Over the next couple of weeks we will wrap up our electricity unit.  The students have begun their big electrical invention today – planning and designing their final project…their ideas are awesome!  I do have some materials here (holiday lights, some batteries, brads, paper clips, tape, tinfoil, construction paper etc.) but students may need some additional materials.  I ask that you help the students gather these materials and they can bring and store them at school.  The students  have today and next week to work on their project and our presentations will happen on Monday, November 19th or 20.  I will keep you posted on when we will be presenting our projects and you are welcome to come and see the student’s ‘works of art’!

Mrs. Goosen

Just a reminder that our Remembrance Day service is this Friday at 11:00 and students will be dismissed at noon.  Friday will be a full dress uniform day so they will not need to wear their full dress uniform on Wednesday.

Here is our new spelling list for this week: impartial, possible, total, particular, natural, temporary, pleasant, grateful, certain, serious, local, opposite, peculiar, brilliant, divine, fertile, original, handy, constant, anxious.

  Today we celebrated United Nations Day in our class.  The actual birthday of the UN was last week on Oct 24th; however, I wasn’t working with the class that day so today we acknowledged it.  Our party started off with an exhilarating ‘Continent’ game outside in the parking lot where I shouted out the name of a country and the students had to race to 1 of 6 ‘continents’ that corresponded with that country.  It was highly entertaining, (especially for me!) and will be a game that we play again I’m sure.  We then returned to class and watched a music/visual performance from Humanitarian Day in August.  It’s a moving video (see link below) and we had a brief discussion after about how all of humanity has a desire to be known and how, in our heart of hearts, we all want to make a difference in this world.  Then the students started an art project called “Many Colored Hands” and it was topped off with a rousing rendition of ‘Happy United Nations Day to You’ and yummy cupcakes baked by yours truly.  🙂  A fun afternoon had by all!

Mrs. Derksen

I Was Here, UN Humanitarian Day Performance

Here is our spelling list for next week:  feature, neighbour, beige, sleeve, poverty, visitor, toward, pickle, advice, tobacco, article, drown,  liquid, decade, disaster, vessel, avenue, janitor, against, method.

Also wanted to send out a reminder that tomorrow is a half day as we have parent-teacher interviews in the afternoon -class is dismissed at noon.

On Wednesday, October 1st the K-6 will be having a fall colour day.  The students can wear their new t-shirts or anything else that is fall-ish in colour.  No costumes, please!

Today was our first Colour Day and it was a great one!  Seeing everyone in red and black was such a great symbol of our school’s strong unity and school spirit.  In the afternoon, our class cheered on the Highroad girls volleyball team during their game.  I must say our class had the strongest cheering section, even beating out the high school in volume and enthusiasm.  I attempted to take some pictures but everyone was moving around so much that it was pretty hard to get a clear one.  Here are the best ones from the game. Have a great weekend!

We are close to wrapping up our first Socials unit of the year about ‘Our Global Community’.  We all learned a lot about the importance of human rights, the United Nations, & various humanitarian organizations.  The students also worked on their presentation skills when they worked in small groups to explore the rights of children in Lebanon, Ethiopia, & South Africa, as well as the work of several humanitarian organizations.  The highlight for me was when the class chose ‘World Vision’ as their organization to support this year.  In the next 2 weeks, we will be putting together a small group of students to organize in-school fundraisers and, as a class, we will decide specifically which World Vision projects to support.  Please remember to stop by our classroom and see our students’ art work where they illustrated one or more of the universal human rights.

On November 17th, Highroad will be hosting its annual Spell to Write and Read information seminar for parents.  If you have not attended before or if you feel like you need a refresher course on all those spelling rules and phonograms, please plan to attend.  More details to follow.

See you all on Thursday & Friday this week!  Don’t forget to pick up your $10 HRA t-shirt on Thursday for Color Day on Friday.

Mrs. Derksen

T-shirt Artwork

The students presented their very fabulous ‘switch’ projects this week.  We had a doorbell for the deaf, a morris code flashlight, several awesome nightlights and some very fashionable jewelry and headbands.   The students worked hard creating their switch inventions and also did a great job presenting their inventions to the other students in the class…well done!  Now we are on to part two of our electricity unit, learning about parallel and series circuits and then concluding with an electric invention festival!

Enjoy the pictures of the students great inventions!

Mrs. Goosen

Here is the spelling list for October 22nd – 26th:

choose, entertain, weigh, improve, promise, prefer, chose, illustrate, prepare, soldier, machine, treason, objection, area, service, treasure, create, creation, quiz, effect

IS SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY A MEMBER OF THE ARMED SERVICES?  DID SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY SERVE IN AN ARMED CONFLICT IN THE PAST?  IF SO, WILL YOU SHARE WITH US?

One of our history classes is putting together a visual presentation of Highroad family members who are serving or who have served as a soldier in past wars.  Will you send us the following:

1. email a photo of your “family soldier” (more than one is okay)

2. email a current family photo (we want to include this in the presentation)

3. what if you don’t have a photo of your “family soldier”? take a photo of your family holding a LARGE placard with his or her name, rank and which conflict he or she served in – you can include memorabilia, such as medals, clothing, etc.

4. supply us with these details – family name, soldier name, rank, conflict served in (e.g. WW1, WW2, Korea, etc)

5. email electronic photos to kkristjanson@highroadacademy.com

6. we will only accept electronic photos

7. sooner is better than later – it takes time to put a presentation together!

Thank you for being willing to share your personal family history with us.  We are hoping that this project will give your family an opportunity to have some quality time discussing your “family soldiers” and will also allow us to make a presentation at our Remembrance Day Service that will engage our students in the process of Remembering!