January 23

1) Scholastic orders due this Friday
2) Gr. 4's - finish Black Death worksheets for Monday

January 22nd

1) Scholastic orders due this Friday
2) Continue researching for your social studies report

• Students have now developed 5 to 8 research questions for their research topic. They have also put their questions into a visual organizer (11x17 paper) and some have started researching already! We've practiced 'skimming and scanning' when we get to websites to help us look for information that might be useful. We have also practiced taking dot jots (point form notes) on just the important ideas that we've found. 
• I would like it if students could try and get down a total of 10 new dot jots tonight. 

3) Finish math measurement page 

4) Science - Gr. 4's complete all of your house package for tomorrow

Helpful Research Links for our Social Studies Reports

Finding 'just right' research can be hard. It's takes skimming and scanning, and a lot of patience to find the answers to the questions you've come up with. I hope the links below might be helpful for you. 

Early Civilizations 

Mr. Donns Page (scroll down to where it says (Mrs. Donn's Ancient Civilizations for Kids)

History for Kids (look on the left-hand side of the page for links)

Cyber Sleuth Kids Webpage

Mr. Dowlings Page with Helpful Links

Suffolk Counties Website on Early Civilizations

Kids Click (database of helpful information)

Edu Place Lessons on Early Civilizations

Medieval Times 

Middle ages information on feudal life, homes, religion, clothing, health and more

Medieval Life Broken up into Categories (summaries)

Think Quest - Summaries About Different Parts of Medieval Life

Mr. Donn's Medieval Europe Site

Database of Medieval Times and Kingdoms

Huge Database of Medieval Topics

January 21st

1) Sign and return dance permission form ASAP
2) Get ready for French play
3) Science - Gr. 4 - complete your entire house package

January 17th

1) Sign and return dance permission form by Monday
2) PJ Movie Night tonight!
3) Math
Finish rectangles area and perimeter worksheet (both sides)
Gr. 4's - TB, pg. 214 #1,2,4
Gr. 5's - TB, pg. 228-229

January 16th

1) Sign and return Dance permission form ASAP
2) Sign and return math test (handed out last week)
3) PJ Movie night tomorrow (WHOOT WHOOT!)
4) Finish brainstorming a list of questions that you'd like to use for your research

As a class, we've been working on generating questions about a topic of study. We've discussed what a good research question is and practiced generating questions. The big point we've looked at is - will this question be easy to answer and do research on. A question that is too general might lead to frustration during research.

Example -> Topic - Modern Farming

General research question - How do they farm?

More specific question - What type of machinery is used to farm?

Students should be brainstorming a list of about 10 to 15 questions that they could potentially research. Tomorrow, we will be looking at focusing in on about 5 really valuable research questions.

5) Kids kitchen forms home

January 15th

1) Finish music worksheet
2) Social Studies due tomorrow (see yesterday's post for details)
3) Math - finish parts A and B (Toronto Zoo problem)
Students should create 3 different shapes for A and 1 for B. However, there should be an explanation describing why the shapes was chosen.
4) Science work due Monday (see yesterday's post for details)

January 14th

1) Important letter home
2) Social studies
Gr. 4's - Finish manor law worksheets
Gr. 5's - Finish rough draft of your city state crests

3) Math
Gr. 4's - SB pg. 45
Gr. 5's - SB pg. 71

4) Science
Gr. 4's - draw and colour house and room
Gr. 5's - finish package and 2 questions

5) Practice French Story

December 10th

1) Movie night forms due Monday
2) Finish perimeter question A and B
3) Pick a potential research topic for writing assignment

Today, we started exploring topics that interest us for our next writing/social studies project. Grade 4 students explored potential topics to research involving medieval times and grade 5 students explored early civilizations. By Monday, I would like students to have a firm preference for a topic they want to research. This doesn't mean they have to research facts, merely have an idea of something they would like to research (I think for my medieval research report I want to write about what people used to wear OR I want to research ancient China and some of the really interesting inventions that were developed back then).


4) Get math test signed
5) No school tomorrow

January 8th

1) Movie night form due Friday
2) Read French script
3) Bring in cereal box if you haven't already
4) Finish language arts investigation form
5) Gr. 4's - bring in flashlights for science
6) Finish length measurement sheet

January 7th

1) Blue movie night form due this Friday
2) Read over French script
3) Science
grade 4's - draw a picture of refraction (pencil drawing)
grade 5's - complete characteristics page using objects at home

December 19th

1) PJ movie night notice home
2) Read our poem! We're on tomorrow!
3) Wear blue and white tomorrow for our performance
4) Wear green and red for the the spirit day on Friday
5) Eat a light breakfast on Friday as we're having our class breakfast

December 18th

1) Make sure you wear blue and white on Thursday for our performance
2) Math test moved to tomorrow
3) finish publishing your autobiography
4) Smencils on sale tomorrow!

December 17

1) Wear blue and white tomorrow and Thursday
2) Math test tomorrow

Spiral Book Review

Gr. 4 pg. 28-29
Gr. 5 pg. 28-31

3) Read and practice our class poem
4) Complete further hard copy revisions to your autobiography

December 14th

1) Math test TUESDAY

Items on the Math Test

Know how to:

• Read bar, pictograph and line graphs (line graphs for grade 5's) and use the APE strategy to explain your conclusions about them
• Understand all the elements on a graph 
• Use a stem and leaf plot to organize and analyze data
• Find the mean (only for the 5's), median and mode of a set of data and explain which what best describes it 
• Use intervals to sort and graph data on a bar graph

Review Work

Grade 4's

Textbook pg. 78 #1-4, pg. 81 #3-4
Spiral book pg. 23

Grade 5's

Textbook pg. 86 #1, 3, 5
Spiral book pg. 23

2) Wear blue and white on Tuesday for the dress rehearsal
3) Science - grade 4 bring in a flashlight for science (if you have one)
4) Breakfast note home
5) Read poem to someone at home

I am Winter, King of Seasons