This last week was definitely one of ups and downs. Obviously the excitement of the upcoming Spring Break filled the room and that energy trickled into everything we did this week. Everyone worked hard and we continued to complete a few more items on our units of study checklist. This last week featured unit tests in both Math (long division) and Science (Building Movable Devices), and surprisingly the success of the results was mixed. On one end of the scale we had students who excelled and displayed great understanding - congratulations Kaleb on your TWO 100% tests - and then there were those students who, despite working well in class, stumbled and experienced a dip in their test scores. This dip obviously raised some eyebrows - What is going on? Is my child not listening? Goofing around? As I noted with one parent, both the units in Science and Math featured concepts this last round that were difficult and more abstract to comprehend - the works gets more challenging as you progress along in the year. There was a definite increase in the need to apply previous learning to develop and display understanding, and consequently dips in performance can sometimes occur because the activities are no longer simply recall based activities. These are those types of activities which are very familiar, such as addition and subtraction, which the students have had around in some fashion for four years and subsequently have a base of knowledge to draw from. So with that said how does one combat this dip? With the Math continue to practice the recall of multiplication facts and division equations - the extra practice is essential as it will help build that new base of knowledge, which the kids can then draw from in the future.
In terms of curriculum this past week...
With Math this week it was all about the long division and a lot of activities aimed at developing student's working level of comprehension with how the skill works. As with last week the class was broken into smaller groups based on student's levels of comfort and expertise with the concept. The use of the groups allowed me to not only offer more individual attention to some students, but also challenge other groups with more difficult activities. As of this week we wrapped up our division unit and will be taking a break from number operations for a few weeks as we will be kicking off our measurement unit upon are arrival back at school after the break. The measurement unit will look at the linear measurement, area, perimeter, weight, temperature, and time.
In Language Arts we continued our work with developing reading strategies and building comprehension skills. In our reading work this week we focused on identifying phonemic sounds within words, chunking words into syllables, sounding out words, and using context clues within the surrounding text.
Additionally this last week we received a package from the Edmonton Oilers in support of our home-reading program. Using this as a teachable moment we discussed the importance of reading at home, and how much like any skill whether it's skating, running, or shooting a basketball, you need to practice in order to get better at it. The extra reading at home allows students the opportunity to practice things like reading with expression (ie. no robot voices), improving their fluency (ie. trying to avoid reading word-by-word), building their sight word vocabulary, and ultimately gaining confidence in reading unknown words (ie. applying reading strategies).
At present we have only five students who regularly return their home reading folder daily, and who are consistently tracking their home reading. Thank you to those students and parents. These five students were the first to receive their reading prizes from the Oil Kings and Oilers. In closing, I mentioned to the kids that it would be great if that number could increase so that everyone could get a prize, and that it only required a minimum of fifteen minutes each night.
In Science we wrapped up our Building Movable Devices unit and sent everyone off with a final at-home construction project to complete over this last week and Spring Break. The next project involves the construction of a 30cm tall "crane" that is capable of lifting approximately 250g of weight. The design for the crane was left up to the students to decide, although we did do some rough planning in class to get everyone's ideas going. The crane project is to be returned to the class no later than Tuesday, April 4th, as that is when we will be testing them in class.
Upon our return from Spring Break we will be tackling a new unit, Light and Shadows. With this unit students will learn about light by studying the effects of light on things within their environment. They will learn about light sources, about materials that light can pass through and about what happens when a material blocks or changes the path of light. By observing shadows and their motions relative to a light source, students will discover that light and shadows fall along a predictable path. The students will experiment with mirrors, prisms and a variety of other materials to see that these things can affect light's path by reflecting and refracting light and by splitting light into colours.
In Social Studies this week, student activities worked to help students recognize how the stories of people and events can provide multiple perspectives on the past, and how these stories are a valid source of knowledge about the land,
culture and history of the province. We continued to discuss the influence of the diverse Aboriginal peoples within Alberta, and how Alberta's culture was now changing with the arrival of the European fur trade, specifically The North West Trading Company and the Hudson's Bay Company.
Upcoming Calendar of Events
March 24 - April 2 - Spring Break: No School
Monday, April 3 - First day back to school
Wednesday, April 5 - School Spirit Day: BEACH DAY - wear your beach-themed outift
Wednesday, April 5 - Early dismissal @ 2:30pm
Wednesday, April 5 - Bake Sale (50 cents per item)
Friday, April 7 - Library: book exchange
Friday, April 7 - Saturday, April 8 - Caledonia Viking Cup Boys Floor Hockey tourney
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