h5labavqzo

This week there will be no new 'Word Study' words. It is a 'Review Week' with a focus on reviewing the words from week one through four.  In Language class this week the students will begin their 'Best Part of Me' writing activity. We will begin the activity by sharing the read aloud: 'The Best Part of Me' by Wendy Ewald. Then the students will work with partners to photograph their favourite body part and do a follow up writing activity explaining why they love that body part so much.  

In Math class we will be wrapping up the angles unit this week. Grade 4's are learning all about the properties of rectangles and grade 5's are currently learning to construct and measure angles using a protractor and a ruler. Looking ahead we will be moving onto locations and transformations as well as patterning. We continue to explore various number concepts such as the forms of numbers, multi-digit addition with carrying ,place value related concepts, etc.    

A note about students requesting plastic spoons/forks: Going forward we will NOT be providing students with plastic utensils to eat food items in their lunches. We practice BOOMERANG lunches at St. Augustine with a focus on reducing waste (plastic spoons are also a single-use plastic item which cannot be recycled). Encourage your child to check their lunches themselves each morning to make sure they have everything they need.  Perhaps have a dedicated spoon that 'lives' in their lunch bags. Just to reiterate - Madame D'Aoust and myself will NOT be providing plastic utensils going forward. 

A reminder that this coming Friday, October 15th is picture day! 

Have a great week, everyone!

Weekly Update From Grade 4/5 - October 4th

Dear Parents/Guardians, 

Last week we had a very busy week at St. Augustine School. It was 'Treaty Recognition and Awareness Week.' We paid extra special attention to learning about the Residential School System and the diverse experiences of our Indigenous Canadians through guest speakers, stories and mini-history lessons. Together as a class we generated our class promise which we wrote up on an orange t-shirt and all signed: 

'St. Augustine's Gr. 4/5 Immersion class promises to continue to learn about Indigenous history, culture and traditions.  We promise to keep the conversation going throughout the year!'

Today in Language class, we finished our second last 'symbol' presentation. Only one more student to go!  We have learned so much about each other throughout these presentations. The symbols were all very meaningful and special and generated many interesting questions, comments and connections. Activities such as this help to build and strengthen our Grade 4/5 Immersion classroom family! 

A reminder to continue to support your child with their reading at home. Students should be completing forms for the '30 Book Challenge' on their own from home.  Our current class total is 29 books!  Whoo hoo!

A few students have expressed that they are having difficulty logging onto Hapara from home. All of the students are able to log in successfully from school and they all know their passwords.  Remember the new email domain for students (Firstname.Lastname@stu.ocsb.ca). Please write a note in your child's agenda if they are having difficulty logging into Hapara from home as it is very important that they are able to do so!  

Your child has new 'Word Study' words this week and will have their word study quiz on Thursday rather than Friday this week. IF YOUR CHILD IS ABSENT TODAY, PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY WRITE THESE WORDS IN THEIR AGENDAS. Here are the words: 

Grade 4 Words (al/il pattern):

• twelve, today, during, metaphor, simile, proposal, dental, gerbil, nasal, postal, hemisphere, population

Grade 5 Words (Suffix - ible):

• surprise, hesitate, tenant, exactly, remain, breathe, succeed, horrible, tangible, gullible, possible, invisible, specific, ancient, cliff

Last week the 'Hammerheads Cohort' got together and participated in a full block of S.T.E.M. activities. Some of the activities proved to be very challenging for the students but they persevered and tried their best. Perhaps ask your child about the recipe card challenge (How can you fit your body through a recipe card using only a pair of scissors, one card and keeping the recipe card in one place?), the 'Parachute Man' challenge or the LEGO brain teaser challenge. These are just three of the activities that they participated in!  

In Math Class this week we will continue to explore our angles unit, participate in SEL math lessons and daily number talks. 

A reminder that this coming Friday is a PD day for all OCSB students and Monday is a statuatory holiday.  

Wishing all of you a 'Happy Thanksgiving' this coming weekend! 

A Few Housekeeping Items...

      Hello, Grade 4/5 Families!

• Thank you to all families who continue to contribute items toward our 'Lenten Food Drive.'  So far our class has collected 91 items and over 3/4 of the class has participated!
• Our grade 4/5 immersion class received the MOST votes schoolwide for the  STUDENT CHOICE MARCH BREAK DAY which will take place on Monday, March 15th. Here's what this means:

        Students are invited to wear comfy clothes all day (which means no uniform). We will         have a morning of extra gym/outdoor time AND an afternoon of tech. We have                been calling it B.Y.O.T day (bring your own tech day). If students do not have their            own tech to bring, the school can provide a Chromebook. And, the best part of our            day is that our day involves NO SCHOOL WORK. 

• Mrs. OBrien has asked us to relay the following message to the parents of students who drop off and/or pick up their child(ren):                                                                                                                          Please park at the St. Pius Parking lot and walk over to St. Augustine. 
  
  
  Please do not park in the St. Augustine School parking lot unless you have a handicapped sticker, or have special circumstances and have spoken to Mrs. OBrien.
  
  
  We totally understand that parking away from the school is not convenient, however, Arnot Road has become increasingly unsafe and we are trying to prevent any injury to students or parents, as well as avoid any car accidents. 
  
  
  With the quantity of cars lining the street on both sides, more parents picking children up this year, more people having to socially distance, children crossing the streets, limited space for our buses and cars to drive, etc., we hope you understand why we are asking parents and caregivers to park at St. Pius.

St. Augustine School Lenten Project 2021

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11MrtgeotQ_BzY8h_YaPDayRxTz5DMJw1wZcNVNPPmS8/edit

Update from Grade 4/5

Our first week of school went really well. The students got back into the swing of things surprisingly quickly. This week we also received a new member of our classroom and we are so happy to have him with us in grade 4/5! 

In Math we are starting a new unit on Data Management.  Grade 4's will be learning to create, read and interpret a variety of graphs including 'stem and leaf plots. The focus on grade 5 will be on interpreting data from various types of graphs and determining the mean.  More details about the focus of these units can be found in their student math workspaces in Hapara. 

Please continue to have your child practice their numeracy skills at home each evening by spending time on Mathletics through their student portals and/or competing extra practice worksheets that can be downloaded from the web (see the links on the left side of the blog page).

In Language we are going to start e-penpals with the residents of the Ravines Retirement Residence. I have been in contact with the social coordintor at the Ravines to set this initiative up. Students will learn how to properly write a friendly letter and practice these skills through this e-penpal initiative.  It will also be a wonderful opportunity to foster community connections. To address privacy concerns, all correspondence will be vetted through my work email account and students will only utilize their first names. 

We continue to receive new words each week. As part of their daily routine, students are asked to review these words by writing them out, using them verbally in sentences, etc.  Again, the weekly words can be found in the student language workspace in Hapara. 

We are doing very well with the '30 Book Challenge.'  If we keep up at this pace, we will have no difficulty reaching our goal of 570 books by the end of May. We are currently at just over 260 books!!

Just a reminder that we will not be able to exchange Valentine's Day cards this year due to Covid-19 restrictions. 

Welcome Back!

 It was so great to have the students back in school today! It has been way too long and I think we all felt better just being together.  We are easing back into school-based routines which will take some getting used to this week (e.g. agenda routine, getting dressed for recess, socially distancing, etc.).  Despite the chilly weather, it was warm enough for the students to go outside first recess. I think they enjoyed that. They are recommending that students wear masks outside so please send in extra masks with your child each day. We have updated our '30 Book Challenge' tracking thermometer - we are already at 250 books!!! Whoo hoo! 

This Week is Mental Health Week!