Windy Warmer Weather -Will continue We hope.

WOW!  I hope that the wind did not cause to much damage to anyone's property.  There was a lot happening this week with a visit from our School Board Representatives (SBR) on Thursday morning.  I always find these yearly visits to be a great opportunity to talk about government at a local level as they are elected positions.

Our school received some new Chromebooks this week. However much to the disappointment of grade fours the bulk of the Chromebooks went to grade six.  We will have the opportunity to trade some of our failing netbooks for ones that are operating a little better.  It is hard to believe that these netbooks are the same ones that came to us when I started the original Netbook Pilot Project with my grade five class, five years ago.

Also, this week the grade fours and I have set up gfolders.  We are in the midst of placing our work into these folders for easier access for the students and me.
The students were given a choice to  use netbooks and Spelling City or paper and pencil to complete the Spelling Review Test.  Most students did a better job than that last one - great work!  More and more the students will be allowed to chose the tool(s) which allows them to do their best work.

Also, this week we were practising Shared/Paired Reading.  It is a method of reading with a partner, where both students can be reading either the same or different passages.  There is a Reader and a Listener.  The Listener is responsible for asking the Reader questions about what was just read.  Then, the positions switch.  Both students are engaged and accountable - it went well.

A new Book Report Task shall be coming home soon.  This one focuses on Nonfiction.  I hope the students enjoy doing it.  We took a look at Contractions.  Our writing focus was our Chrstmas Break.  We have been working on narrowing in a topic and organizing the thoughts.  We have talked about adding more details.  This skill and editing will be our current focus.

Math was spent some time working on Basic Facts.  In Mathletics we can challenge each other in a race and this is fun, especially when you can beat the teacher.  Yiks! Jonathan.  For others however, this can cause worry so we have different methods for all.  We continue working with Whole Numbers - adding and subtracting three digit numbers.

Coming back from a break allows us a chance to review classroom rules and routines.  This has been a focus for the past two weeks.  We have been talking about work habits, behaviour and organization. The Agenda Challenge is one way to encourage the student's to have her/ his agenda at school daily,  also the importance of editing. The students copy from the Smartboard into the Agenda which really should eliminate errors. Student are rewarded for having the Agenda at school and completing this task accurately, five days in a row.  I would encourage you to have the students make the corrections in their Agendas as we don't always have time in class.

Also, we have divided into groups and there is an ongoing competition to improve student learning.  The group names have been chosen and the race is on. . .