What's New?

Early Dismissal:  A reminder to parents that school will be getting out at 2pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Mystery Unit:  Our class will be starting a unit on Mystery.  Students will focus on all the elements that make up the Mystery genre.  These include characters, setting, plot, clues, distractions and structure.  Furthermore, students will be introduced to the vocabularly associated with mystery stories (alibi, breakthrough, clue, crime, deduction, detective, evidence, hunch, motive, mystery, red herring, sleuth, suspect and witness.  As quiz will be given on this vocularly before Christmas. 

Once we have covered the basics, students will start working on their own mystery story.  In the end, students will be asked to hand in one mystery story and will be evaluated using the criteria discussed in class.  In addition, students will work on creating a mystery movie using Movie Maker (January).

Spelling:  Our first set of spelling words will be coming home Monday November 19th and they will consist of 15 words.  Most of the students will be given a set of words for early Grade 5.  However, if students are finding the words to difficult/easy, adjustments will be made over the next few weeks and different spelling groups may be established if needed.  While students will be given some time on Monday to review, it is expected that they will practice them over the week for a test each Friday.

Movie Maker:  This week students will be introduced to Microsoft Movie Maker.  At first, students will be given "fun" activities to help them explore the program.  For our final Science Project, students will be create a short picture movie of the Nervous System.  I will discuss the criteria with the class.

Science:  Our next Science test will take place this Friday on the Circulatory System.  After discussing the tests with students, the majority of students felt it was time to test our knowledge in another way.  Therefore, we will use Movie Maker to show what we have learned.

Fort Steele:  I am looking at having the parent meeting on Monday December 10 th at 7pm.  At this meeting, I will discuss what is currently planned for the fieldtrip.  For this fieldtrip, the costs can vary as we have a number of different options for activities and how we intend to feed the students.  If we decide to prepare our own food, I will be looking for a parent group who will take on this responsibility. 

Pridham Studios:  Our class will start making their ornaments on Wednesday morning.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know!

Thanks,

Mr. Blick