What a ride. I want to apologize in advance for any shenanigans caused by the insanity that this month is going to be. I mean really, the Blue Jays are in the playoffs for the first time in 21 years, NHL hockey finally starts again this week and we can once again yell at the TV with NFL football. At some point I promise we will do some school work. All jokes aside, while they may have Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion, Price, Stroman, Tulowitzki and other ‘Beasts of October’, we have our own superstars - I tell the class all the time that when we held our Student Draft at the beginning of the year, I had some good picks this year (traded up to some good 1st Rounders too). For real though, I have the privilege of working with a really great group that let us all have a really great year.

It was great to meet you all at conferences and I enjoyed discussing with you all what the coming year is going to look like. We had an awesome Field Trip to Fish Creek Park, where we got to put all the things we’ve learned in Science to use. Please take a minute to read on below to see what we have coming up this month.

Math - Basic Facts & Place Value

Students have been working hard on learning and improving their basic facts skills and this has translated into improved scores on their regular assessments. These skills are absolutely critical for students to have and the daily practise of these facts is critcal. When working with your child, Math-Drills.com is a great resource for practise questions.

Basic Facts aside, we have been reviewing the algorithms for Addition, Subtraction and (in part) Multiplication. Please follow the links for each operation to see an explanation of how they are to be completed as these are the methods that students are expected to use for all work. On the Math Resources page, I have included video explanations of all operations, with accompanying practise sheets to apply these skills. As we continue this review of operation skills, we have also begun the work of reading and writing numbers using the Place Value System. With this, students are also practising the reading/writing of numbers using Expanded Form, Standard Form (aka Number Form) and Word Form. This here is a review sheet using all three forms. Following this review, we will complete a brief unit on Estimation using Front-End Estimation, Compatible Numbers and Benchmarks.

Social Studies - World Wars and Remembrance Day

With students now knowing the names and locations of Canadian provinces, territories and capital cities, we have begun the first major focus of Grade 5 Social Studies - the Histories of Canada. The first “history” that we will examine will be that of Canadian veterans as we look ahead to Remembrance Day - something that Grade 5 leads for the whole school. This find us focusing on WWI and WWII along with explorations of current conflicts in which Canadian soldiers are involved. I strongly encourage, and support, discussions at home on this topic and would welcome any students that would be willing to share family experiences with the class. In terms of resources to support this work, both at home and at school, the BBC has great information on World War I and World War II. I am working on developing a dedicated page on my website for students to use when exploring this topic and will let you know when it’s published. You can also check out some of the History.ca ‘WW1 Portraits’ videos which highlight amazing stories from World War I.

Science - Wetlands & Projects

With our field trip behind us now, we are in the final stages of our Wetlands unit, in which we review the few remaining concepts such as food webs & chains, the different components of wetlands as well as the impact that humans have on wetland ecosystems. Students just completed their Wetland Adaptations Project so feel free to check them out next time you’re in the school as we’ve put them up on the boards outside the class. As a cumulative project, bringing together all the things we’ve learned in class as well as on the field trip, the students will begin the Save the Wetlands Project - their first large project. This will be carefully explained to students so that expectations are clear and understood. They will be using Google Docs to do this and many of the Wetlands Web Links will serve as a great resource from which to start their research.

Language Arts - Wonder & Grammar

We are continuing our class novel study of R. J. Palacio’s “Wonder” and have gotten to know its main character, August Pullman, really well. We’re enjoying seeing everything that’s happened from all the different perspectives of each character. I have uploaded some resources to the Language Arts Resources page such as character information, a trailer for the book, info on the author as well as a link to The Daily Wonder App - the free companion app to the book.

The novel study is balanced with our continued work to review and practise the basics of grammar, in which we practise the parts of speech, tenses and grammatical rules that govern our language.

Good Read Book List - September Edition

Several parents have mentioned to me that you were wondering what books are out there for grade five students that are both well written, with good vocabulary and content, AND engaging to students. Seeing as the students are the ones actually reading these books, I put the question to them and over the last few years I’ve had the students complete a monthly ‘Good Read Book List’.

When choosing a book to put on the list, I asked the students to think of 2 or 3 REALLY good books – the ones that would come up in a conversation with them saying "You HAVE to read this book. Like OMG, it''s the best book EVER." As the students continue to explore different books, we will also continue our creation of the monthly Good Read Book List, allowing you to see what other students are reading or would recommend as ‘OMG awesome’. So, please check out the first edition of the Good Read Book List for 2015/16. Enjoy.

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At this point I can’t think of anything else that is crazy important to mention (other than a reminder that MLB playoffs start this week along with the NHL regular season) so I’ll just leave it there. Thank you all once again for taking the time to stop by the school two weeks ago as I enjoyed the chance to chat and get to know you as we kick off this year.