Norris, S - Grade 4/5

Happy New Year! We've already had a busy first week back and well into January already. Here's what we're up to at the moment:

Upcoming Reminders and/or Events:

LEPAC has organized a very important parent education night on January 16th.  We are very excited to provide The White Hatter this year.  This presentation talks about how education is the first step in keeping our kids safer in this technology-driven world.  We encourage all parents, whether your child is in kindergarten or grade 5, to attend this free education night. Child care as well as refreshments will be provided.  Please sign up on the provided link below if you are planning to attend as well as if you are planning on having your child attend our child care services.  Any questions, please email Nicole at lochsidepac@sd63.bc.ca http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090e4fada729a7ff2-whiteTrail Walk is on Wednesday. Parents are welcome to join us! The fields are extremely muddy at the moment and we have a few students who have not been wearing their indoor shoes. Please make sure your child has a pair of clean runners they can leave at school for use inside and for gym class.Grade 5 Parents: If you already know that your son/daughter will not be attending Royal Oak this September, please let us know. Royal Oak is starting to look at their preliminary numbers and planning for the new school year.

Social Studies: We will be working on a inquiry project this term called, Two Worlds Meet. We'll be looking at the interactions between First Peoples and Europeans that lead to conflict and cooperation, which continues to shape Canada’s identity. Last week we had a launch to our unit where we travelled around the school visiting 4 of our intermediate classrooms and teachers to be introduced to some of the concepts we'll be exploring this term: power, trade, cooperation, competition, perspective, influence, and empathy. This week we are looking at the age of exploration. Who might have been the first to explore North America and interact with the First Peoples?

Math: We have started a unit on multiplication. We have looked at multiples and factors, prime and composite numbers, and have noticed patterns in multiplication.

Spelling: This week we are looking at the prefixes pre-, pro-, re-, and ex-.

Gym: This month we'll be focusing on basketball skills. This week we'll start with dribbling.

Career Education: On Tuesday we will be having an Internet/Social Media Safety and Digital Literacy Education 101 presentation from the White Hatter who will be helping students to pro-actively understand the enabling power of digital technology and mobile communications, but also how to mitigate the sometimes unintended consequences of high risk/un-desirable on-line behaviour. For more information on the presentation you can follow this link.

Reading Studio: For the next couple of weeks we'll be looking at the types of conflict in stories. Character vs character, character vs society, character vs self, and character vs nature.