Friday, June 2

Hi parents,

It's been a good week. I'm happy to back in the classroom 😁

This week, we've been doing a lot of work around Light and Shadows. The students have:

• Learned how light travels 
• Talked about 'the speed of light'
• Learned about prisms
• Learned how some surfaces cause light to bend
• Learned about reflection
• Learned about shadows
• Measured their own shadows at different times of day
• Learned the terms Transparent, Translucent, and Opaque
• Learned about 'light safety'
• Had a lot of fun experimenting with flashlights, mirrors, and light-bending materials

We've been consistently reading Ticket To Curlew, and we are on track to finish the book early next week!

Math

In math, our focus has been on decimals. We did a pretty sizeable 'math assessment' earlier in the week, in which the students solved complex addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division word problems. These problems were no joke. They each involved big, 'unfriendly' numbers, and had some tricky wording as well. I was so happy to see that many students were able to solve them completely independently, and when I did have to offer support, it was always pretty minor. I am incredibly proud of how well this class has risen to the many challenges posed by a new math curriculum. They've learned concepts that I didn't understand until I was in grade 6. 

Writing

We've been doing a lot of simple writing tasks connected to light and shadows. But today the students really amazed me with their Free Verse poetry. This was our first time doing 'free verse' poetry, and since it is the style of poem that has no rules, I was expecting a lot of students to just write a few simple sentences and call it a day. I was wrong! The free verse poems they came up with (usually about 'shadows') were so good that we had to have an impromptu poetry read-aloud. 

Spelling

It was another exceptional week for spelling. Keep up the good work everyone!

French Party - June 8

Thanks to the students' efforts with completing blog homework, we have earned our French party. I sent an email about the French foods students will have the option to try. It should be 'un jour tres amusant'.

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Have a nice weekend,

Zac