Upcoming Reminders and/or Events:
- Photo orders are due this week. Photo retakes are on Wednesday.
- Scholastic booklets are going home this week. Please have your orders in by the end of the week. Don't forget cheques only or you can pay online by credit card by looking up my name and school.
- Trail Walk is on Wednesday. Parents are welcome to join us. You can let me know by signing up here or just show up Wednesday morning!
- Thank you, parents, for signing up for FreshGrade. If you find that you can't view a video, please let me know. Sometimes they do not load correctly and I can try to delete it and repost it. If you haven't yet, an invite was sent by FreshGrade to the email address you provided with the office at the start of the year. If you missed it, let me know and I can resend the invite. You can read more about FreshGrade for Parents here. Once you have created you password, you can download the free app for parents for your smart device or sign in from the FreshGrade site here. I will be posted 3-4 times a month. Students will be posting occasionally as well as commenting on posts. Parents are encouraged to comment on posts. It is a conversation between the parents, the teacher, and the student. You will only be able to view your child's portfolio. I have been enjoying reading the comments parents have posted already and look forward to sharing them with the students soon.
- Note from the Courtyard: As you may know our Courtyard is a very bust learning and teaching area in our school and we are hoping to continue to build on the already solid foundation that is out there. For this reason we are hoping to collect grass clippings and coffee grounds. These are vital sources of nutrients for the soil. If you able to collect these for us we ask that you please drop them off in the labelled bins inside the Courtyard doors. This can be done during regular school hours. Also, if you happen to be stopping off for a coffee/tea at your local cafe and then coming to the school please ask them if you can have any grounds they have collected. They often have bags of them and it is a great way to get a large amount in one stop. Thank you! -The courtyard team.
- Next week is Halloween on Tuesday, October 31st. At Lochside we invite the students to participate in Wacky Hair Day. On Monday Lochside will be attending a Halloween Safety session with our police liaison.
Spelling: Unit 7 studies the vowel pairs /ai/ and /ay/ which spell the long /a/ sound in drain and decay. The pairs /oa/ and /ow/ spell the long /o/ sound in coast and borrow.
Reading/Writing Studio:
- This week we will be talking about the story mountain. We have finished our first read aloud, Flying Solo, and will use the story mountain to create plot pumpkins and write about each part of the story: plot, characters, setting, problem, resolution, and theme.
- In our Friday Journals we have been looking for ways to spice up our writing. Last time we added sequence words. This week we will attempt to show, not tell, about our week. For example, instead of saying 'I felt happy' we could say "My face brightened and I jumped up and down saying, 'Woo hoo!'"
Math Studio: We are moving on to counting strategies this week before we begin our addition/subtraction unit. We will look for strategies counting forwards and backwards.
Gym: This week we finish up our soccer tournament. We have been focusing on demonstrating our skills during the games but also practising our sportsmanship.
Science: In our matter unit this week we explore the effect heating and cooling has on matter.
Art: We have been waiting to paint our Lochside rocks and the week is finally here! The base coat is on, students will gather inspiration and ideas from the books 'You Be You' and 'Only One You' before designing their fish. We can't wait to see the full display of Lochside rocks outside when they're finished.
FSAs: FSAs are this week. Grade 4s will be doing their reading and numeracy assessment online. They will also be completing a reading and writing written assessment this week. Grade 5s will be completing a written reading and writing assessment for me at the same time. While the Grade 4s are doing their online assessments, Grade 5s will be working on transformations in math: translations, rotations, and reflections.