Apologies

The note that was meant to go home yesterday was unable to be copied due to our photocopier being repaired. Hopefully I will be able to send it on Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience!

A few Upcoming Dates

Please click on the link below for the letter that will be going home with the Grade 6's today discussing some of the important dates that are coming up over the last few days of school.

Reminders for Leaving Ceremony & End of Year

Y-Camp Trip is tomorrow!

Tomorrow we are going on our year end trip! This promises to be one of the most exciting days of the year for many of our students. I have placed a link to the letter we sent earlier this year below to assist in packing bag and lunches. Please feel free to contact your child's teacher if you have any questions about the day. Thank you!

Year End Trip Letter

Retreat Day is Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, June 7th, is the Grade 6 retreat day. During the day, we will be doing some activities to remind us of our time here at St. Anne and reflect upon our futures as we go to Holy Trinity. We will also be playing some cooperative games and practice for our Leaving Ceremony, which is scheduled for June 26th at 1PM.

Lunch is provided tomorrow, so students do not need to bring a lunch. They may need to have a few snacks for the morning and afternoon however. Additionally, it would be a good idea to bring a refillable water bottle for the afternoon.

If possible, please send your child with a pair of sunglasses if you have a pair, as we will need them for a bit of a special project tomorrow as well. I will be bringing a pair, and students who do not have a pair can use mine or borrow from a friend, so there is absolutely no need to send an expensive pair or to buy a pair if you do not have any handy.

EQAO Finished and Grade 6 Retreat Day this week

So sorry I haven't posted in a while. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy here at school, and they are likely to get even busier for everyone over the next few weeks! On Friday, the Grade 6's finished their EQAO testing and so we are beginning to prepare ourselves for all of the end of year activities that will be coming up very soon.

The first thing that the 6's will be participating in is the Grade 6 retreat day, which happens at school during normal hours. On that day, students will do a number of activities to reflect on their time here at St. Anne, and think about their future. Father Paul will be joining us at some point during the day to speak to the 6's about Grade 7 and their faith journey.

The retreat day this year will be this Thursday, June 7th. On that day, a sandwich lunch from Farm Boy will be provided with some snack, drinks and treats. Students will not need a lunch that day unless they have specific diet concerns or allergies. Students may need a snack for earlier in the day, and a water bottle would also be a good idea, as we will be spending some of the time outside playing cooperative games.

Another important event that is coming up is the Year End trip, which will happen on June 12th at the Y-Camp in Dunrobin. If you have not sent in your child's permission form yet, please do so ASAP.

Finally, the Leaving Ceremony for the Grade 6's will take place at St. Patrick's Church in Fallowfield at 1PM on Tuesday, June 26th. We would ask students to arrive at 12:30 in order to get themselves organized for the ceremony. Although we do not place a limit on the number of guests per student, we would ask families to remember that there is limited seating in the church, so if possible, try to keep the guest list down to 4 family members (or friends!) if possible.

In class over the next few weeks, we will be working on some media activities such as making an advertisement both in print and for radio/TV. We will also be finishing the Fully Alive program and completing a few small concepts in math.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with me at school any time. Thank you so much for your support this year!

Junior Track and Field Day is this Friday

This Friday (May 25), is the junior track and field meet at St Anne. The event will take place in the afternoon and is for grades 4, 5, and 6 only. Please make sure students are dressed for the event and have the following important items:

- sunscreen

- a hat

- water bottle

- running shoes

Hope everyone has a great day!

EQAO Begins this Week!

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend. As you may know, EQAO testing will begin this week. The grade 6's will do the 4 language tests first, followed by the 2 math test afterwards. We will only have one test per day. I have placed the testing schedule below. Please try to ensure that your child is here on each day of testing as it is much easier for students to write the tests in our classroom environment than it is to catch up in a different area. Also, it can be difficult for students to write 2 tests in one day, should they need to catch up.

Here is the testing schedule:

Thursday 24th: Language 1
Friday 25th: Language 2
Monday 28th: Language 3
Tuesday 29th: Language 4
Thursday 31st: Math 1
Friday 1st: Math 2

On Wednesday, May 30th, the grade 6's will be going on the escape room field trip, which should be a nice break from the testing!

Because of the testing, we will not have homework the next few weeks, and there will be little homework for the rest of the year. The students have been working hard this year, and they could use a break!

Best of luck to our grade 6's this week! Do your Best!

Vote for Your Valedictorian!

Attention Grade 6 students! Use the form below to vote for your valedictorian for the Leaving Ceremony. Remember that you can only vote once, and you cannot change your vote once it has been submitted, so choose wisely the first time. Voting will close by Tuesday after school. Good luck!

Education Week This week

This week is Education Week! We will be starting the week with our Education Week Mass at St. Patrick's Fallowfield on Monday, and conclude with our Open House on Friday. The book fair is also occurring this week, and our class will be going on Wednesday morning.

We are also getting very close to EQAO testing time! Our first test will be a language test on May 24th. We will be completing all of the language tests first, and then the math test afterwards. There are 4 language tests and 2 math tests. Each test will be about one block (although students can take longer if they need to), and we will only complete one test per day.

This week, we will be having a math test on Probability on Thursday. This is a fairly easy unit, so students should not find it too difficult. Our next unit of study is Transformational Geometry (flips, slides and turns) and then we will begin reviewing for EQAO.

In language, we are going to be completing many practice tests for EQAO in order to get more used to the timing of the test, and to self assess and practice our reading and writing skills.

In science, we have finished our reports and house designs, and we will have a test on our units in Thursday. Our next units are Flight for grade 6, and Forces Acting on Structures for Grade 5's.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at school any time.

Out of This World Sale - Friday

Pyjama Patrol Drive

During the week of May 14th - 18th, St. Anne will be supporting the Pyjama Patrol by asking families to donate a pair of pyjamas for children who may not own any. If you would like to participate, please bring or send in a new pair of children-sized pyjamas, OR a donation can be made through School Cash Online. Then have your child wear pajamas to school on Tuesday, May 15th for a “thank you” Pyjama Day! We look forward to seeing everyone participating in this event and helping this project!

Probability, Poetry & Science Projects

This week in math we are beginning to learn about Probability. This is usually a fairly fast unit to learn, since many of the concepts tie in with what we just studied about fractions, decimals and percent. I would expect we should be able to finish this unit within a week or two at most.

In language, we are learning about poetry and inferring. We are reading a number of poems, and learning about how to "read between the lines" when reading. I encourage students to make an inference by not simply answering a question, but also to explain what clues in text help them come to their conclusion, as well as what they know from their own experience. We will also continue to practice responding to text through EQAO reading, and writing an announcement.

In our afternoon science class, we are finishing up our unit on Space (grade 6) and Conservation of Energy (Grade 5). Students are finishing their reports/designs in class on Tuesday. Students can build their model at home and bring it in by Friday. We will be presenting our work over the next few weeks. We will be having a science test next Tuesday that will cover all of the material we have learned throughout this unit. I will send home their notes from their science folders that will help students study for their test.

Math Test Thursday!

We will be reviewing everything we have learned about Fractions, Decimals, Percent, Ratio and Rate this week and testing our understanding on Thursday. To assist students in reviewing for this test, I would recommend reviewing what we learned through our Hapara Workspace, and also use the following sites:

Hapara Workspace - Decimals

Decimals Blendpace

Ratio & Rates

Fractions

Percent

Some Upcoming Dates

Here is a link to a letter outlining some upcoming dates over the next few months. The rest of the year is going to be quite busy in Grade 6!

Upcoming Events Letter

Snow Day, Holy Trinity, JA Program & Math Night

Happy Snow Day! Hard to believe this is the middle of April. Hope everyone is safe today.

This is going to be a busy week in Grade 6! On Tuesday, we are going Holy Trinity for Transition Day, which students always enjoy. We will be doing a tour of the school in groups, and then watching a presentation by the students of Holy Trinity. We should be back at St. Anne between 1:30 - 2:00. 

On Thursday from 6:30 - 8PM is our St. Anne Math Night. This was a very enjoyable evening last year, and I expect it will be just as much fun this year. During the Math Night, parents and children will have a chance to do some activities that students do in our classes. Mathnasium will be here this year as well with some games and door prizes. Looking forward to seeing you there!

On Thursday, the grade 6's will also be having volunteers come from the JA Program to teach us about Marketing and Business. Here is a description of the program from their website:

JA Be Entrepreneurial Junior (Grades 5 & 6) This is an interactive and engaging one-day program that introduces Grade 5 & 6 students to the fundamentals of starting a business and the opportunities and challenges of being an entrepreneur. Through key entrepreneurial concepts, including product, service, and competitive advantage and target market, students develop an understanding of how businesses thrive. 

Lately we have been practicing reading and writing for EQAO by completing an EQAO practice test each week. We have been writing the test one day, then taking up and self-assessing the next. After students have seen a good quality response, I ask them to try to improve it. After, we do the same process for writing samples. In the assessment folders, you will see the original answers on the practice tests, and the improved (hopefully!) answers on a lined piece of paper attached. For homework the next few weeks, we will be doing some reading assignments in a program called readworks.org. This website allows students to read an article, and then answer some multiple choice questions, followed by some short answer questions. This is excellent practice for EQAO.

In math, we have been continuing to learn about ratio and their relationships to fractions, decimals and percents. When working with more complicated problems involving fractions, I try to ask students to relate their responses to decimals because they can be easier to compare, and perform operations with. At this point, students usually begin to get a little confused by all the different ways we represent fractions (i.e. mixed numbers and improper fractions, decimals, percents, ratios). They need a good deal of practice to remember how to work with all of these. For homework, I will be assigning Mathletics for students to practice concepts we are going over in class. I highly recommend students complete any other assignments in addition to this. 

In science, we are getting to the end of our units on Conservation of Energy (Grade 5) and Space (Grade 6). We have begun a final project for each grade. The Grade 5's are designing a house that is energy efficient, and the Grade 6's are writing a report about a feature of space, and then constructing a model of it in the classroom. I imagine this will take a few weeks, after which we will have a test. I will send home their worksheets beforehand so that students can study. 

Have a great week everyone. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at school any time. 

What's Coming this Week

We have been working hard in math learning about fractions and decimals. As part of this unit, we learn about calculating percent, as well as ratio and rates. We learn that a percent is simply another way to express a fraction, which is always out of 100. I show students how to change a fraction into a decimal by dividing the top number by the bottom, and then multiplying by 100 to make it a percent. Also, we learn that we can use equivalent fractions to turn a fraction into a percent. For example, 4/5 can be made into 80/100 by multiplying the numerator and denominator by 20, which makes 80%.

We will continue practicing percent this week by learning how to find the percent of a number, for example what is 80% of $20. Students need to simply multiply $20 by 0.8 in order to determine the amount. We will also be looking at how to find the original amount when given a percent - for example, $15 is 75% of what amount? In this case, students need to divide the two amounts (i.e. $15 / 0.75).

Later in the week we will be learning about what a ratio is and relating them to fractions and decimals as well. Finally, we will be learning about what a rate is and practicing many questions to explore this concept.

In language, we are getting ready for EQAO, which is occurring towards the the end of May. We will be reading some selections from old tests and practicing how to respond to reading questions in as much depth as possible. The two selections we will read this week are an info-fiction piece and a poetry piece. In the process of reading these, we will learn about some of the features and characteristics of each of these types of writing.

One way that can help students to respond to text in depth is to use a system called ROPES. This method is an anagram to help students remember the important elements to use in a response:

• R - restate the question
• O - opinion or answer
• P - proof from the text
• E - another example from the text
• S - Summarize, or explain how your examples relate to your answer (why are they good examples?)

We have been practicing this method all year, and while it doesn't guarantee an adequate response, it does help students to have a place to start when answering questions. 

We will also be writing some persuasive paragraphs this week. We wrote one last week, and learned how to write with some greater detail when only writing a single paragraph. Most of the writing sample we have done this year have been longer, and the EQAO testing often asks students to write a single paragraph that has sufficient detail, so we will practice this a little longer before moving on to longer pieces for review.

In Science, we have been learning about Space for the grade 6's and Conservation of energy for the 5's. This week, I hope to finish covering the major concepts and have students begin a project to wrap up the unit and show their learning. We will have a unit test once the project is complete. These projects will be finished at school, and not assigned for homework.

In music, we have been learning about some famous composers, the instrument families, and have begun learning how to play the recorder. We will be continuing to learn the recorder until the end of the school year.

Decimals in Depth

In math, we have been learning about how decimals relate to fractions. Here is a link to a slideshow I went over with the students to show how fractions and decimals are alike and different:

Introduction to Decimals

We have also learned how to compare and order decimals. Students found this very easy and are very good at it. Here is the lesson I went over with students to explain how to compare and order decimals:

Comparing & Ordering Decimals

Next week, we will begin looking at rounding decimals, using estimation, and then get into performing operations using decimals (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). 

Kingdom Club Bake Sale

Palm Splitting on Friday and Grad T-Shirts

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a restful March Break. The rest of this year is sure to fly by!

Easter is only a couple of weeks away. In preparation for the Palm Sunday Mass next weekend, grade 6 students will be helping to split palms in the Learning Commons on Friday morning. Students usually quite enjoy this activity.

Another exciting event coming up is the sale of our Grade 6 T-shirts. I have attached a picture below of what they look like, except that there will be a large "18" on the back, which will be filled in with the signatures of all our grade 6 students. This is a nice keepsake for students who are leaving from grade 6 and moving on to middle school.

Students will have a chance to try on a few sample shirts to determine a size that fits well. We will have them write their size down in their agendas if possible to make ordering easier.

T-shirts will be available for order through School Cash Online. The cost for the youth sizes is $13, and adult sizes are $15. Taxes are included. The deadline for ordering will be April 7th. There can be no extensions for late orders as the company will only do one run of T-Shirts.

A note will go home when T-Shirts are available for sale through School Cash Online. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the school any time.

Comparing and Ordering Fractions

Today we are learning about how to compare fractions. There are basically 4 methods to compare fractions, and here are the ways. We will make anchor charts in class tomorrow for comparing fractions:

White Elephant Sale

The grade 4 class is hosting a White Elephant Sale this week to raise money for Nature Canada. Items will cost between $1 and $5. Our class will have an opportunity to buy some items on Friday morning. If you wish for your child to participate, please send him or her with some money on Friday morning. Thank you!

Mixed Numbers and Improper Fractions

Over the last few days, we have been learning about mixed numbers and comparing fractions. Most students in grade 6 usually are able to identify mixed numbers and improper fractions, and they are generally good at drawing pictures to represent these amounts. The challenge is to show them how to relate these to a number line, and then to use a more exact method for when their drawings are difficult to distinguish. Here is the anchor chart we created to show how to convert between mixed numbers and improper fractions:

We also watched a presentation called Spy Guys about how to find mixed numbers and improper fractions. Here is the link:

Spy Guys - Mixed Numbers 

Equivalent Fractions

Last week we learned how to find equivalent fractions without using a model. Most of the students were able to identify equivalent fractions by using a model like a fraction circle or a number line. I really like to try to emphasize the use of a number line when teaching fractions, because it helps students to better understand where a fraction might "fit" relative to whole numbers.

The big idea about equivalent fractions is that they are fractions that show the same amount, but broken up into different size pieces. We can find equivalent fractions by multiplying or dividing by any fraction equal to 1 (eg. 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, etc).

Here is an anchor chart that can be used to explain how to find an equivalent fraction using multiplication or division to assist. We have looked at this in class, although many students are more comfortable using the "whatever I do to the bottom, I also have to do to the top" language to remember how to find equivalent fractions (see the bottom video). Either way is fine!



Also, we watched these videos to help us better understand fractions and how to find equivalent fractions.

We have Begun Fractions.....

We are beginning a new unit in math - Fractions! This is often a challenging unit for students, but it is vitally important since a strong understanding of fractions assists students in better understanding other concepts such as decimals, percent, ratio, rates and probability.

In this unit, we will be learning about:

• what a fraction is
• equivalent fractions
• mixed numbers and improper fractions
• comparing an ordering mixed numbers and fractions (on a number line and otherwise)
• Adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators

I have begun compiling some websites that can help students practice these concepts at home in a Blendspace unit. Here is the link:

Fractions Blendspace Unit

After learning about fractions, we will be moving on to decimals, and from there working on percent, ratio, rates and probability.

Grad Photos on Wednesday, February 28th!

Grad photos for our class will happen on February 28th. For these photos, the photography company will provide the cap and gown for the pictures. Boys will need a white collared shirt or golf shirt, and girls will need to wear a white blouse. Please remember to send your child with a white shirt or blouse on February 28th for their grad photo.

It is important that students try not to miss this day. There is a retake day this year, but it is good to have more than one attempt at this picture if required.

Proofs will be sent to parents for photos soon after the pictures are done, along with order packages.

Ryan Herljac from the Ryan's Well Foundation & Spirit Week!

We are very lucky to be having Ryan Herljak visit our school today to talk about the importance of clean water to our students. In grade 6, we read a book called "Ryan and Jimmy and the Well in Africa that brought them Together". It is the story of Ryan, who at the age of 6 decided to raise money to build a well in Africa. He was told he needed $70. When he actually went to donate the money, he was told it wouldn't build an entire well, just a part, so he raised the rest - $2000.

Later, he went to visit his well in Africa and met his pen pal, Jimmy. They became friends. A few years later, Jimmy was captured by the Ugandan rebel forces, where he would have been forced to be a child soldier, or killed. He managed to escape, and Ryan's family brought him to Canada to keep him safe. In the end, they adapted Jimmy and now they are truly brothers.

Ryan started the Ryan's Well Foundation and has now brought clean water to more than 500,000 people all over the world.

Next week, we will be having a Spirit Week to raise money for the Ryan's Well Foundation as part of our Lenten Project. Please donate what you can and have your child participate in the following activities:

• Tuesday - Jersey Day
• Wednesday - Favourite character day
• Thursday - Crazy hat/Hair day
• Friday - Tacky tourist day

Math test delayed until next Wednesday

I am going to postpone the math test until next Wednesday because I feel that students need a little more time to practice before I test them. I want them to be a successful as possible. Please encourage your child to study for the test by doing as much mathletics as possible or going to websites I referenced in the last post.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your support.

Measurement Math test this Thursday!

We have been practicing our measurement skills since coming back from the Christmas Holidays and now it is time to test our knowledge! On Thursday, we will be having a test that will cover all of the following:

• metric conversions (including length (M), capacity (L) and mass (G) - many students use the "staircase" method for this. 
• perimeter of regular and irregular shapes
• area of rectangles, parallelograms, and triangles (including finding the value of a missing side when given the area - eg. "the area of a triangle is 8cm squared. The base is 4 cm. What is the height?)
• Surface area of rectangular and triangular prisms (including missing sides)
• Volume of rectangular and triangular prisms
• understanding that 1 square meter = 10,000 square cm
• understanding that 1 cubic meter = 1,000,000 cubic cm

I sent home a measurement review sheet for homework that covers most of these. Also, here are some links to some other websites and units I have put together in the past to help students study:

Area of Parallelograms

Area of Triangles

Metric Conversion

Surface area

Unit review

Surface area of triangular prisms

Volume of triangular prism

Volume of rectangular prism

Celebrating Olympic Fever Tomorrow!

On Friday, we will be celebrating our Olympic athletes by wearing Canadian colours! Go Team Canada!

News Articles, Social Media Safety & Volume

This past week was busy! On Monday, we celebrated Family Literacy Day by learning  about News Article writing. Thank you to all parents and family members who were able to join us for the lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. We continued writing our News Articles throughout the week and on Friday did an EQAO practice sample in which students had to write a news article with the headline "New Creature Discovered by Students". We will look at examples of levels 1 through 4 this week and students will self-assess their work. As part of our guided and independent work time, I will ask students to try to re-write their news articles to "bump it up" to the next level by looking at the exemplars to help them.

We have also been learning a little bit about Social Media Safety over the last couple of weeks, and this week we did a short online quiz about what we learned. In the quiz, I asked for students to write their name, and many thought this was a trick question, because we have learned not to give personal information (including your first and last name) out over the internet. I was happy to see that they were able to apply their learning so well!

Next, we will be moving on to learning the reading skill of "Making Connections". We will learn that when we read, it help us to understand if we can make connections to the text we are reading, such as connecting it to ourselves, the world, or other texts we have read (or perhaps seen - like a movie). We will be reading a book called "Ryan and Jimmy and the Well in Africa that Brought Them Together". This is a story about Ryan Herljack, a young man who began raising money to build wells in Africa when he was only in Grade 1. We are lucky this year because Ryan is coming to visit our school soon to speak to our students about his Foundation. This is an excellent story, and I am sure students will greatly enjoy it and be able to make many connections to it after meeting Ryan in person.

In math, we have been learning about surface area of both rectangular and triangular prisms. Students generally seem to be getting this, but we will be continuing to practice this week, along with finding the volume of both these shapes. This week we will be finding the optimal amount of packaging for a chocolate bar, and later finding out how many cubic centimeters will fit in a cubic meter. See this blog post for some examples of how to find surface area.

Finally, in science we have just begun learning about Space for the grade 6's and Conservation of Energy for the grade 5's. We have started with students preparing a google slide about the parts of the solar system and the forms of energy, which they will then import in to a program called peardeck, so they can create some questions and other activities in order for their presentations to be more interactive.

Social Media Quiz

Go to this link to take the social media safety quiz

https://goo.gl/forms/MvC740kAwJ3V3uQk2

Confirmation Rite of Enrollment is this Weekend

A message from our Parish to our Grade 6 families who will be receiving the Rite of Enrollment:

The next step in your child’s sacramental journey is the Rite of Enrollment. This ceremony will take place at all Masses, next weekend, February 3 and 4, 2018. Please ensure that you and your child attend one of the Masses. Mass times are Saturdayat 5:00 p.m., Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and Sunday at 11:00 a.m.

The children will be presented to the parish community and will be asked to make a promise to actively prepare for their Confirmation.

Tentative Date for Graduation Photos - February 28th

February 28th has been set as a tentative date for the graduation photos for the Grade 6's. We are still waiting confirmation from the photo company. When I hear more, I will post another update.

Bake Sale in Mrs. O'Halloran's Class

Mrs. O'Halloran's Class is doing a bake sale tomorrow to raise money for the CCF. Students are invited to bring a little money to buy something at the bake sale if they are interested.

What Have we been doing in Grade 6?

Over the last few weeks in Grade 6 we have been busy! In language, we have been working on active listening skills. We learned how to actively listen and then did some activities in which we practiced active listening with a partner. Then over the next few days, we listened to or watched some videos which related to our religion program and answered questions about what we learned. Students did very well on this. Over the next week or two we will be learning about Social Media safety, and how to design a poster to grab an audience's attention. As an assessment we will be making a poster to connect to our Read Aloud "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe".

In math, we have been learning about area and perimeter of a variety of shapes (rectangles, parallelograms and triangles). We also have been learning how to find a missing side if given the area of the shape and one dimension (eg. a triangle has an area of 16 square cm and a height of 4 cm. What is the length of the base?). This is more challenging for the students, and so if at all possible please practice at home if  you are able. I will post a Blendpace below with many acitvities and explanations. This week in math we are learning how to find the surface area of rectangular prisms and triangular prisms. This can be very challenging. The Blendspace below demonstrates several ways to find this along with some practice activities.

Area of Parallelograms

Area of Triangles

Surface Area Rectangular Prisms

Surface Area Triangular Prisms

Measurement - Entire Unit

In science, we will be reviewing the concepts we have learned for electricity and states of matter for our test on Thursday. I sent study notes home today for this test.

Assessment Folders Sent Home Today

I sent the orange assessment folders home today because we didn't get to send the home Friday. Please sign and return the folders as soon as possible as I will be working on report cards over the next while and need them in order to write them as accurately as possible. I have given students a little "incentive" to get them back to me tomorrow!

Thanks!

Family Literacy Day

Family Literacy Day is coming up on Saturday, January 27th. As a grade 6 community we would like to celebrate this day with you and your child at school.

On Monday, January 29th from 10:45am-12:00pm we would like to invite the students’ parent, grandparent or significant adult into our language class. We will model our typical literacy lesson and then have the adult support the student with the task.

Your partners in education,

Mr. Pouliot, Mrs. Brett, and Ms. O’Halloran

A link to the library with some great family activities:

https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/program

Science Test Next Thursday

On Thursday, January 25th our afternoon class will have a test for Electricity (Grade 6) and Properties of Matter (Grade 5). Here are some study notes for the tests. These cover everything students need to know for the test. I will send these home as a hardcopy for students on Friday as well.

Electricity Study Notes

Properties of Matter Study Notes

Leaving Ceremony - June 26th at 1PM

This year the Leaving Ceremony for the Grade 6 class will take place on Tuesday, June 26th at 1PM at St. Patrick's Church in Fallowfield. There will be a service in the church, followed by cake, coffee and juice in the Parish Hall. More details will come as we get closer to the date. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me at any time.

Reminder: Holy Trinity Parent Night is next week!

Welcome Back!

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed time with friends and family.

This month, we are starting to learn about measurement in math. Today we began by reviewing what we have learned in the past about standard and non-standard units, and why it is important to have standard units of measurement. Then we reviewed about how to convert metric measurements, and I taught the class an easy way to do this. See this video for the method I taught them. It is really easy and can be used for all metric units. Over the course of this unit we will be covering:

• area of rectangles, parallelograms and triangles
• surface area  of rectangular and triangular prisms
• volume of rectangular and triangular prisms
• relating area and perimeter
• converting units of mass and capacity
• relating units of capacity to volume (eg. 1 ML = 1 cubic CM)
• converting units of volume (eg. 1 cubic meter = 1,000,000 cubic cm)
• solving problems in which units are not all the same. (Eg. The area of a triangle is 1.5 square metres. The base is 500 cm. What is the height?) 

This can be a challenging unit for many students so we will be taking quite a long time to get through all of the concepts. In the meantime, here are some Blendspace units that cover much of the material, with many parts that are review. 

Measurement

Area of Parallelograms

Area of Triangles

Converting Metric Measures

Surface Area

Surface Area of Triangular Prisms

Volume of Triangular Prisms

Volume of Rectangular Prisms

In Language, we are going to be focusing on the Oral communication skill of effective listening, which we call active listening in class. We will be practising out listening skills by talking to our peers and retelling the messages they tell us, and we will also practice by watching a variety of short videos and answering questions about them to demonstrate our understanding. We will also be focusing on identifying the features of some media texts and using our understanding to develop a media presentation of our own. 

In Science, we have been learning about electricity for the Grade 6's and States of  Matter for the Grade 5's. We will continue to learn about these topics throughout the month of January. 

Again, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. As always, thank you for your continued support and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me any time.