GEOMETRY RESOURCES

I have placed 7 resource sheets for geometry on the class web site. I strongly encourage students to look these over at home and then print them out. I will also be placing these sheets on a larger chart and leaving them up in the room. It is critical for this unit that students understand the attributes of figures and how to use those attributes to sort, name and organize 2d and 3d figures. The sheets are for both the grade 5 and grade 6 students. I would appreciate that parents just leave me a quick note in the agenda next week that indicates whether your child has looked at and downloaded the resource sheets. You can follow the link below to get directly to the page on the website that has the resource sheets.

https://sites.google.com/a/mytools2go.ca/mr-francia-5-6/homework

Follow up to the Flip

Last night students previewed a learnzillion video that took them through the steps to measure angles. Now we can move to actual guided practise in the classroom. My lesson time was reduced to a quick 5 minute review and now we can help kids actually using he protractor to measure angles. 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

The students were sent home with an observation assignment. They have Wednesday and Thursday night to take notes while someone in the house performs a task. It could be dad cooking, mom doing laundry or even an older sibling cleaning their room or performing choirs.  We are working on the IDEA TRAIT for writing. One of the strategies for this trait is to observe the ordinary things that happen every day and describe them in interesting and novel ways. I am sending home the worksheet tonight with the students.  I have included a picture of the mentor text that we used in class highlight the IDEA TRAIT.

THANK YOU

LEARNZILLION-flipping the classroom

PLEASE follow the link below to learnzillion. Watch the video and make notes. Below there is a letter to parents that explains the goals of learnzillion. The lesson below is a video that shows them how to use a protractor.

http://learnzillion.com/lessons/2973-measure-angles-to-the-nearest-degree-with-protractors

Parents and Guardians,
Many of you have asked how you can support your student’s learning at home. Here is an important way you can do that.

Go to www.learnzillion.com. LearnZillion is a website that provides teachers and parents with video lessons showing what your student needs to learn each year. The videos include a 3-5 minute "teaching" video and a short “practice” video where students can see if they understand the lesson. 

For now, I will be posting a link to the videos on our class blog. If you haven't done so already, please visit the class blog and scroll down to the very bottom of the blog. There you will see an email sign-up for the blog. Once you sign up you will be alerted to any new submissions to the blog.
Your student can watch the videos alone or with you. Have your student take notes while watching. He/She can take a piece of paper and breaking the front page into the following sections:

• What is this lesson about?
• Review
• Mistakes to avoid
• The main thing to learn

He/she can use the back of the paper to work on the practice problem in the “guided practice” video. Initially there will not be practice videos, once everyone is comfortable watching the videos I will give the students a username and password to access the site and direct them to our class page on the site.

Thank you for supporting your student’s learning at home. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,

Mr. Francia

Geometry

We are starting geometry this week. Today we explored a variety of shapes and classified them using a variety of criteria. We are encouraging them to discover the sorting rules on their own. The idea is that they will discover what shapes have in common rather than being told.

Ronald McDonald House funds

The money just keeps coming in!! Way to go guardians!! Please send me pictures of our students doing activities to raise money for our Ronald McDonald House fundraiser. Here is another student raking leaves to raise money. It's very moving to see all these students volunteering their time and efforts for  a very worthy charitable organization.

THANK YOU !

As you know, the grade 5/6 class has been raising money for the Ronald McDonald house. The students have really responded and raised money through various means. One of our students and their family also held an event to benefit ovarian cancer. They were kind enough to direct some of the funds raised at their event to our fund raising efforts. I just want to thank the Czudner family for helping out with our cause. I have included some photographs from the event they organized at Essex Golf Course.