We did it! We survived the first month! September has been a great month with many events and activities. Not only that but NHL hockey is back, the Blue Jays are in the playoffs and the Giants have actually won a football game - incredible! How amazing is September :) Seriously though, thank you all for joining us at the open house two weeks ago. It was a great success and so fantastic to meet our parent community. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of you when we move into the new school - hopefully soon!!! Here’s a run down on what we’re up to and what you can look forward to over the next couple weeks.

Important Dates

Friday, October 7th – PD Day (no school for all students)

Monday, October 10th – Thanksgiving (no school for all students)

Friday, October 28th – PD Day (no school for all students)

Required Forms

It’s not back to school without paperwork… amirite? At the beginning of the year you would have all received an email from the CBE  detailing the required forms for each child. These are all available online through your MyCBE/Powerschool account. If you have completed these, thank you however we are still missing most forms. 

Language Arts

Grade 5 students will be participating in the Global Read Aloud, where they will be reading the book “Thirst” by Varsha Bajaj.  As part of our participation in the Global Read Aloud, we will be joining other classes from around the world via video meets. If you would like to ensure your child is off camera during our video conferences, kindly email your child’s homeroom teacher. 

Alongside the Global Read Aloud, students will continue learning how to write juicy paragraphs by working on topic and concluding sentences, as well as the supporting sentences in between.  Furthermore, students continue to regularly use ReadTheory to support their reading development – something they are welcome to log into at home (logging in with their @educbe.ca account).

Math

We have recently finished our work on the reading and writing of numbers to the millions, along with our review of place value. We are continuing our Number Sense focus with work on estimation and rounding. Once this is finished we will begin patterns and relations along with number operations.  As it is a new month, students will be completing their October Fact Frenzy (basic math facts assessment) this week. These will be brought home for your review afterward. Daily practise of their basic math facts remains an expectation for all students, allowing for steady and consistent growth of their skills and confidence.

Science

We’ve begun the year with a study of Wetland Ecosystems. We began with a look at types of wetlands and their role in our ecosystem before our trip to Carburn Park. Feel free to take a spin through the Unit SLEs, the Wetland Web Links and the Wetland Vocabulary for a sense of what will be covered. With an understanding of the types of wetlands, students have begun learning the role of adaptations in allowing creatures and plans to thrive in unique environments, as well as the role of food chains in our ecosystems. For their focus on animal adaptations, students will be creating their own wetland animals through our adaptations project. Prepare for some scary (or not so scary) creatures coming home in the near future.

Social Studies

We have wrapped up our Mapping unit on the provinces, territories and capital cities of Canada as well as the continents and oceans of the world. These will be coming home today with your child so please keep an eye out for them. We’ve all held meaningful conversations this past week on the importance of Truth & Reconciliation, focusing on learning from the past, individual actions and how we can all move forward towards a truly welcoming and inclusive society. From there the students will undertake a quick focus on Identity by exploring their personal histories and creating their own family crest.

Looking further ahead, once students have finished their Identity Project, students will begin the Regions of Canada unit and, more importantly, begin their very own Amazing Race. Students will all be on teams and as they move through the unit, they will complete various challenges, Pit Stops, Detours and Road Blocks just like in the show. It’s the real deal. Resources, links and information for all things Regions can be found here: Regions of Canada Resources. We encourage you all to take time to explore this with your child as Canada is one awesome place.

Have a great week and as always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Daniel Polsky

Grade 5 Teacher | Lakeshore School
Calgary Board of Education | cbe.ab.ca
Twitter | @mr_polsky
Instagram | @mr.polsky

Website | mrpolsky.com