Mrs. Wood's Blog

ELA past targets

September:
Reading stamina is when students are able to read independently, with focus, for a sustained amount of time. This includes: choosing a "good fit" book, preparing to read by settling into a comfortable spot and staying there; always looking at the pages of the chosen book, and applying effective strategies to increase enjoyment and understanding. Specific strategies are being taught and modeled in class.

October:
Continue to work on reading stamina. Added focus on using comprehension strategies to deepen understanding and follow more difficult texts. Guided and independent practice of "Visualizing" and "Connecting". Please ask your child to explain them to you. Students should read every day at home.

November:
Explore different genres; identifying elements of Fairy Tales. Especially setting (where and when), characters (hero and villain) and plot elements (magical items or people, repeating numbers, good wins over evil, happily ever after . . .). Continue practicing strategies to improve understanding. Students should be able to apply to class read-aloud as well as independent reading. Word work focus on homonyms (words that sound the same but mean different)

December: Follow the writing process to create an original fairy tale for grade 1 / 2 buddies. (Pre-write ideas, draft, revise, edit, format and publish). Independent reading and identifying unfamiliar vocabulary. Use understanding of text and context clues to begin figuring out meanings. Retell a section of text using the 4 square method (Who, Where/When, What happened, How it ended)
including illustrations and written explanations.

Parent Corner

Feb 13 morning 9:00 - 12:00: Gr. 5 Students will be participating in exploratory activities at Westdale School.

Feb 21 all day: Grade 4/5 field trip.

Please ask your student to share their recent math assessment with you. Everyone has worked very hard to learn these skills, well done! Once you have seen it, please initial or sign and send back to school to go into student portfolio binders. Thanks.

Check out these short videos about learning math!

https://www.youcubed.org/resources/cool-video-uk/

https://www.youcubed.org/resources/brains-think-math-visually-video/

https://www.naturalreaders.com/

Routines / Expectations

* In our classroom we believe that everyone should be included and be listened to. We change our work groups regularly, and all group members need to feel valued and welcome. We are learning to work cooperatively.

* All students take turns doing classroom jobs. These include: Caretaker, Librarian, Cleaner, Administrative Assistant and Technology Support.

* Students enter the school through the courtyard doors. Each student has an assigned section of the coat hooks for outerwear, back packs, gym bags and outdoor shoes.

* Students are expected to read for 30 minutes every day at home. They should also work to develop routines at home to practice math facts to increase fluency.

* Students are responsible for bringing notices home as required. Permission click will be used for field trips to reduce paper use.

* Students are asked to not bring toys, valuable personal belongings or devices to class unless specifically requested for learning purposes.

Mathematics

December: review and extend . . . multiplication facts and strategies for larger numbers; solving equations by "balancing" both sides of the equal sign (like a scale). Introduce "prime" and "composite" numbers and create factor trees to discover primes of different numbers.

November: We are working on patterning and it's connection to algebra. Students should be able to recognize and continue a pattern, represent a pattern using a T-table, and find the mathematical rule that relates the input number to the output number.

Oct 30: We have officially finished our units on Place Value, number sense and addition / subtraction of large numbers. Ask your student to share their assessment with you.

September: We have finished our beginning of the year assessments and are beginning our focus on Number Sense and Place Value.
Congratulations to all students for your efforts to complete all assessment work to the best of your abilities and letting me see your mistakes!

English Language Arts

January: Expand comprehension strategies to include “making inferences”
based on text clues, and making “predictions”
about what will happen next – based on specific evidence from the text to
justify. Self-reflect on personal goals, develop ideas and write / represent
for the “One Word” project. Continue to build ability and independence
retelling and figuring out unfamiliar vocabulary in student selected books.

February: Continued practice of comprehension strategies: “making inferences”
and “predictions”.
Students should be able to write a reading response that includes a
“retelling”, and examples of some specific comprehension strategies. New
strategies: “determining importance” and “questioning”. Students interpret,
plan and perform “mad-lib” fairy tale skits.

March: Historic fiction related to Canada’s history. Literature
circle (groups) where a small group of students read and discuss a shared book,
making sense of the historic settings, events, characters and unfamiliar
vocabulary. Focus on work structure: how words are put together, with root
words, prefixes and suffixes. Students learning how word structure helps to
determine word meanings and spelling.

http://www.pspb.org/blueribbon/games/detective/DetectiveGame.html

Mrs. Wood's Blog

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

A New School Year!

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Resources for Social Studies project

Monday, May 28, 2018

Weather and Climate

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Earth Day Video & Science / Math tasks

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Math: Fractions and Computations

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

World Water Day 2018

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Critical Thinking Questions

Sustainability

ELA past targets