How did we get to December already? There are a lot of fun activities happening this December. Please stay up-to-date with the class happenings and read over the following information:
Upcoming Reminders and/or Events:
- Lochside's Food Drive is on right now continuing this week until Friday, December 8th. We are inviting families to contribute food donations for the Mustard Seed. Donations can be brought to the gingerbread house in the front lobby. The Mustard Seed will be using the donations to put together hampers for families in need (including dry goods and gift certificates to purchase fresh produce and/or toys). To help support their efforts we will also be accepting gift cards (ie. Walmart, Thrifty Foods, etc) and monetary donations to further support the Mustard Seed food bank. Gift cards and monetary donations will be gratefully accepted in the designated box near the Christmas tree in the lobby.
- Additionally, we are excited to announce that Lochside families will have the opportunity to fulfill holiday gift wish list items for families in-need again this year. There will be a tree in the lobby with gingerbread men hanging from it noting the various wishes. Should a family choose to “fulfill a wish”, they may remove a gingerbread man from the tree, purchase the item, later return the unwrapped gift along with the gingerbread man and place them in the designated box which will also be near the Christmas tree in the lobby.
- Trail Walk is on Wednesday. Parents are welcome to join us!
- I am hoping to do a Christmas tree art activity next Wednesday, Dec.13th but need some help with supplies. I would like to invite the class to make a mini Christmas tree out of coat hangers that they can take home that day and have a mini festive tree in their room. Here is the supply list. I believe you could get most items from the dollar store so it should be under $20. If you are not able to pick up these supplies, let me know. If you are able to pick up extra supplies for others to use, that would be great!
- 6 metal WIRE hangers (same size is best)
- 1 roll of masking tape
- a pack of 50-100 mini lights
- garland (2-4 packages; your choice of colour)
- Below is a picture of the project. Supplies need to be at school on or before Wednesday, Dec.13th. Let me know if you have any questions.
- Climbing Wall field trip to Stellys: Thursday, Dec.14th. Permission form will be coming home this week.
- Holiday Book Shop next Monday & Tuesday. More information on this coming in their agendas this week.
- Thursday, December 21st: Grade 3-5 winter concert 1:30pm in the Lochside gym.
- Last day before the winter break: Friday, December 22nd.
- FreshGrade check-ins for the first term were posted last week. Take some time to have a look over your child's portfolio to notice the strengths and areas to work on---even better, have a look through it together! Feel free to leave a comment on the check-in for the teacher or for your child.
Spelling: Unit 13 focuses on the prefixes: un, in, dis, and trans. The prefix trans means across or over, as in transplant. The prefixes un and dis mean not, as in unselfish and disgrace. The prefix dis can also mean away or opposite of, as in distance and discovered. The prefix in can mean into or not as in inexpensive. It can also mean to cause to become, as in increase.
Reading Studio:
- Students have been continuing to give book commercials after they have finished a novel. We have almost half of our class completing commercials in front of their peers. This has been a great opportunity to practice speaking in front of the class and a good check in on comprehension of material read.
- In the new year we will be starting a research project so in preparation we are going over the features of non-fiction material. Today we talked about title, table of contents, glossary, index, and bibliography. Throughout the week we will look at more features such as: sidebar, heading, subheading, fact box, bullets, pronunciation guide, italic print, coloured print, bold print, parentheses, table, timeline, photograph, caption, illustration, diagram, graph, and map. For each of these, we look at examples and talk about how they inform and assist our learning and understanding of the topic we are reading about.
Writing Studio & Art:
- Last week we created a stormy picture using charcoal and planned a story to go along with the art piece. This week we are typing up our stories using a google doc. We are focusing editing and revising carefully to make sure we are representing our best work. Ask your child to sign in to their google account at home and show you their story so far. We will continue to work on them this week and complete them by Friday.
Math Studio: This week we will be working on mental math strategies such as looking for groups of 10, compensation, looking for friendly numbers, counting on, and adding up in chunks.
Science: Today we talked about First Peoples 13 Moons. We noticed similarities to our own 12 month calendar year. This week we will looking at the cycles of the moon.
Gym: We are finishing off our floor hockey tournament this week. Ask your child which skill they were best at in hockey: passing, shooting, defense, or goal?