February 29 to March 4

Happy "Snow Day" Monday!

This year, our grade 6 school Lenten project is two-fold. We have a local and a global focus. Locally, money raised will help support Syrian refugee families who have come to live in Ottawa. Globally, money raised will also help bring clean water directly into villages in areas such as Africa. Last Thursday, the grade 6 students did an excellent job letting us know why it is important to help others in need. We are so incredibly fortunate to live in a safe and free country with easy access to clean water, shelter and food. Our class will come up with advertisements to help promote this wonderful Lenten project. We will make this part of our media studies. Students will have a choice in how they deliver informative messages by making posters or using IPad Apps such as Tellegami, Green Screen and Chatter pix. Our goal is to create an advertisement that is informative and persuasive in order to help the campaign raise money for these two important causes.

Since we do just about everything with Mrs. D'Ettorre's, class we decided that instead of making a class goal we will make a team goal for raising money. The students said they think we can raise $300 between both classrooms. If we reach our goal the students will earn something special.... they are still trying to decide. :)

Here are the new word wall words for this week:

1. was

2. pushed

3. off

4. do

5. were

In Language, we have been talking about how to BUMP UP our writing. This means adding details and describing words to our sentences to make them longer and more complex. It would be beneficial to sit with your child at least once or twice a week and see if they can write a sentence, then BUMP IT UP. We have also been talking about chunks that will help us read and write. For example, knowing that “ed” has three sounds (“d”, “t” and “ed”) will help your child read and write words that end in “ed”. We also use words we know to help spell new ones. For example, knowing how to spell the word “all” which is on our word wall will help you to spell the word “fall” in a sentence. We will continue to focus on these strategies and bump up our writing for all of March. There should be a difference in the recounts they write each Monday as they learn strategies to help them read and write.

In Math, we will study 3D solids and how they differ from 2D shapes. 3D solids are not flat like 2D shapes. They have different names to describe their properties (e.g. 2D Shapes: sides and vertices, 3D Solids: edges, vertices and faces). We will explore which 3D solids can slide, roll and stack. We will also do walk around the school looking for examples of 3D solids and create a pic collage of our findings. Students will have a choice to show their knowledge of 3D solids through a variety of activities (e.g. IPad Apps and games).

In Science, we have started our unit on Materials, Objects and Everyday Structures. Students were given a tray of materials and ask to explore, make observations and discuss these with their group. When consolidating our findings, students eventually figured out that these objects have a name and are made of different materials. We will continue studying the properties of materials by using our 5 senses. Then we will move into learning about natural and man-made structures.

Lent and Holy Week Presentation

In Religion, we have been talking about the season of Lent. Lent lasts 40 days. It is a time we do extra things for others such as praying, being kind, giving to the needy etc. Lent is followed by Holy Week and the Easter. Our class has been practising the words and actions to a beautiful worship song called “Here I am to Worship” by Tim Hughes.  Our class along with Mrs. D'Ettorre's class be performing this song in a special Holy Week presentation on Thursday, March 24th starting at 1:00pm. Mark your calendars because it would be wonderful if you could come see your child present this beautiful song to the school. The entire Holy Week performance will last about 45-60min. because it starts with the grade 4’s dramatization of Palm Sunday as Jesus enters Jerusalem, followed by The Last Supper then a grade 3 shadow theatre performance of The Stations of the Cross and then it ends with our grade ones singing and doing the actions to our worship song. Caution: This performance may bring tears to your eyes because their voices are angelic and their actions powerful! 

********To make this performance extra special for our children I would like to make a special t-shirt for them. I am not sharing the design with you because it will be a surprise! If you are able to donate a plain white t-shirt for your child to use that would be great! I will buy any that need one after all of the donated ones come in. I usually just get a 5-pack of boys white undershirts at walmart. They will be painted with a special design afterwards and your child gets to keep it as a souvenir. T-shirts can be sent in anytime this coming week. We will design them the week before the March break. Thanks for your cooperation. *******

Waste-Free Wednesdays

Waste-Free Wednesdays are going pretty good. We consistently have about 8 waste-free lunches out of 20. I know we can BUMP THIS UP. It would be super if we could increase the number of waste-free lunches each Wednesday. This initiative helps our children understand the importance of pitching in to help reduce waste in our environment. We talk about where items get put into each day (e.g. paper towel, straws, yogurt containers, plastic wrap, food scraps etc.) I monitor the garbage container daily to ensure our children know where their items go. They are incredible at doing this! I am so proud of our class for their efforts!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Wednesday, March 2nd is Dr. Seuss’s Birthday! Each year, Mrs.D'Ettorre and I celebrate this day with language and math activities all related to Dr. Seuss books. We also have a few fun surprises in store for our children as well. Please have your child wear red, white and or blue that day. These are Dr. Seuss and Thing 1 and Thing 2 colours.

Important Dates:

Wednesday, March 9th - Library Exchange

March 14th to March 18th - March Break

Thursday, March 24th - Holy Week Presentation 1:00pm **Our worship song performance

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Tiffany Lawless