BIENVENUE À LA 5IÈME ANNÉE!

As the 2017-2018 school year begins, we are busy establishing routines and success criteria. We are focusing on a Growth Mindset, Group Work, Respect, Netiquette, and Positive Self-Talk.

We have a tentative class timetable that may change before the month is through, so please be prepared to adapt.

Your child has two teachers, myself and Mme Denbok.  Mme Denbok teaches les sciences, la musique, le drame, la danse et l'éducation physique (en français).  I teach all other subjects.  Mme Denbok can be reached at lhobindenbok@scdsb.on.ca  I can be reached at klemire@scdsb.on.ca klemire@scdsb.on.ca Please feel free to contact us whenever you feel that it is necessary.

SETTING STANDARDS

We discussed our image of la classe idéale, then from there established our class rules.  We all signed the contract.

TEAM WORK!  GROWTH MINDSET!

We participated in a variety of team building activities and group work situations such as Sauver Fred, Le pyramide de tasses, la dictée en course, and Four Fours.  From those experiences, we were able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of group/team work.  We created the success criteria for group work, so that we can all take full advantage of being part of shared learning activity.

The Running Dictée is a team dictée.  Each member of the team has a role, (runner, recorder, correctors), the roles switch every couple of minutes. The team works together, secretly, to transcribe their dictée correctly.

Save Fred!  Fred spent his summer sailing the Great Lakes.  Unfortunately, our little friend Fred does not know how to swim, nor did her put on his life saver.  You guessed it!  His boat capsized and students had to work together to save Fred before he drowned.  They had to retrieve the life jacket from beneath the boat, and put it on Fred (who was holding on to the boat for dear life).  All the maneuvers had to be completed without touching Fred, the life jacket, or the boat with hands.  Students had four paperclips to use as "hands".  Together, they tried, and tried again, to complete the task, while learning from their mistakes and fostering a cooperative spirit.

In the following team building and growth mindset activity, students worked together to build a pyramid, using an elastic band as the only way to touch the objects.  They could not touch the cups, nor the elastic with their hands.  Some teams became very frustrated, but all teams were able to learn from their mistakes, respect the leadership and ideas of others, and work together to accomplish their goal.

The first team to achieve their goal!!!

 In Math class, partners or groups of three, put their heads together to use four fours, with any combination of operations, to work towards building all the whole numbers from 0 - 50.  This is an ongoing challenge.

NO PUT DOWNS...POSITIVE ATTITUDE...GROWTH MINDSET...POSITIVE SELF-TALK

Ask your child to explain what led up to the following ceremony of burning our put downs.  Have him/her explain the power of our inner voice and the importance of positive self-talk.

In health class, and with the support of Mme Thompson, we have been learning about Internet safety and the Netiquette.  So far, this is the success criteria that we have come up with to help guide our online usage.

Another post will follow to show you what we have been learning in the different subject areas, but I just wanted to give you a sneak peek of how we are fostering the atmosphere that we want to maintain in our classroom throughout the year.