Grade 4/5 News

This Week
        On Thursday the 3 oldest classes are going to the Remembrance Day ceremony at GISS.  I’ve gone several years and I like the idea of young students being involved with a serious and important ceremony such as Remembrance Day.  Afterwards we’ll be going swimming and returning to school at 2:45.
    As you may have heard I am having a partial knee replacement and Thursday will be my last day at school--the surgery is on Friday.  I will be away for several weeks and may not be back in the class until after Christmas all dependent on recovery and rehab.  I certainly will miss being with this great class, but I know they will left in the good hands of the substitute teacher.  

Subjects
Math: We’ll be finishing with place value and rounding this week and will likely begin a new unit on addition and subtraction next week.  
Reading:  Reading Workshops continue this week.  My focus will be working on vocabulary and word knowledge and continued practice of oral reading.  
Writing:  We continue to examine the meaning and use of sentences in student writing.  I am showing students how to develop sentences into paragraphs.  Soon students will be engaged in research and learn research techniques based on the study of an animal.
Keyboarding: Keyboarding practice continues daily.   I encourage students to practice keyboarding at home at the online site we use at school.  www.freetypinggame.net  
Art: Students have learned vanishing point lettering and will practice some perspective drawing next.
PE:  We will begin practicing volleyball soon.  Tuesdays is dance day.  Currently students are learning to jive.  
French: I French students have been learning basic greetings and practicing some beginning vocabulary.  They’ve been having great fun learning the greetings and seem enthusiastic about learning French.