mrpolsky

It's Bat Flip Time - September Update

Thursday, September 22, 2016 9:09 AM

The month is Goins, Goins, Gone! Honestly it’s pretty insane to think we’re closing in on the end of September already. What a ride it’s been so far though. I’m pumped to once again have a fantastic group of students to work with and learn alongside this year. I’ve been wanting to send out a full, proper welcome/update like this for ages and so I apologize it didn’t happen until now. I try to send these larger updates out once a month, near the beginning of the month just to give you all a quick overview of what we’ve been up to and what we’ve got coming at us.


So, before we all get distracted once again by the World Cup of Hockey (as if the trophy belongs anywhere other than in the Canada) and the Blue Jays playoff push (make it rain JD!!), please take a minute to catch up on the latest Grade 5 adventures and what the next few weeks are going to look like.


Math - Basic meet Facts. Facts meet Basic. A match meant to be.

Above all else this year, our goal is to massively boost each student’s confidence in their own math skills and understanding. To this end, the single greatest thing we, and you at home can do, is to work on solidifying and improving basic facts knowledge. This directly translates to greater confidence and success in all areas of mathematics. Specifically, I mean the strong knowledge and rapid recall of basic multiplication and division facts. On the first day of school,I spoke to the students about the need to be practising their facts on a daily basis (even if it’s not explicitly written in the agenda). My expectation is that come June, they all have a strong basic facts foundation to support continued growth in mathematics. I strongly encourage and request your support in this at home as it goes a long ways in supporting the work done here in school. Each month, all students will participate in a timed ‘Fact Frenzy’ on all 4 operations with their achievement tracked and graphed, which will then be initialed by you the following day.


During conferences, many of you asked for some at home math support. In addition to my Math Resources, Math-Drills.com is a great resource for some good old fashioned practise questions.


We will spend the first few weeks reviewing and practising our operations skills, focusing on the accurate and confident use of the basic algorithms and procedures to solve problems. By this I mean how to set up an addition/subtraction/multiplication problem to best allow us to solve it. On the Math Resources pages, you can find demonstrative videos, sheets and explanations for each operation. I update this frequently with resources so please refer to it often as it models and supports the work we’re doing each day. Once we’ve reviewed the addition/subtraction algorithms, we will move on to an initial focus of Place Value, focusing on the reading and writing of large numbers with Expanded Form and Standard Form. This will then support our focus on multiplication (single and double digit). Once we’ve solidified our skills on addition/subtraction/multiplication, we’ll move on to division.I particularly want to draw your attention to the DMSB for Long Division explanation, these Long Division Class Notes and the Division Danger Zones and lastly information on multi-digit multiplication.


Science - Weather Watch

We’ve kicked off our Weather Watch unit and are having a ton of fun exploring all the different kinds of crazy, insane and bizarre forms of weather out there. We’ve begun looking at the reason why we have seasons after which we’ll begin exploring the whacky world of intense, awesome, super cool weather systems. We’ll explore the the atmosphere and how it affects us, the different types of clouds that exist and what they tell us as well as how we can predict and measure the weather with different instruments. We’ve also arranged for a certain famous Calgary meteorologist who might have sadly shaved his Lorax-like moustache to come and chat with the students (but shhhhh! it’s a secret who it is). This will support our work with predicting the weather and understanding the Water Cycle and different weather symbols used in forecasts. At any point, feel free to check out the Weather Web Links for more information and explanations.


3. Language Arts - Wonder by R. J. Palacio

We have kicked off our first novel study of the year with a great book about August Pullman, an extraordinary young man, who has just begun the fifth grade at Beecher Prep. I have uploaded some resources to the Language Arts Resources page such as character information, a trailer for the book (yes, as in a movie trailer for a book - apparently that’s a thing now) as well as information on the author.  This is a really great book and allows us to begin the reading response process of discussing key themes, details as well as writing techniques that we can apply to our own writing going forward.


At the same time as we read Wonder, we’re focusing on reviewing the core aspects of grammar. This has us looking at different parts of speech so that we can build a core foundation before diving into some big time writing.


Social Studies - Remembrance Day & Canada

With students learning the names and locations of Canadian provinces, territories and capital cities, we are looking ahead to the first major focus of Grade 5 Social Studies - the Histories of Canada. For all topics,
please refer to the Social Studies Resources page for documents, links and resources. The first “history” 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. As we approach the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, we’ll be working to understand the significance and gravity of these events. In particular, we want to explore these events through a children’s lens, allowing them to relate at a deeper level to these events.


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.


Mr. Polsky’s Camera - First Day of Grade 5

I have uploaded some pictures that we took of the students on the First Day of Grade 5 as part of the kickoff to our ‘season’ if you will. Over the course of the year, I will be uploading pictures of our adventures and please feel free to save any of them for your own personal use. These pictures will be fun to look back on at the end of the year to see just how much the little humans have changed.


I do have to ask that should you choose to save any of them, that you avoid sharing images of other students with their faces shown on social media for reasons of FOIP. I ask you to refrain from this until unless you have their parent’s express permission. Otherwise, feel free to enjoy and share the pictures as we cruise on through the year. You can always find the photos by navigating to Mr. Polsky’s Camera, or from the home page.


Twitter & Mr. Fero’s Blog

As I’m sure you’re all aware, we’re taking advantage of Twitter this year to help share our learning and adventures with you all. I have my own personal account here [@mr_polsky] as well as the Grade 5 account here [@FamousFCS5s]. Lastly, our new Principal, Mr. Fero, has his own twitter account [@principalfero] along with a freshly minted blog that makes for a good read. You can take a look and bookmark it here: principalfero.weebly.com.

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At this point I can’t think of anything else that is crazy important to mention so I’ll just leave it there. Thank you all once again for taking the time to stop by the school yesterday or this morning as I enjoyed the chance to chat and get to know you as we kick off this year.


Sincerely,


 

Daniel Polsky 

Grade 5 Teacher | Learning Leader
Fish Creek School | cbe.ab.ca
t | 403-777-6400 | twitter @mr_polsky