February 22-26, 2016

Reading: Non Fiction - Shared Reading (Stating the Main Idea and Supporting Details, Cause & Effect)
Writing: Narrative (Stories) – Launch, planning with a graphic organizer, matching solutions to problems
Math: Patterning – extending patterns, writing pattern rules, tables of value
Science (Ms. Halliwell): Forces
Social Studies: First Nations & European Explorers –Geographic Context & working with Atlases, Historical Context & Timelines
French (Ms. Bordonaro): Reading
Music/Drama/Dance (Mr. Kotyk): TBA
Visual Art: Portraits – van Gogh con’t
Phys. Ed (Mr. Mouratidis): TBA

Read-a-thon Follow-up Activity

As part of our Reading Marathon, students practiced using their reading strategies. The follow-up activity is due on Monday. Here is a reminder of the tasks required for each strategy/block:

New Cover (Visualization) - good readers create mental pictures/videos of what they read - create a new cover for the novel (remember all the different text features of a cover: title, author's name, illustration, optional tagline/additional information), making sure it would appeal to the target audience of the book	Prediction - make predictions (at least 2) about what will happen next in the book	Questions - ask 3 “juicy” questions from the book - remember “juicy” questions are ones that require more thinking and inferring (e.g., not ones where the answers that are “right there” in the book)
Character Analysis - draw a picture of the main character from your book - identify 4 character traits that describes him/her - support each character trait with evidence from the book	Connection - make 2 different connections (TTS, TTT, TTW) - remember to explain your connection using evidence from the text	Summary - once you have finished your book, write a summary of the book - remember to include the main idea and important details (it should be about a paragraph long, so choose only the important details)

Welcome Ms. Raja!

For the next 4 weeks, we are hosting a number of teacher candidates from the Faculty of Education at Queen's University.  Ms. Snider, Ms. Vanaselja and Ms. Raja will be working with Ms. Bordonaro, Ms. Halliwell and myself.  We are very fortunate to have Ms. Raja join our class until March Break.  

Here is a message from Ms. Raja:

"Hi to all,

My name is Ms. Raja, I am a teacher candidate from Queen’s University. I will be joining Mrs. Kwong’s grade 5 class for the next four weeks!  I am looking forward to working with all the grade 5’s. The subjects that I will be helping with is Reading, Literacy and Math."

February 16-19, 2016

Reading: Non Fiction - Unit Launch, Shared Reading
Writing: Procedural Writing: final piece, creating a “How To” Mini Book
Math: Multiplication – quiz Wednesday, Patterning – Introduction, using rules to describe a pattern
Science (Ms. Halliwell): Energy, wind turbine project
Social Studies: First Nations & European Explorers – Introduction, Geographic Context & working with Atlases
French (Ms. Bordonaro): Reading
Music/Dance (Mr. Kotyk): TBA
Visual Art: Portraits – van Gogh
Phys. Ed (Mr. Mouratidis): TBA

February 1-5, 2016

Reading: Novel Study – City of Ember; Ch. 17-20 (aiming to finish the novel this week!)
Writing: Procedural Writing: writing with the reader in mind, components of a procedural piece
Math: Multiplication – review of facts, multiplying with multiples of 10 & 2 digits x 1 digit; using arrays to multiply 2 digits by 2 digits
Science (Ms. Halliwell): Energy, wind turbine project
Social Studies: Government & Citizenship – Syrian Refugee Crisis, action plans & fundraising campaign
French (Ms. Bordonaro): Reading
Music/Drama (Mr. Kotyk): TBA
Visual Art: Movement
Phys. Ed (Mr. Mouratidis): Hockey, trip this Thursday