I hope you are having a fantastic weekend! We have come to the end of the first month of school and have loved getting to know our new class. This class is filled with unique and beautiful boys and girls, and we feel privileged that we get to pour into their lives this year. Mrs. Doerksen and I spend a lot of time working together and discussing strategies and ways to best meet the needs of your children. We want to see them grow academically, spiritually and emotionally this year.
Over the next week or so, the class will be focusing on citizenship. We have come up with six lessons that I will outline below. We encourage you to have daily discussions with your child on what they have learned and how they can personally contribute to creating a positive, healthy classroom climate.
Each day we will have a ‘classroom quote’ to start their thinking as well as a theme lesson for the day. Below I have given you the topic we will be looking at as well as the quote – hoping this will start some rich discussions at home.
LESSON #1 FOCUS: CREATING A CLASSROOM OF TRUST
Quote of the Day:If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Phillipians 2:1-4 Message (this is our theme verse for this mini-unit)
LESSON #2 FOCUS: THINKING BEFORE WE SPEAK & EMPATHY
Quote of the Day: If you can’t think of anything nice to say, you’re not thinking hard enough. By Kid President.
LESSON #3 FOCUS: INCLUDING OTHERS
Quote of the Day: Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody. By Kid President.
LESSON #4 FOCUS: BE A LEADER, NOT A BOSS
Quote of the Day: If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.
LESSON #5 FOCUS: HOW TO WORK TOGETHER
Quote of the Day:
Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
LESSON #6 FOCUS: HOW TO DISAGREE POLITELY
Quote of the Day: It is okay to disagree. It is not okay to disrespect.
A happy & rainy Friday to you all! What a contrast of weather this week – from shorts & t-shirts to sweaters and jeans! Gotta love our BC weather! Here is a snapshot of our week:
Math – continue working on place value with a focus on showing numbers in standard, written and picture form as well as ordering numbers from least to greatest and greater than/less than. Next week we will look at rounding and estimating.
Writing – what does a hamburger have in common with writing a paragraph? A lot, actually! This week we finished up our grammar review and started learning about the different parts of a paragraph…complete with hamburger cupcakes! They were a big hit and tasted really yummy (if I do say so myself). =)
Science – we finished up working on Growth Mindset and started our next unit on Solutions and Mixtures. Students explored mixing together various liquids and solids (coffee grounds and milk, anyone?) and observed what happened when the items were mixed together. Next week we will begin exploring the difference between a homogeneous solution and a heterogeneous mixture, and learn the difference between solvent and solute..exciting stuff!
Health – students continued working on goal setting and had the opportunity to make a SMART goal this week. I encourage you to ask your child what goal they set for this fall.
Social Studies – students have been reviewing different types of propaganda and are getting ready to create their own ads.
Reading – focusing on making connections to books/text using their memories.
We finished our first month of our classroom economy. Students were VERY excited to receive their first month’s salary, pay their rent and get to shop at the SCHOOL STORE!!! This was also an excellent opportunity for students to learn the value of budgeting, saving up for things they want and unexpected payments (fines) that may come next month. A huge thank you for all of the donations we received!
This Thursday we will be participating in our annual Terry Fox Run. We are asking for a ‘toonie’ donation from each student, which will go directly to the Terry Fox Foundation.
Thank you for helping us support this great cause!
It has been another great week here in the grade 5 classroom. We have been busy learning place value, reviewing grammar rules (fun, I know), learning about the brain and growth mindset, practicing the French alphabet and learning to type! Mrs. Doerksen has been away this week so I (Mrs. Goosen) have had a lot of fun spending the week with this great crew!
Below are some general notes for you, a list of upcoming dates as well as next week’s spelling words.
French Vocabulary Quiz on Monday! Remember to practice over the weekend!
Math Facts: This week your child may have come home with a set of multiplication flash cards. The purpose of these cards is to help your child become quicker at knowing their multiplication facts. They will have come home with a ‘fact family’ to learn, and we would like them to practice a couple of minutes a day. Mondays will be our ‘testing day’ – if they know their facts then they will move up to the next fact family. Please encourage your child to be diligent in practicing their Math facts – it will greatly improve the speed and accuracy of their daily Math work.
Pro D Day Tomorrow
Class Economy: This Wednesday will be the first time the students will get paid their monthly salary, pay rent on their desk, and have an opportunity to visit the school store. Thank you to those who have contributed to our class store so far. It is really appreciated. If you are able to bring in a few items early next week, that would be great!
We have started learning the alphabet in French and the students will be having an oral quiz on Monday. I will say letters in English and they need to pronounce them in French. I will also pronounce letters in French and they will have to identify the letter. The students have a sheet in their binders to help them study and may also want to review the following video.
We have come to the end of another great week. The class is settling in very well and we have enjoyed our time with them. Below are some items for you to read over as well as the calendar for September.
No Spelling – due to a short week next week there will not be a spelling quiz or vocabulary work.
Pizza Lunch – for those students who use a pizza card on Tuesdays, we wanted to let you know that pizza will only be given to students with punches left on their pizza card. Pizza punch cards can be purchased at the office.
Bibles – we have students who are missing their Bibles. They will need to have them by the end of next week and can be purchased at the office for $15.
September Dates
Monday, September 18th – Parent Welcome Night (6:30pm start)
This morning in devotions we talked about the tragic events that happened on September 11, 2001. I wanted to share the video that I showed the class as it may help further some discussions at home.
Good afternoon! We have made it to the end of our first official week! Miss Doerksen and I would like to let you know how THRILLED we are to have such an amazing group of students in our class this year! This week was full of fun get-to-know-you and team building activities as well as some goal setting, learning about Metacognition (thinking about your thinking), starting our classroom economy, self portraits and a fun “Days of Summer” Math project.
Thank you for filling out the Student Information sheets and handing them in so quickly. We love reading these as it gives us important insights to your child and helps us understand them better. Please feel free to send us an email or come in after school if you want to chat about anything.
We usually send out blog posts every Friday – this will be an exceptionally long one as there is lots to tell you. Usually it will have upcoming dates, spelling information as well as information about other things happening in our classroom or school. And, we love to include pictures so you can see what is happening in our classroom. Let’s get started…
School Supplies – thank you for sending these on the first day of school. Some students still need to bring in their oil pastels (can be purchased from Staples), Kleenex, Bibles and the prescribed amount of pencils. If you could get those in next week, that would be great.
Pizza Lunch – this happens on Tuesdays and begins next Tuesday, September 12th. Slices are $2 each and a pizza punch card can be purchased from the office.
Bible Memory Verse – we are starting with the Lord’s Prayer and the first two verses are due next Wednesday, September 13th. The students have been given a sheet with the whole passage. This should be in their planners. It is also on the Blog under the Bible Memory tab.
Class Economy – there has been quite a buzz in the classroom about our classroom economy. Students have applied for, and received their first classroom job. They will start earning money and hopefully not incur any fines this month. At the end of the month students will pay $500 rent for their desk as well as receive their monthly salary. With their profits, students have an opportunity to purchase items from a classroom store. We would love donations from parents to help run this store. I have purchased some things to get us started but this will not sustain us through the year. A couple of chocolate bars, unwanted toys from home, etc. make excellent store items.
Spelling – below I have included the spelling words for next Friday’s spelling test. We will do both spelling and vocabulary work each week. The students will have ten words that they will need to practice for Friday’s test and also do vocabulary work for those ten words. This will also be due on Friday. Students will have class time to complete these but may need to be finished at home from time to time. Spelling words will be posted on spelling city (link can be found on the right hand side of the blog…just follow way down) and if students get a perfect score on the spelling city test they will get an additional bonus mark on their quiz. In order to receive this mark there must be a note in the planner or an email to Miss Doerksen (adoerksen@highroadacademy.com) stating that they got a perfect score on spelling city. A certificate from spelling city can also be printed out and handed in.
Welcome to Mrs. Goosen and Mrs. Doerksen’s grade 5 class blog. We are so excited to be starting a new year with you and look forward to getting to know you and your families.
On the first day of school a letter will be sent home for parents. It will be one of the last paper newsletters that you will see, as all class information, notifications, assignments, important dates, etc will be posted here during the year.
Please subscribe to our blog (on the right hand side bar) so that you will receive an e-mail when we make a new post. Looking forward to a great year together!
