GR.

5/6 NEWS- OCTOBER

FROM THE STUDENTS
DESKS
Reflections on our First
Month
My class is a hardworking, friendly
fantastic group of kids. We all work
together great. My first month of school
was legendary!
-E

Learning about each other with our Wonder Jars!

We had Monarch butterflies Gus, Oreo,

Crystal & Spiderpillar. We did really
complicated math problems. Not even you
adults could figure them out. But we met
new people and did not give up what we
started. Our first month was awesome!
-H

Good-bye Summer, Hello Fall! What a lovely summer finale

we have had this past week! It is hard to believe that it is
October already! September was a busy and exciting
month, settling into our new classroom and getting to
know one another. I feel like we have become a close
community and a great team already! I am thrilled to see
how quickly and comfortably our new JM and VT students I like how we do a community circle
everyday and express our feelings in our
have settled into our school and I am very proud of how
gratitude journals. Weve done the 8 Keys
inclusive and welcoming our JB students have been!
Much of September has been spent on community building
activities, working on classroom routines and getting to
know one another; our learning styles, strengths and goals.
We began the year learning about the Eight Keys to
Success. Student groups took responsibility for exploring
a key and presenting their understanding to their
classmates in an interesting and memorable way.

and it helps our class be successful. This is

going to be a great year!
-L
Our class has a lot of good thinkers and a
lot of good friends. We stay on task, we
work as a team and we act like we already
know everyone from the start.
M

We had a variety of creative presentations, from skits, to

posters and slideshows. The keys are; Commitment, Speak
with Good Purpose, Ownership, Balance, Flexibility, This is
It, Integrity and Failure Leads to Success. They have
already become a common language in our classroom! We
learned about how we can grow our intelligence, about
growth mindsets and about the science of happiness. We
begin each day by reflecting in our gratitude journals and
try to start most days with a community circle.

Quote from our Read Aloud, Wonder.

Thank you for helping your

child put together a Wonder
Jar full of treasures to help us
get to know him or her!
Students have been meeting
with different people, asking
questions and sharing stories
about their artifacts. We are
using their favourite artifacts
to inspire their writing!

popcorn partners. Through a

variety of collaborative
problems, we have discovered
and shared a number of
effective problem-solving
strategies including; Draw a
Picture, Guess and Check,
Make an Organized List or
Chart, Look for Patterns, Act
it Out, Use Objects or
Manipulatives, Use Logical
In Language, we are working
Reasoning and Try an Equation.
through introducing a variety
I am so impressed with
of literacy centres (the Daily 6) everyones effort, perseverance
and building our stamina. The
and determination! Most of
centres are; Work on Writing,
the students are using more
Read to Self, Read to Someone, than one strategy to prove
Word Work, Listen to Reading
their answer and are working
and Genius Hour (Inquiry). I am hard to explain their thinking.
working through reading
conferences with all of our
Currently in math, we are
readers.
working on reading,
representing, comparing and
In math, we are doing
ordering whole numbers to
wonderfully at collaborative
100 000 (gr.5) and 1 000 000
problem-solving with different

(gr.6) and decimals to

thousand, ten or one hundred

thousand and writing numbers in
expanded form. We will have
Game Day (testing our
understanding) soon. I will let you
know!
In Science, we have started
learning about Life Systems;
specifically Human Organ
Systems (gr. 5) and Biodiversity
(gr.6). Students will be working
collaboratively on an inquiry
project and will be responsible
for documenting and sharing
their learning with their
classmates.
In gym, we are working on setting
and working toward personal
fitness goals, playing cooperative
games, long distance running and
soccer skills. Finally, the students
are enjoying Music with Mr.
Bacchus, French with Madame
Ghazarian and have just started
Media Literacy with Mrs.
Mahoney in the library. Looking
forward to more great

Upcoming Dates & Events

Oct.13- Thanksgiving Holiday

Oct.14- P/J Cross Country at the Community
Centre
Oct.14- School Council
Oct. 22- Jr. Soccer at Elora
Oct. 23- School Council Halloween Dance
Oct. 27 & 28- Earthkeepers (gr.5) *details to
follow!
Oct. 31- JBC Assembly, Halloween Costume
Parade
I will be contacting volunteers very soon!
We need you! Thank you!

Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go to Mexico! Our class website is almost ready for launching!
Stay tuned