Week of September 23-27

• I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!  Welcome to the first day of fall!
• Hot lunch orders are due tom.
• I am hoping the books are going to be in from the book order by the end of the week. Looks like there were some great books ordered.
• A reminder to be reading 20 min. each night. Parents don't forget to ask some of the comprehension questions that were sent home.
• On Thursday, we started brainstorming for our Recounts. The purpose of a recount is to tell about past events (personal or others' experiences). Some of the key features of a recount include the following: writing in first (I or we) or third (he, she, they) person. I noticed most students are writing in first person, the key events are in logical order with relevant details. Students will use transition words (first of all, secondly, next, after that, finally, etc.) to guide the reader through the writing. We will be working on how to write a great "lead" on Monday. We haven't decided on a due date for these yet.
• Grade 5 math students should be reviewing all math facts this week (x- 0-11). We will also be starting to look at how to use estimation strategies. Estimation is a useful skill in students' lives and to be efficient when estimating sums and differences mentally, students must be able to choose a strategy quickly. Three that we will be looking at will be: 1) Front-end rounding- for example thing for 37 +26, think: "30 and 20 is 50 and 7 and 6 is 14; 50 plus 13 is 63." 2) Compensation- this refers to increasing one value and decreasing the other. For ex. 355 +57 might be estimated as 30+60. 3)Compatible or friendly numbers- this strategy for addition involves looking for pairs of numbers that combine to make a sum that will be easy to work with. For ex. 25+47+75 think 25 and 75 is 100, so 100 and 47 is 147.
• We will be having our Terry Fox walk at the school on Thursday afternoon.
• Health posters are due this Monday. Students were to illustrate something that causes them stress and they need to show a strategy that helps them deal with this stressor.
• Have a great week everyone!