Thank you!

Just to say thank you for all the truly lovely birthday wishes and gifts you sent yesterday for me.
I had a wonderful day and feel so blessed to be teaching each one of you and so thankful that you have such supportive and kind-hearted parents.

It's always a double celebration this time of year for me, as it is also Thanksgiving - a great excuse to have friends and family around for a wonderful meal. 5B students wrote some very special short books telling people what they are thankful for.

These look great on display, don't you think?!

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Book Donation Wish

Classroom Wish Letter from Mrs. Beck to the Parents of 5B


Dear Parents,

As you know, ‘Our Book Club’ is coming to our school from Monday to Thursday next week. I hope that you will be able to support your child’s growing ability to read for pleasure. A home filled with books is one of the best ways to support your child's growing ability to read, and to succeed at school.

I have been working hard with 5B students on making sure they find books to read that are reading level appropriate and that will infuse in them a passion to read independently. This is so that they that they begin to find reading an enjoyable pastime, rather than a chore.

One of my goals this year has also been to develop and extend our class library, as although we have some good novels, we do need a greater variety.

The Book Fair offers an easy way to make a contribution directly to our classroom. The catalogue shows a whole range of books that I think will add greatly to student knowledge and enrich our classroom library.
When you look at the book club order sheet, please consider purchasing an extra book and donating it to our classroom. These donated books will become a permanent part of the Grade 5 classroom library that will benefit students today and for years to come.

Every gift will be recognized with an insert on the front page identifying your family or child as the donor. Your generosity can make our classroom more exciting and stimulating to young minds.

Alternatively (or additionally!), any used books that you have at home that you'd like to donate as you feel they would be of value to the classroom library, please feel free to drop them in - the more books of a variety of age levels and genres the better!

Kind Regards,
Kathryn Beck

Thank you so much for your support, as always,
“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Kindergarten Buddies

Above are a few pictures of 5B students reading storybooks to their new Kindergarten and Grade 1 'buddies'! Today was our first day of this new venture and I have to say that I was so impressed by our class! 5B students were so kind and patient and they really managed to engage the 'little ones' into the stories.
Future teachers in the making!
Well done!

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Explorer Presentations

As our last Social Studies project of the term, students were asked to thoroughly research a famous explorer and produce an oral presentation on their explorer.

Yesterday, we were 'wow'ed by The Mighty Sharkfins with knowledge about Roald Amundsen (who explored the Antarctic) and The World Conquerors produced an engaging presentation on Marco Polo's amazing adventures.

Today, we were taken into space by the US Marine Adventurers who were entertaining us with tales from Neil Armstrong's life and his successful mission as the crew to land on the moon.

The students not only showed pictures and photographs, they also dressed up to give us more of a 'feel' about their explorers.
Well done, 5B! A great way to end the 'Caravans' project.

Winning teams will be announced very soon.



“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Welcome Da Sol!

A very warm welcome to our new student, Da Sol Lee, who joins us from Korea. He has spent much of his life in Korea, but has also lived overseas in Moscow, Russia.

We hope you settle in quickly into the NJIS routine and are so glad that you are part of our class!

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

5B Students Wow Audiences in 'Cinderella'

The LS Drama Exploratory put on a great show for all of us at this morning's assembly.

A HUGE well done has to go to Gaby & Hee Won, our class Drama stars for their fantastic performances in today's 'Cinderella'. You both did so well and looked great up there - who knows, one day you might be up for an Oscar!

Gaby played a perfectly sweet little dancing mouse and Hee Won, as Prince Charming had the audience in stitches in his opening scene as he threw away, in disgust, pictures of the female members of staff!
We are all very proud of you.

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

UN Day at NJIS

Attached above is a photo from our UN day performance last week. 5B did so brilliantly with their performance of 'Free To Be Me & You' by The New Seekers. The lyrics from the song were used in our class novel 'Bridge To Terabithia' and as it is a song about freedom and diversity, we thought it would be great to sing for UN day.

It was truly a whole class effort, and what an amazingly talented group of musicians and singers we have! Below is a link to a video of their performance that Joel & Lennart's mum took and put on YouTube for us. Well done guys, you sounded great!!

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=zBZaJnqgF30

After a second performance for the school, we were all treated to a fabulous International Food Fair in the gym by our wonderful parents. I don't think I've eaten quite so much and of such a variety in a very long time! Look at the colours below of some of the food on offer - it looks like a piece of art!

Weekly Preview 10th November 2008

Week Beginning: November 10th 2008

Reading
Unit: Monitoring Comprehension
- Read, Write & talk – thinking your way through a text
Using an article entitled ‘A Focus On Girl’s Education’ from Time For Kids. This is an article about the disparity between girls’ and boys’ education dealing with fairness & inequality. This has been chosen so that the students will have many thoughts and opinions on the matter and will hopefully spur lively conversation.
- Using a variety of reading texts to practice the skill of purposefully talking and writing about what they have read.

Writing
Writing Techniques
- Continue newspaper article skills and working on IT skills using ‘Publisher’.
Grammar/Usage
- Nouns
- Single and plural nouns
- Singular possessive nouns
Plural possessive nouns


Math
Unit 2: Algebra, Data & Graphing
- Write & Evaluate Expressions
- Order of Operations
- Functions


Social Studies
World Geography
- Continue to close up ‘Caravans’ Unit

Science
- How Do Organisms Compete & Survive in an Ecosystem?
- Investigate how body colour helps animals survive using M&M experiment.
- Learn about the ways in which organisms compete.
- What is Extinction & What are its Causes?
- Investigate Vanishing Habitats
- Learn About Extinction & its Causes


Spelling/Vocab
- Science Words

Fun / Social
LS Drama play on Friday
- help make set, props and costumes.

November Newsletter

November Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Wow! Hasn’t time flown by? It’s hard to believe we are actually coming to the end of Trimester 1 and soon enough, Christmas holidays will be upon us! As we enter Trimester 2, we are still knee-deep in many units, but all are ending with exciting projects.

Before I tell you about what 5B are studying, I want to say thanks for all you do to help each of your children be successful and confident as they learn. Enjoy reading the report cards you will be receiving at the end of this week!

Math

We are currently deep within our Algebra unit. Students are getting so confident with their skills – ever since they learned the order of operations and a nifty 3-step process of solving equations and making sure that the terms are equal on both sides, 5B have been having real fun solving the complex problems. Well done, 5B!
The next math lessons will be on data and graphing which will just about wrap-up Unit 2. Graphing can be challenging for students - daily practice is definitely encouraged! In our next unit, we will sharpen our multiplying skills of whole and decimal numbers.

Science

A couple of weeks ago, we began our study of Biomes and ecosystems, and the students are doing an excellent job. This past week, students have learned how energy flows through ecosystems and are currently learning all about adaptations and how body colour helps organisms survive (or not) in their environment! We will be doing a fun investigation with M&M’s (yay for chocolate!) to test our hypothesis.
The next few lessons will be devoted to learning about extinction and its causes and endangered species. I am hoping that we will be able to adopt some endangered animals or help save some conservation land as a class. If you are interested in finding out more, there is a wonderful website: http://www.worldwildlife.org/ogc/index.cfm
The children will also learning about biomes and will be involved in developing a Biome Mobile to reflect their understanding of a particular biome.

Rainbow Bay
Our study of Biomes will culminate and we will end it with a fun, challenging simulation called Rainbow Bay. Students work in groups to build a network of roads in the fictitious community of Rainbow Bay. As mayor, I will evaluate each group’s plan based on cost and environmental responsibility. This unit is always very popular with students as they have the opportunity to show what they have learned in Science in a meaningful, hands-on way. Our next unit will be Atoms & Matter which will involve many experiments in the science lab, tests and a major culminating project.


Social Studies
We are now into the last week of our ‘Caravans’ simulation – which team will win is anybody’s guess as thanks to the daily fate cards, the number of points and gold coin amounts can quickly change.
The next unit we will start in the new year. This will take a close look at culture through our investigation of India, Gandhi and Civil Rights. We will investigate how India’s physical geography as well as its cultural history contributed to the idea of civil rights around the world.

Language Arts

Inspired by Halloween stories, 5B students are currently learning how to write news reports and creating newsletters that show their journalistic skills. They have really worked hard at drafting and editing their ‘spooky’ reports and I hope that we can publish their efforts on our class website.

Each week we review and consolidate grammar techniques. Students have worked hard this month so far at sentence construction, types of sentences, and proper and common nouns. This regular drilling of skills is sure to aid the children’s writing.

In reading, we are starting a new monitoring comprehension unit whereby the students are taught to listen to their inner voices when reading and to use fix-up strategies to check their comprehension, to name just a few skills. Through this program, students will be introduced to a whole variety of different genre.

We have also been working hard at choosing level-appropriate reading books and I have spent time in reading conferences with individual students, assessing their reading skills and helping the students set targets.

We will be working on a special reading assessment programme starting from next trimester and this will greatly aid the students in understanding their weaknesses and strengths and hopefully empower them to read more and learn to love reading.

And that's it for now! Thank you again for all your wonderful support of the amazing students we have in 5B!

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Imaginary Country Maps

We are just about coming to the end of our first Social Studies Unit - 'World Geography'.

As a culminating activity, 5B have spent the past couple of weeks designing their own small imaginary countries, in order to demonstrate the knowledge that they have learned.

Students had to show the name, the longitude and latitude of their countries, the climate and landscape, the cities and towns, as well as include physical features such as rivers, lakes, bays, gulfs, volcanoes, mountains, rain forests. Students also included road systems, residential areas, airports, shopping complexes and other important human features of their country.

Once their designs on paper had been finalised, groups chose one map to create in 3D using clay.

The students all enjoyed going back in time to their kindergarten days when playdoh and clay were used on a daily basis!

The 3D maps that they have almost completed are looking great.

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown

Weekly Preview November 3rd 2008

Week Beginning: November 3rd 2008

Reading
Unit: Monitoring Comprehension
- Read, Write & talk – thinking your way through a text
- Using an article entitled ‘A Focus On Girl’s Education’ from Time For Kids. This is an article about the disparity between girls’ and boys’ education dealing with fairness & inequality. This has been chosen so that the students will have many thoughts and opinions on the matter and will hopefully spur lively conversation.
- Using a variety of reading texts to practice the skill of purposefully talking and writing about what they have read.

Writing
Writing Techniques
- Writing a persuasive/opinion essay
Grammar/Usage
- Nouns
- Common & Proper
- Writing with Nouns

Math
Unit 2: Algebra, Data & Graphing
- Use Addition Properties
- Problem Solving Skill – Using A Formula
- Chapter Test – (Algebra – Using Addition)

Social Studies
World Geography
- Display Clay Imaginary Maps
- Continue to close up ‘Caravans’ Unit

Science
Ecosystems
- Watch a DVD on Ecosystems
How Do Organisms Compete & Survive in an Ecosystem?
- Investigate how body colour helps animals survive

- Carry out an experiment using M&Ms
- Learn about the ways in which organisms compete.
What is Extinction & What are its Causes?
- Investigate Vanishing Habitats
- Learn About Extinction & its Causes

Spelling/Vocab
- Science Words

Fun / Social
‘Free To Be You & Me’ Song
- Practice for our UN Day performance on November 5th

“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss you will land among the stars!”-Les Brown