New Blog

Each new year brings a new blog! The blog for this year is here at https://martinuzzi1718.blogspot.ca/

Happy Victoria Day!

I hope everyone enjoyed the Victoria Day long weekend!  The weather could have been a little more cooperative, but it was nice to have the extra day to catch up on some gardening!

Next week will be a short, but busy one.  The Gr. 6 students will be starting EQAO testing on Thursday, so all junior students will be staying in their homerooms for the day to accommodate the Gr. 6 schedule. This means I will not see the Gr. 4 students on Thursday this week, as well as on Monday and Thursday of next week.

Math - both groups will be working on personal time lines, in which they make a time line of their lives and add in important events (first tooth, learning to walk, starting Kindergarten) from their personal histories.  Grade 5 will also be required to add Canadian or global historical events to their timelines.  Grade 4 will need to estimate the time elapsed from birth to each event on their timeline; Gr. 5 will need to calculate to the nearest day where possible. We will later be posing Fermi questions to establish the relationship between years and decades, decades and centuries.  These two tasks will be the culminating tasks for our measurement unit.

Language: Grade 4 students are completing large posters demonstrating how actions can change the world for the better.  It is the follow-up to the Book Club unit we have just finished reading, which you can read about in their Hapara Workspace.  Each student was assigned to a book - either a novel or a non-fiction text, and had an assignment to complete each session with their group.  We are looking forward to hanging the posters in the hallway when they are completed!
     Grade 5 students have just completed a Vancouver and Burnaby Scavenger Hunt activity, learning how to read a map and follow transit routes around the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, B.C.  They are now making their own "Scavenger Hunt" for another group to follow and find!  It was a lot of fun, finding our way around the sights and attractions of Vancouver!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms!  We hope you enjoyed the sugar hand scrub that your child made for you, and the watercolour card they painted for you!  The recipe for the sugar hand scrub is:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tbsp. melted coconut oil

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 drop food colouring

5-7 drops food flavouring (lemon, orange or mint)

Stir well to combine and scoop into a container.  It lasts well at room temperature for a couple of months.  (The scent gets stronger as the coconut oil hardens.)

Upcoming Events:

Next week is a fairly quiet week for us.  We will have a 35 min tennis lesson from Aaron Shaughnessy on Tuesday during 2nd block.  We will have a Faith Assembly on Wednesday afternoon. Friday is a PD day - there are no classes for students. 

May 8-12

We had a fantastic Catholic Education Week!  Thank you to the parents, grandparents and volu. teers who came out to help with and participate in the various activities of the week!
*On Monday, Mrs. Rayner's Grade 6 class made a 10 stop Kindness mission to Pay-It-Forward and thank various community helpers.  You can see the details of their stops on the school Twitter feed.  It was amazing! Our class read Barbara Reid books with our Gr. 1 reading buddies in Mrs. Fitzpatrick's class.
*On Tuesday, we celebrated a lovely Easter Mass with Fr. Matthew.  Thank you to the parents and grandparents who came to receive Communion with us.  In the afternoon, all of the junior students participated in Math/Science STEM challenges in their classrooms.  We flew paper airplanes with coin cargo, among other things, and had a great time!
*On Wednesday, the dance team participated in Dance Showcase, and everyone participated in the Principal's fundraiser - Zumbathon!  It was a blast!  Check Twitter for the pictures!
*On Thursday, everyone was invited to our muffin breakfast!  I hope you had the opportunity to see our recycled material Canada symbols that decorated the gym - our class made the Parliament Buildings.  Then, with the help of many parents and thanks to your generosity, the junior students made and donated almost 2 000 sandwiches, plus muffins, pastries and juice to the Shepherd's of Good Hope!  Mr. Leslie from the Shepherd's came to talk to the students about philanthropy, and helping others.  In the afternoon, we had a presentation from Louis Mercier, a very entertaining French singer/storyteller who had the audience of Junior students enthralled with his stories!
*On Friday, the students participated in French bingo as a school-wide activity over the intercom, and enjoyed Popcorn day!

Next week will be a little more low-key, back to our regular programming!  There is an Ultimate Frisbee tournament on Wednesday, good luck to the team!  Let's hope the rain lets up!

Our next math unit will be a short measurement unit on time, elapsed time, and units of time (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries).  Grade 4 must measure time on an analogue clock to the nearest minute; Grade 5 to the nearest second.  Both grades must be familiar with elapsed time.

In Language Arts, Gr. 5 will continue with the Sequencing unit by reading The Sword in the Stone as a shared reading.  Grade 4 are working on their novel studies in book club, and have completed Session 3.  We are really encouraging the collaboration and discussion within the groups of book club, so that they can learn not only from the text, but from each other and their individual interpretations of that text.

Education Week Events

Dear Parents,
This upcoming week is Education Week in our Board.  The theme this year is Walking Forward Together.  We have a number of activities planned for the students each day, and you are welcome to join us for many of them.  Please see the list of events and details below:
*Monday - Opening Prayer will be read over the intercom each morning by a different Gr. 5 student
               - Drop and Bop 2nd block
               - Reading Buddies - we will pair up with Mrs. Fitzpatrick's class and read books to them during                       3rd block
*Tuesday - Opening Prayer / Drop and Bop (some time 1st block)
               - 10:30 a.m. - Easter Mass - parents are invited to celebrate the Eucharist with us
               - STEM challenges in the afternoon for Junior students
*Wednesday - Opening Prayer
               - Our Dance Team is going to the Dance Showcase!
               - Zumbathon in the afternoon!  Keep bringing those pledges in!  For every $20 in pledges,                            students get a ballot in a draw for gift cards, and for every $50 in pledges, they get a ballot in a                      draw for a chromebook!  The Zumbathon is the Principal's Fundraiser this year, and funds raised                  go directly back into the school.  Thank you for your support!  The kids LOVE it!

*Thursday - Muffin Breakfast and Open House - Drop by anytime after 8:30 a.m. with your children to see the dance team perform, view the awesome recycled material Canada symbols each class has made, and enjoy a fresh-baked muffin and cup of coffee, tea or juice.  Students must be with a responsible adult, of course. Stay during first block and tour the primary classrooms, or help make sandwiches for the Shepherd's of Good Hope in the junior classrooms.  As indicated in the letter sent home by Mme Blier-Kitchen last week, and copied below, students are asked to bring in a loaf of bread, 10 slices of ham or bologna, and 10 slices of process cheese, if possible.  Teachers will provide the margarine and mustard.  

Dear Parents, Education Week, May 2017

“Sent to be the Good News”

Show Mercy

As part of our Education Week activities and Religion program, the junior students will be asked to help make sandwiches for the Shepherds of Good Hope Sandwich Program.  

“The Soup Kitchen operates 365 days of the year producing an astounding 350-400 hot and nutritious noon meals, together with 90 hot breakfasts, and 200 evening meals served in shelters every evening. Additionally, 860 sandwiches are distributed as ‘take-aways’ per day.”

In order to support this initiative, on Thursday, May 4, 2017, each student will be asked to bring to school 1 loaf of bread and enough cold meat and sliced cheese to make sandwiches with their loaf of bread ( ie. 20 slices of bread will make 10 sandwiches, 10 slices of meat, 10 slices of cheese). Shepherds of Good Hope recommends that each student bring in ham or bologna, and Kraft processed cheese slices. The teachers will bring in the mustard and margarine.

   +      +       =

                                              approximately 10 sandwiches made per student

An employee from The Shepherds of Good Hope will be visiting the students to give a presentation on the services the Shepherds provide. The sandwiches will be taken downtown to be distributed to their clients throughout the day, on Thursday.

Your support in this initiative is much appreciated. Parents are welcome to come and help the students make sandwiches, after the school breakfast on Thursday. Thank you !

Grade 4, 5, 6 Team

-a representative from the Shepherd's of Good Hope will be in to speak to the students about what their mission is, and how their making sandwiches will help the homeless in Ottawa.

-3rd block, Junior students have a presentation from Louis Mercier, an ambassador of French Canadian Music.

-Friday - Opening Prayer, Drop and Bop (sometime)

- French Bingo in the afternoon

Happy Easter!

I hope you have had a wonderful Easter Celebration with your family and friends.  After the long period of sacrifice, prayer and contemplation it is a wonderful time for celebration and new beginnings!  Spring is springing, birds are singing, and we feel renewed!

                                     

We have a few upcoming events to keep in mind:

-the boys basketball tournament will be held on Wednesday - We wish them good luck and remember to wear purple and grey to support our team! 

-Wednesday is also the day we say goodbye to Miss Stabile, our Teacher Candidate from the University of Ottawa.  She has completed her practicum, and will return home to Montreal shortly.  She will likely be assigned to a different school to complete her primary practicum in September, and we wish her all the best in her teaching career!  I will certainly miss the extra pair of hands!

-we have a Faith Assembly on Friday, where students will receive certificates for Dignity of Persons. 

-On Monday, April 24, we will have a group of teachers from Montreal visiting our morning class to see how a paperless class works in elementary, as well as some coding in the classroom and linking robotics to math.  We welcome them, and hope to share our learning with them!

-Spring Photo Day is on Friday, April 28.  This is the day that you can ask for sibling photos to be taken if you wish.

-The following week, the first week of May, is Catholic Education Week.  We have a number of events scheduled for that week, including our Easter Mass on Tuesday and our Open House on Thursday morning, at which we welcome parents and grandparents to come and visit us!  You have also heard about the Zumbathon, which will be held on Wednesday of that week.  Students are asked to get pledges from family and friends, as the Principal's fundraiser this year.  They should have already brought home their pledge forms.  More details about our Education Week events will follow shortly.

Math: both groups have completed the lengthy fractions and decimals unit and are working on a short probability unit, full of rolling dice, flipping coins and spinning spinners!

Language Arts: Grade 5 have completed their Book Club novels and accompanying "scene act" or "book promotional video".  We are now reading aloud Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo as part of our sequencing unit.  Each day, they note events that have happened in sequence in the day's reading.

Grade 4 are starting their Book Club novels and have each been assigned to one of 8 different books groups on an environmental "Kids Can Do It" theme.

Doodle for Google contest

On Friday, both groups of students were given the opportunity to design a Google Doodle to enter into the Doodle for Google contest.  This contest is for Canadian students in Kinder-Gr. 12 to redesign the Google homepage logo for a day, with the theme "What I see for Canada's Future..".  There were some very creative ideas!  If your son or daughter would like to enter, the link to all of the details and for the permission slip is here.  Top prize is a $10 000 scholarship for the winning student, and $10 000 to their school for technology, as well as a trip to Toronto to claim their prize.

I hope that everyone had the opportunity to see the wonderful play "A Twist on Annie"!  It was truly an amazing performance by all of the students (48 of them!), 10 stage crew, and several very talented staff members, all lead by the incomparable Mrs. Shaw. What a wonderful school event!

Catholic Education Week is coming up soon! There will be a calendar of events to follow, so keep an eye out for what's happening!

Epipen Recall:  If  your child carries an EpiPen autoinjector, please check the lot number for a possible recall by Pfizer Canada.  The recalled EpiPens have a defective part that can cause them to misfire, and not deliver the correct dosage in an emergency.  The lot numbers affected are:

Products affected

• EpiPen (0.3 mg epinephrine) auto-injector lot 5GU763, expiry date May 2017, 67844 units distributed in Canada

For more information, go to http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2017/62872a-eng.php

Math: 

Both groups are wrapping up their unit on fractions and decimals, and will have a unit test on Friday. We have been reviewing in class.  Here is what each group has to know:

Gr. 4: -represent, compare and order decimal numbers to tenths

-represent fractions and recognize the numerator and denominator

-compare and order fractions

-recognize equivalent fractions using concrete materials

-count forward by 1/2s, 1/3s, 1/4s, and 10ths

-determine and explain the relationship between fractions (halves, fifths and tenths) and decimals to tenths

Gr. 5: -represent, compare and order decimal numbers to hundredths

-round decimals to the nearest tenth

-compare and order fractional amounts with like denominators

-demonstrate and explain equivalent fractions using concrete materials

-count forward by hundredths

-determine and explain the relationship between fractions and their equivalent decimals

Language:

Gr. 5 have finished reading their Book Club novel, and will be completing their study with a culminating activity of their choice.  They can either make a commercial promoting the book, or act out a scene from the book in their groups.  They can use Chatterpix, Powtoon, DoInk or Pixton to support their media presentation about their book.  I am looking forward to seeing them!

Gr. 4 have finished their Bug Menus and will be starting their own Book Club novel study soon.  We read an interesting book about unlikely friends, Owen and Mzee.  See if your child can tell you about this pair of animals who are best of friends!