GRADE 6 V.I.P

September 25, 2014

Dear Grade Six Students and Parents,

Our V.I.P. program will soon be under way. This acronym stands for Values, Influences, and Peers and is a way for the students and law enforcement to interact in a positive way. This program is designed to educate students about decision making and the role that peer pressure will play as they enter adolescence. V.I.P. visits by Staff Sergeant Mizuno will begin in October and will continue until the end of this school year. Her visits are scheduled for once a month. There may be interruptions in this schedule due to emergencies and/or last minute changes in our schedules, but we will hope for the best. The topics we plan to cover are: Introduction to the Police Officer; Values and Rights; Decision Making; Bullying; Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs; Youth Criminal Justice Act; Service to the Community; and Graduation. These topics fit into our Health and Religion curriculum nicely.

In addition to completing the classroom activities and evaluations that the teachers are designing and being an active participant in Sergeant Mizuno’s classes, the students are expected to complete ten hours of community service. We feel that it is important for the students to give back to the community because it feels great to help others and it makes the community a better place to be. The possibilities are endless, but the act of kindness must not be something that the student is routinely expected to do (ie. chores around the house), but should be something to help someone in the community (examples: shovel a neighbour’s driveway, assist with childcare, volunteer at church, help a senior, etc.). This requirement may be done at any time, but must be completed by May 29, 2015. Please submit the community service form, completed, and a photo of the service in action, when the community service portion is complete. The community service form is available HERE.  

A graduation ceremony is planned to celebrate the students’ successful completion of the V.I.P. program. More details will follow, but it will be in June 2015. We all appreciate your continued support in this venture. Feel free to call the school if any questions should arise.

Sincerely,

Mrs. S. Colautti, Mr. M. Doyon, Mr. V. Francia         

Grade Six Teachers

Terry Fox

I'm old enough to remember the impact Terry's marathon of hope had on our country! Now it's our turn, in our small way, to keep that dream alive,.

WOW assembly winners!

Congratulations to Ophelia, Annamaria, and Aiden!! They had a great start to the year. They picked up routines quickly, had great organizational skills and really 'hit the ground running'-keep up the good work!!

LEARNING GOALS AND SUCCESS CRITERIA

 We use 'anchor charts' in the classroom to help students have a reference point for when they are unsure of a concept we have been working with. The first two pictures below highlight the Characteristics of Book Covers and Movie posters. These are both forms of text and works of media.

Once we work with these concepts in shared reading, guided reading and In their centre work, then it's time to 'show off' what they've learned. 

The third picture is of our Learning Goals and Success Criteria. This is where we discuss the skills we are expecting to demonstrate during this assignment. Along with that we go over the specific 'criteria' that they must include in order to be successful. This process ensures they have had plenty of oppurtunity to practice these concepts before we evaluate them. 

READING AND WRITING NUMBERS

Reading and writing numbers proves to be difficult for some students. They get confused once they begin to read numbers that are larger than 999. They even fair quite well into the initial thousands. Where they begin to have problems is when we start talking about numbers over 10 000. We stress that they use a place value chart as an aid to help them decode larger values.  The place value chart pictured below is organized in such a way as to highlight the PERIOD that the number falls under. Every 3 steps on the place value chart is referred to as a PERIOD. Each period has a 0nes, tens and hundreds column.

The difficult part is reading the numbers under one PERIOD as a whole. For instance, the number pictured above has 026 in the THOUSANDS PERIOD. The student reads that as twenty six thousand. If you look at the numbers in the MILLIONS PERIOD they read that as thirty one million. Some students get confused and read the numbers in a PERIOD separately. FOR INSTANCE, they may read thirty million one million. What's the solution---PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. GRADE 5's need to learn up to 999 999. GRADE 6'S NEED to read to the MILLIONS period. They also need to be able to write those numbers.

READING STRATEGIES

Throughout the course of the year we will be working on a variety of reading strategies. These strategies are there to aid us to more fully understand what we read. As adults we naturally bring our prior knowledge to bear on any new material we read. We  understand that our life experiences and previous knowledge can help inform our understanding of what we are trying to read or understand. Our goal is to get our students to be able to do that as naturally as we do. We also do this by making connections to what we are reading. If I'm reading a Hardy Boys novel I can reflect on similar books I've read. I can remember a t.v. program or movie that has similar scenarios and characters. The point is I use my prior knowledge to help me understand what I'm reading on a deeper level.
The grade 5's are reading The Garage Sale Mystery. In the story Max and Nina are investigating the disappearance of their father's guitar. As a good reader I thinks about other  similar stories they have read (prior knowledge). For example, I read a book that the detective was investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a native community. I know that these types of books have detectives that look for clues that lead to suspects. I also know that I really need to pay attention to the details the author writes because clues could be anywhere. Finally I know that sometimes writers throw in 'red herrings' to throw readers off the trail of the real culprit. That's a vast amount of knowledge about The Garage Sale Mystery before I even read a single page.
Connections are another way that we use our Prior Knowledge to improve our understanding the material we are reading. In The Garage Sale Mystery Max and Nina are holding a garage sale in order to save money for a bike and a skateboard. I remember a time when I want an Atari with Pong (dating myself!!). Well, I started delivering Pennysavers in order to save money to buy one, just like Max and Nina. I know how much I wanted that Atari and I remember how hard I had to work to get it. I missed time with friends and hanging out in order to save for the Atari. I can 'connect' to Max and Nina, I know how they felt. I know they were nervous and filled with anticipation waiting to save enough money. I know how dedicated they must be in order to give up their weekend to run the garage sale. That's the power of 'connections' -- they get you into the characters head. You can gain a deeper understanding of the characters feelings, hopes and desires. It's way to get a personal window into the characters point of view. We will be working on this throughout the course of the year.
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ANCHOR CHARTS

Anchor charts are a way for teachers and students to create large visual 'post-it notes'. We have them up in the room for students to use as  reference tools. Sometimes they describe a procedure for solving math problems. Sometimes they are a resource for remembering the characteristics of a particular type of genre. The idea is that when students need a little help remembering a process, procedure or learning strategy, then it's there at their disposal. I have posted a few examples in the blog to give parents an idea of what they look like. I will be collecting all the anchor charts, learning goal and success criteria charts (more info to follow on these) in a slide show that you can find on the class website. See below for a link to the class website.

CLASS WEBSITE

Congrats to one of our Own!

Ophelia won a writing contest last June and we get a prize as well!! Our classroom library received a box full of great books. Way to go Ophelia and thanks from all of us.

PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT!! EVIDENCE FROM BRAIN BASED STUDY

As  teachers we are constantly presented with students that struggle with their basic math facts. It's very difficult to move onto higher level word problems when student haven't mastered their fundamental addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. CLICK on the link to  the article below that explains what's happening in children's brains when they master these facts.

NEWS ARTICLE


FROM THE ARTICLE:

"If your brain doesn't have to work as hard on simple math, it has more working memory free to process the teacher's brand-new lesson on more complex math.

"The study provides new evidence that this experience with math actually changes the hippocampal patterns, or the connections. They become more stable with skill development," she said. "So learning your addition and multiplication tables and having them in rote memory helps."

Quiz your child in different orders, she advised — nine times three and then 10 times nine — to make sure they really remember and didn't have to think it through.

WHAT'S THE TAKE AWAY HERE??

Kids need to practise their math facts just like any other skill.  We encourage our kids to shoot a 100 pucks, or free throws--it's just as important to drill fundamental math facts.

Class Agreements

Students working on  creating our classroom Agreements. Real learning requires: Attentive Listening, No Put-downs and Mutual Respect. Go to the class website to see a full explanation of our agreements.