To help the students to participate in the loving act of sharing and giving during this time of Advent, they are invited to collect items to donate to the Shepherds of Good Hope.  At this time of year, there are many items the Shepherds need to assist the people who are staying at the shelter. The Grade 4 students are encouraged to bring in coffee mugs and cutlery; the Grade 5 students are encouraged to donate warm socks. Our class has set a target of 44 items (2 per student!) and we hope to be able to meet or exceed that goal, to make someone's Christmas a little more comfortable and happy. We ask that donations be brought into school no later than Thursday, Dec. 22nd, at which time the Shepherds will come to pick them up. Thank you for your generosity! A print letter will be coming home tomorrow, as will electronic email reminders.

We will be having a wonderful visit from famous Canadian author Eric Walters, who will speak to the students about social justice themes and education.  He is the author of many books which many be familiar to the students, and can be seen on his website at http://www.ericwalters.net/.  You can follow up with your child afterward and ask him/her what they learned from Mr. Walters during the visit!

A reminder on "Snow Days" when the busses are cancelled, the schools are still open.  If you choose to have your child attend school on "Snow Days",  however, you are responsible for ensuring your child arrives to and leaves from school on time, dressed appropriately for outdoor play, and with indoor shoes as usual.  Many students did not have indoor shoes today at school, or came without snow pants and mitts. Students go outside for recess as usual unless it is raining heavily or below -25, even when busses are not running. Kiss and Ride is not in operation during "Snow Days", therefore if you are picking your child up at the end of the day, you must park and come into the school to do so.  Thank  you for helping to keep your child safe!

Grade 4 assignment alert!

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The students are currently working on a SEQUENCING unit in Language Arts.  The writing assignment for this unit will be procedural writing.  To tie this activity in with Christmas, we will be writing HOW To…instructions for a Christmas themed activity.  Examples are:

-put up a Christmas Tree

-set up a Nativity Scene

-make or decorate cookies

-wrap a present                                        

-do a craft

-and many more…

I would like the students to take photographs of themselves doing 5-6 steps in their chosen activity.  They should email those photographs to themselves, or save them to their Google Drive. At school we will then create procedural writing slideshows.  If they prefer, students are welcome to draw clear, detailed pictures for each step.  These photographs or drawings are due at school on Monday, December 5th.

Thank  you in advance for your cooperation.  If you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Advent - We Prepare for the Birth of Jesus!

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent - the Sunday of Hope.  We have Hope in God's faithfulness to us, and in His promise to us of Eternal Life,  On Tuesday during 2nd block, the junior students will participate in the first of 4 Advent Liturgies to remind us of the importance of Hope in this season, and in our world today.

Our first field trip went very well! It was an interesting and informative experience to be inside the Parliament Buildings, see the view from the Peace Tower, and learn all of the interesting facts at the Mint!  I certainly learned a lot, and I'm sure the students did, too!  The weather, which was worrisome in the morning, turned out much better than expected and we had a pretty good day!  Ask your child the process for how a bill gets passed into law in Parliament, or what the gentleman from Dubai turned his million dollar .99999 pure gold Collector's coin from the Mint into.  That coin, due to the rarity (only 5 were minted), the purity (.99999 is the purest ever refined) and increase in the value of gold on world markets, is now worth 7.8 million dollars - so it's interesting what he made it into!

In Math this week, the Gr. 4 will be writing their survey questions, surveying the students in other classes, then using the data they tally to create bar graphs, double bar graphs, and other charts.  As well, they will be learning about Stem and Leaf plots.  Gr. 5 will be wrapping up the geometry unit with a quick quiz, then they will also be moving on to data management.  The emphasis in Grade 5 is on broken line graphs, among other types of graphs.

In Gr. 5 Language Arts, we have finished reading Beautiful Warrior, The Legend of the Nun's Kung Fu, and learned a lot about Chinese customs in the Ming Dynasty.  We will now be doing a shared reading on a humourous 8 page guide entitled Being a Genie: A Beginner's Guide.

As a  follow-up to this, the students will be designing their own beginner's guide on how to be something else of their choosing (a superhero, an acrobat, a wizard, etc). I look forward to reading their creative guides!  The due date on these will be Friday, Dec. 9 and they will not be presented orally unless students wish to share theirs aloud.

In Gr. 4 Language Arts, the students have completed their cereal box designs and most have filmed their commercials in front of the Green Screen.  They are very cute little media bytes!  I will upload them to their Hapara folders later this week so you can see them if you'd like to.

Keep an eye on the Calendar this week, we have a lot of special events during the week:
*Tuesday  - Advent Liturgy
*Wednesday - Public Health Nurse visits Gr. 5
                     - Eric Walters (author) visit, all grades
*Thursday - Girls Lacrosse - purple and grey

Trip tomorrow!

Congratulations to the Gr. 4 students who received their Bibles at the Bible Blessing Ceremony on Thursday morning.  While I was unable to attend (I was with my Gr. 5 homeroom class) I heard it went very well, and was well attended by parents.  Thank you to everyone who was able to come!

Congratulations also to our students who received certificates for the Gospel Value of Community at our Faith Assembly on Wednesday!  Sydney, Chase, Marcos and Izaac were recognized for:

• For promoting safety in school and on the schoolyard
• For including others
• For welcoming new students and staff
• For helping others during difficult times

Congratulations to the boys and girls who represented St. Clare at the volleyball tournaments:  Grace, Marie-France and Nick.

Our first field trip is tomorrow!  A couple of reminders:
-as we are under a snowfall warning according to the Weather Network - if the school buses are not running to school tomorrow (Snow Day), they will also not run for our trip, so the trip will have to be rescheduled.  Please listen to the radio, check http://www.ottawaschoolbus.ca/ or OSTA @OttSchoolBus on Twitter to stay informed of any cancellations.
-if the busses are running, the weather is going to be messy, so please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for it.  We will be outside for some time, walking from the bus to the Parliament buildings, from Parliament to the World Exchange Plaza for lunch and back, etc.  Boots, weatherproof coats, hats and mitts are recommended.
-students will need to bring their lunch and a water bottle as usual.  A small amount of cash to purchase a souvenir or extra beverage is permitted.  NO ELECTRONICS are allowed.  As students will have to leave their bags on the school bus during the tours of Parliament and the Mint, anything of value is best left at home. For security reasons, no bags are permitted in Parliament or the Mint.
-we are really looking forward to this fun and educational trip!  Let's hope the weather cooperates!

Other upcoming events:
*Gr. 4 students will have a presentation by the Public Health Nurse on Tuesday, Nov 22 at 10:30
*Gr. 5 students will have a presentation by the Public Health Nurse on Wed., Nov. 30 at 10:45


Math:  Gr. 4 students will have a quiz on symmetry, types of angles and quadrilaterals on Wednesday to wrap up our brief Geometry unit.  Gr. 5 students will be wrapping up the unit this week and will have a quick quiz next week, probably Monday, Nov 28 - so practice using those protractors!  Our next unit for both Grades will be Data Management (graphing).

Language Arts: Gr. 4 students are completing their Cereal Box assignment and writing their commercials, which they will film this week in front of the Green Screen.  Gr. 5 students were asked to make sure their Fractured Fairy Tales were completed by Tuesday (as we have a trip on Monday).  Our next unit will be Self-Monitoring, and the read-aloud is Beautiful Warrior. The students really enjoy the story! The follow-up (after the shared and guided reading components) will be a guide on How To Be A Genie, which offers the students an excellent opportunity to express their creativity!

This morning is our Remembrance Day ceremony. All are welcome to attend in the gym at 10:40 a.m.  Each student will be given a poppy to wear to the ceremony, and (optional) donations for the Poppy Fund will be accepted. As always, students who are part of Cubs/Beavers/Scouts/Sparks/Brownies/ Guides etc are encouraged to wear their uniforms to school.  The morning class has proudly made a wreath of poppies to lay at the "cenotaph" in the gym during the ceremony.

Yesterday, the Gr. 5 also participated in an art response activity.  We read a Remembrance Day book, then took the photograph below, cut it into 20 pieces, and each child recreated the piece they were given on a larger piece of paper using black chalk pastels.  Mrs. Sinkus was kind enough to teach them some shading and shadowing techniques before they began.  We then re-assembled the larger pieces into a mosaic that gives their own interpretation of the scene. 

Thank you to the parents who came out to interview night last night.  It was lovely to meet you / see you again!  I have telephoned most of the other parents, and am slowly working my way down the lists, so expect a call if I haven't contacted you yet, just to touch base and see how things are going from your end!

Other Reminders:

*Monday is Picture Retake Day - please let me know, via a note, a blog note, a phone call, or email if you would like a retake of your child's school photo.  Also, if you have not yet ordered a photo but intend to, send it in as soon as possible.  Thank you!

*Wednesday morning we will have a lockdown practice.  This is just a practice, to ensure children know what to do and where to go in case of an actual lockdown or emergency situation.  You are welcome to talk about it with your child to alleviate any anxiety beforehand.  We have practiced it in class briefly and answered questions already.

*Our next Faith Assembly is on Wednesday Afternoon, with certificates for Community being presented.  Remember to wear Purple and Grey!

*The Bible Blessing Ceremony for Grade 4 is on Thursday, Nov 17th, at 11:30 a.m.  The invitations made during Religion Class had the correct date, but wrong day, so please come and join the students on Thursday morning.

*Monday, November 21 will be our Field Trip to Parliament and the Mint.  Please refer to the handout that came with the permission slip for details.  Remember that your child needs a lunch, snacks, water bottle, and to dress warmly for approximately a half-hour to 40 minutes of outdoor walking and lunch time. We had so many parent volunteers for this trip, and can only bring 2, that 2 were randomly chosen and will be contacted by this Monday.  Thank you so much to everyone who volunteered!  I would have loved to bring you all, but we only had space for 2 per group on the Parliament and Mint tours.  I'm so sorry!

Crazy Hat and Hair Day tomorrow!

Thank you for the wonderful, generous support you have shown for our United Way fundraiser activities so far!  We have one last activity for the students to participate in tomorrow - Crazy Hat and/or Hair Day!  Bring a Loonie or a Toonie and sport your craziest 'do, or wear your favourite hat indoors for the day!  All of the proceeds go towards supporting students and their families in our OCSB schools.

Also coming home tomorrow is your child's Progress Report.  If you wish to book an appointment to see me, please use the You Can Book Me site, which will open tomorrow, and book a timeslot.  If you need more than 10 minutes, please feel free to drop me a line through the blog and we will meet before or after school some day.  If you would prefer a telephone interview, drop me a note along with the returned Progress Report envelope and I will give you a call.  If you feel an interview is not necessary at this time, you can drop me a note indicating that as well.  On the whole, I am very pleased with the progress of both groups so far - they are a very enthusiastic and engaged group of learners!

On a related note - I was very pleased with the scores on the recent math quizzes!  The Grade 4 students had an average of 98%! and the Grade 5 students had an average of 89%!  Both excellent averages! Congratulations to both groups.

School pictures went home yesterday, orders can be made through the school or online.  Class pictures went home with students today.

Permission forms went home yesterday for our first Field Trip of the year to Parliament and the Royal Canadian Mint. The permission slip is 2 pages - page 1 is the standard permission, money collection and volunteer form; page 2 is a double-sided permission form including medical concerns and acknowledgement of risks.  All 3 sides need to be signed and returned before Wednesday, Nov. 16th.  Thank you!  It should be a fun and educational experience!

We started a new Math unit today - Geometry.  The Gr. 4 students looked at symmetry by reflecting irregular shapes they created using regular polygons in a mirror line;  and the Gr. 5 students created and defined equilateral, isosceles and scalene triangles from straws and pipe cleaners.  Both activities were very hands-on, and they really enjoyed them!