Spring Break

With Spring Break just around the corner, I thought I'd post and update parents with our classroom events!

This week is a busy one with constructing term books and finishing up our times table lapbooks. We also have a Brazilian dance group doing a Fine Arts presentation on Friday! Students will be dismissed early on Wednesday and Thursday this week (at 1:30) for any parent teacher interviews and report cards will go home Friday! You can expect students to be bringing home gym strips, term books and times table lapbooks this week. The timestable lapbooks are a great tool for practicing our multiplication times tables and I'm hoping that students study these over the holiday to prepare for our Times Table Challenge that we've already started this week!

Here's a few other updates:

Salmon: Our salmon babies are doing great! The students take turns monitoring the tank and checking the temperature daily. We started with 110 eyed eggs and now have 109 alevin - only losing one egg! They have been growing steadily and we expect them to turn into fry after our return from spring break. After the break I will also be doing a dissection of a salmon in class, so they can see all the different adaptations a fish has to help it survive in its habitat. After the salmon are big enough, the students will get to help release them!

Daffodils: Our daffodils have begun to spring up! The students have been measuring them weekly and charting the progress on a bar graph. We're just hoping to cold and snow hasn't done too much damage to their possible growth!

Math: In math we have begun practicing our times tables and have started a Times Table Challenge. This challenge helps students memorize and improve their speed when answering times tables. This will help them be better prepared to start multiple digit multiplication in term 3. They get 4 minutes to complete 50 questions. Everyone starts at level A and moves up when they get 40 or more questions correct. Each level has a specific focus (i.e. Level A focused on 0,1,2). If students find they are getting stuck on a level, then they just have to look at the focus numbers to know what they should practice at home or during math games. Students can play "Knock It Off" at school, which focuses on specific times tables. They can also use multiplication lapbooks (which will come home Thursday or Friday) and they can also get flashcards from me, or make their own! Support at home to practice these times tables will be greatly appreciated and will help students be as successful as possible in math!

Field Trips: We have some field trips and events scheduled for third term and it looks like it will be an exciting and busy last few months! We are planning on attending the "Fur Trade Challenge" at Fort Langley on May 14th. We will also be attending Yale's "Canada Day in May" if they host it this year. Swimming and skating will be coming up as well. And we also just got confirmation that our end of the year BBQ at Harrison Lake is a go for this year too!

At this point, it is looking like I will be teaching this class for the duration of the year. I am very happy about this and cannot wait for all the fun learning we will be doing in the final term!

Have a safe & exciting Spring Break!