Our first official field trip is under our belts! Many thanks to all the volunteers (Pia, Melissa, Lorraine) for their help. We managed to get everyone on and off two buses (both directions) safely and I think they might even allow us back on the bus again in the future! The students were incredibly responsible and polite. I will try and load some photos later tonight!

We enjoyed many things about our field trip. Our "Day in Space" session was a highlight for all. It might be informative to ask your child what they learned about living in space. We had a very entertaining leader who kept the students' interest throughout the presentation. During the final session, Harold and the Solar System, we learned that there are two planets which are visible in our sky right now: Jupiter, which can be seen in the evening, and Venus, which can be seen in the early morning. Here is a website which will tell you the times when the International Space Station is visible in the sky:  http://www.heavens-above.com/ For those of you with an iphone, there is a really cool app called Star Walk which helps you identify what you see in the night sky!

In the classroom, the students really enjoyed an activity called Earth as a Peppercorn. This activity helps students to understand the relative sizes of the planets in relation to one another. See what they can remember!

Culture Posters have all been proudly displayed in the hall outside of our classroom. I will keep them up about a week and then take them down so they won't get damaged. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the paragraphs and seeing the students' hard work on the final project.

Professional Development! I had an amazing day on Friday, October 21. A few staff members from Wolfe attended a session with Marc Landry, who is an occupational therapist. The workshop was called Hey! My brain doesn't work that way! Understanding Sensory Processing, Promoting Self-Regulation, Supporting Stress Management. He talked a lot about the way the brain learns. He also discussed some of the general differences between a girl's brain and a boy's brain. It was so interesting. I have been sharing little tidbits of information with the students this week. If anyone is interested in hearing him speak, there will be another session on Saturday, November 19. Check out the website for more information (http://marclandrynov19.eventbrite.com/).

In language arts, students are learning how to do a good retell of a story. To practice, I asked them to retell a familiar story (perhaps a story that was read to them frequently as a young child). They are learning to talk about the main characters, the problem, the important events and the solution. This is a great way to check their basic comprehension. You can help your child think of a story to retell for their first assignment. It should be a fictional story with identifiable characters and a problem/solution.

We are learning some of the beginning skills for volleyball in Physical Education. So far, we have learned the set (overhead pass) and the bump (underhand pass).

In Music, we have been learning a few new songs. One of our action songs came in handy today while waiting at the bus stop! Last Thursday, we enjoyed using musical instruments to create sound effects for a spooky Halloween song.

Almost all students have completed their second art project. We collected fall leaves and made tissue paper rubbings. Then we cut out the tissue leaves and arranged them on our paper in an interesting composition. Finally, we painted a wash of blue paint for the background. The final results are stunning!

We have just completed our math unit on Patterns and Algebra. I think the highlight activity for students was 'Alien Math'. I create an equation using a letter or symbol to represent an unknown number/operation. Students have to figure out what the symbol represents. Here is an example:

3n = 10
1n = 8
5n = 12

What does the 'n' represent?

Finally, in Health and Career Education, our learning focused on the benefits of physical activity. Students learned about the 90:90 challenge. This first 90 represents the 90 minutes of daily physical activity that kids their age should be getting and the second is the limited amount of screen time (TV, video games, computer) that students should be getting. We also learned about the three aspects of physical activity: endurance, flexibility and strength.