Math Pages Updated - New Math For October

Each grade has been updated for what we will be learning in our new strand (Patterns and Algebra).

Monday - Orange Shirt Day

Students have been working with Mrs O'Neil in religion to understand the impact that residential schooling had (and still has) on our Indigenous population.  Remember to wear something orange to show your support.

https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/what-is-orange-shirt-day

Math Tests

Sorry for the delay.  Math tests have been corrected.  Many students have some revisions to make and others need some reteaching in order to improve.  All tests should be brought home by Tuesday afternoon for you to sign and return the next day.

Every student has an assessment folder that holds evaluated work for parents to review with their child, sign, and return to school. This way I know they are sharing their progress with you and identifying areas that they need extra help with at home.

Trip To Turtle Hospital

We had a few technical difficulties and weren't able to fully enjoy our virtual field trip live, but we plan on watching the recorded version on Monday.  We were able to learn some follow up information on the resident turtles we met when we first started researching what the hospital does.

We have collected just over $200 so far to donate. Thank you everyone for supporting us during week 1 of our fundraiser!

Here is the recorded session of our camera spot. Just a few mispronunciations of my name and where we live, but we'll let it slip since Exploring By The Seat of Your Pants does such great work 😃

Gr 6 Needs Bottles

We are still short 5 empty plastic 2L bottles for our gr 6 vertical growing wall.

Please send some in if you have any laying around.

September's Math

And....just like that, September is almost done!  Here is the math plan to finish up our first strand (Number Sense and Numeration).  Up next?  Patterns


Gr 4 - more numeration with addition and subtraction, exploring money amounts to $100. You can help your grade 4 at home by practicing adding and subtracting and discussing real world money questions - take them shopping or out to a restaurant and have them estimate the bill, look at flyers together and discuss budgeting, or any other way you can think of to help them.

Gr 5 - exploring money amounts to $1000.

Gr 6 - identifying composite and prime numbers and explaining the relationship between them.
        -  factors and multiples of numbers.

Pizza Delivery

Nerdy math riddle time!

What is circular, comes in a square box, and is eaten in triangles?

This Wednesday kicks off our first pizza day of the year!

From September to February our grade 6 class and Ms O'Halloran's 6's will be responsible for delivering pizza to the other classes.  In February. we will trade this job for lunch monitoring the primary classes.

Girls Soccer - I'm Away on September 25th

Congrats to Jaclyn, Jayda, Livia, Aurore, Abigail, Victoria, and Ella who made the girl's soccer team and will be joining me at our board tournament on Wednesday.  Feel free to come cheer the team on any time after 10 a.m. We are playing at Ben Franklin Park on Knoxdale Rd.

This will be our first time with a supply teacher this year, so I'm hoping to get a positive report back at the end of the day.

Gr 6 Sea Turtle Initiative

You might have heard a lot of talk about sea turtles this week and that's because we are getting closer to going on our virtual field trip to Marathon, Florida.  Next Friday at 11 am we set off down the information superhighway to Turtle Hospital where we hold 1 of 6 camera spots offered by Exploring By The Seat Of Your Pants. This camera spot allows us to ask questions and participate in real time as we go on a tour of the hospital, learn what they do, and meet some of the turtles. 

EBTSOYP  "aims to inspire the next generation of scientists, explorers, and conservationists by bringing science, exploration, adventure, and conservation into the classroom through virtual speakers and field trips with leading experts across the globe."  Two years ago, some of the 6's travelled 1200 feet down into the Marum Volcano lava lake in Vanuatu and to a cheetah conservation area in Namibia.

Students have been doing some research this week and are making posters and videos to help promote awareness. They are trying to raise money to donate to the Turtle Hospital and to a local turtle conservation area (yet to be determined).

Please enjoy this promotional video and a video game both created by Finn!  Use your arrow buttons to play his game. Try and dodge all the water vehicles as they are a major contributor to turtle injuries and deaths.

Class Allergies

A reminder that we have many allergies in our classroom and to be mindful when making lunches and sending in treats on special occasions.  Both classes have peanut, nut, and sesame allergies (hummus, chickpeas) along with wheat, rye, shellfish, fish and eggs.

With more junior students and them moving around and sharing classrooms, it's always important to be aware of things.

Math Tests on Friday

All grades will be having a number sense test this Friday.

Grade 6 are expected to know how to:
- read, represent, compare, round, and order whole numbers to 1 000 000.
- solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of whole numbers, including multi step word
  problems.
- use estimation when solving problems involving the addition and subtraction of whole numbers.

Grade 5 are expected to know how to:
- read, represent, compare, round, and order whole numbers to 100, 000.
- solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of whole numbers, including word
  problems.
- demonstrate an understanding of place value in whole numbers.

Grade 4 are expected to know how to:
- read, represent, compare, and order whole numbers to 10, 000.
- round four-digit whole numbers to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand.
- solve problems involving the addition and subtraction of whole numbers up to 4 digits, including        word problems.
- demonstrate an understanding of place value in whole numbers.

Remind your child to bring home their math books this week to study and to get your help at home with concepts and skills they may be having trouble with.

Challenging Gr 6 Questions

Grade 6's took on some challenging multi step real word math problems today. Not many were able to solve them so take a look with them and see if you can solve them together.

Gr 4 and 5 Language

The 4’s and 5’s have been learning how to write biographies. Their subject to write about is Terry Fox.  Today we did shared reading and read biographies on Nellie McClung, Harriett Tubman, and Iqbal Masih. Hopefully they came home inspired and wanting to make a difference in the world.

Student Info Verification Sheets

Yellow student info verification sheets are being brought home with morning homeroom students.

Please check that the info is up to date and accurate. You can make corrections on the sheet and return it to homeroom teachers.

Activity Fees

A friendly reminder to please pay your activity fees online through School Cash Online . A portion of this money goes towards field trips.

Soccer Tryouts

Soccer tryouts for grade 5 and 6 boys and girls begin this week. Students, listen to announcements for your tryout day and time.

2 Litre Bottles

Besides teaching the important stuff I have to cover in the curriculum, I am a project based teacher. It's the most hands on, authentic way to learn. It encourages students to think outside the box and engages those who struggle with traditional pencil to paper tasks.  

Last year we joined the Living Space project and compared how environmental conditions (carbon dioxide, humidity, and temperature) are the same/differ on Earth and the International Space Agency.  For 2 years before that, we had a garden tower company growing in our room where we sold herbs and donated lettuce to the Kanata Food Cupboard. Before that, we designed and operated an escape room to raise money for a teacher who had cancer. 

This year, we are planning out vertical growing frames that are going to run along our large classroom windows. What this project will eventually become is open ended. We figure out and change things as we go in our discovery process. 

But, right now grade 6 students need to bring in an empty 2 litre plastic bottle to get us started. 

The gr 4/5's will eventually need to bring in their own bottle after we build another grow frame. 

Welcome To Our Newest Student

We have a new friend starting on Monday. Welcome to St Anne!  That makes 30 students and counting. Good thing Mrs Routliffe sent us in a yoga ball to add to our flexible learning space.  Thank you for adding a new piece to our room.  It's getting to be a tight fit.

Students in all grades have now completed a writing sample for me and all grades have begun exploring place value as part of our number sense unit.

Gr 4 will be working with numbers up to 10,000.
Gr 5 will be working with numbers up to 100,000.
Gr 6 will be working with numbers up to 1,000,000.

Welcome Back

   Welcome back everyone!  If you're reading this then your child brought home the first day of school letter that went home today. We are now a platinum eco school so very few letters are sent home. You are strongly encouraged to check this blog, Twitter, or the school website regularly for updates and information.

Grade 4 parents, I know... you now have a lot more teachers to keep track of.  The good news for some of you is that I have many siblings in my 2 classes. This makes it a bit easier for you.

I have taken on grade 6 this year because I like the group so much, I figured why not make it 3 years in a row! In all seriousness, they are an overall great bunch and I'm happy to be spending their last year at St Anne with them.   The grade 6's are my morning homeroom class.

I'm also excited that I have a small group of grade 5's that were with me last year. I will be expecting this group, plus the rest of the 5's, to set an example and help their younger classmates.  Yes, it is a split class.

And then there are the grade 4's! I've been waiting for this group to come up to junior since I first met most of them in kindergarten. They should have come home and told you I was their gym teacher way back when.

This Thursday is Meet The Teacher night from 5-7. Please stop by to say hi and check out our learning space!