Good Afternoon Everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful night! Tomorrow is Day 4. Specialist are canceled as they will be in parent-teacher conferences all day.  Tomorrow is PJ day (for those who are not participating, please wear the full school uniform) and our in class spelling bee for Grade 5 and 6! Please arrive to school on time as we will be starting the spelling bee at 9am sharp! We will go over all the rules of the spelling bee with students prior to beginning. Tomorrow is also student-led conferences. Please be reminded that this is student-led and each conference will last only 10 minutes. An alarm will be used to keep us on track!Please return the last page of the report card with your comments by Friday, April 5. 

After care notices have been sent out. To avoid late charges please make sure your payments are in by April 15th!

Thursday: Pyjama Day
Friday: Electronics Day/ Casual day for those who paid

Spelling Bee packages and lists were sent home. Please use the list to study for the in-class competition. The Grade 5 Spelling Bee in-class competition will take place tomorrow, first thing in the morning. The top 6 from all Grade 5 classes will move onto the SJA Spelling Bee Competition. The Grade 6 spellers will make their way to the Grade 6 class tomorrow as well, were the top 6 Grade 6 students will move on to the SJA Spelling Bee Competition. 

Inquiry into Language

Today in language some students started to practice for student-led conferences tomorrow and some students worked on finding school work to present during their conferences. We also practiced for our in-class spelling be that will take place tomorrow at 9:00am sharp!

Spelling Bee Practice

Due dates for Hatchet:

Chapters 1-3 due Friday, March 29^th

Chapters 4-6 due Friday, April 5^th

Chapters 7-9 due Friday, April 12^th

Chapters 10-12 due Thursday, April 18^th

Chapters 13-15 due Friday, April 26^th

Chapters 16-19 will be a culminating activity with due date to be announced.

Inquiry into Mathematics

Today in math we explored ratios. A ratio is a comparison of 2 quantities with the same unit.  A ratio can be used to compare a part of a set to another part of the set or to compare a part of a set to the whole set. For example, there are 9 rabbits; 4 brown and 5 white. The ratio of brown rabbits to white rabbits is 4 to 5. The ratio of 4 to 5 is written as 4:5. This is a part-to-part ratio. An example of a part-to-whole ratio is 4 brown rabbits to 9 whole rabbits, or 4:9, or 4/9. Remember when you are writing your answer to include the two things you are comparing. For example, What is the ratio of 5 bananas and 3 oranges. Bananas to oranges = 5:3 or 5 to 3. 

We also learned about equivalent ratios. You can find equivalent ratios by multiplying or dividing the terms of a ratio by the same non-zero number. For example, Kim is planting a border in her garden. She plants 5 marigolds for every 3 geraniums. The ratio of marigolds to geraniums is 5:3. How many geraniums would she need to plant for each number of marigolds 10, 15, and 20? One way to find out is to use a table. 

Marigolds	Geraniums	Ratio of Marigolds to Geraniums
5	3	5:3
10	6	10:6
15	9	15:9
20	12	20:12

We went up by 5s for marigolds and by 3s for geraniums. We multiplied 5 x 2, 5 x 3, and 5 x 4 for the marigolds and for the geraniums we multiplied 3 x 2, 3 x 3, 3 x 4. 

Therefore, 5:3, 10:6, 15:9, and 20:12 are all equivalent fractions.

Points to remember:

Remember what we do to the denominator we must do to the numerator. If we multiply the denominator by 3, then we must multiply the numerator by 3 as well.

Remember to simplify your fractions and convert improper fractions to mixed numbers.

How to add/subtract fractions - if the fractions have the same denominator, we simply add/subtract the numerators. For example, 1/6 + 4/6 = 5/6 & ¾ - ¼ = 2/4 = 1/2. However, if the denominators are different our first step is to find the lowest common denominator. For example, 1/3 + ½ = 2/6 + 3/6 = 5/6 & 5/6 – ½ = 5/6 – 3/6 = 2/6 = 1/3. 

Percents - we want to keep the number 100 in our mind. When changing a fraction to a percent, we use the numerator to help us. For example, 23/100 = 23 percent. If we have a fraction that is over 10, 20 or 25, we need to make it over 100. We will need to multiply 10 by 10, 20 by 5 and 25 by 4. Remember to do the same to the numerator. For example, 6/10 = 60/100 (10 x 10 and 6 x 10) = 60 percent. We also looked at decimals. Remember if it is out of 100, then there will need to be two spots filled in after the decimal point. For example 23/100 = 0.23 and 7/100 = 0.07.

Estimating a percent - remember when we think of percent, we need to think ‘out of 100.’ Here is an example 

–> Sylvie has a collection of 197 sports bobbleheads. About 25 percent of them are hockey players. Estimate the number of hockey players. 

Step 1) Round 197 to 200. 

Step 2) Find 25 percent of 200. 

Step 3) Find an equivalent fraction with the denominator 200…25/100 = 50/200 (25 x 2 and 100 x 2). Therefore, 25 percent of 200 is 50. 

->Of the 30 students in Larry’s class, 14 of them take the bus. Estimate the percent of the students who take the school bus. 

Step 1) Round 14 to 15, which is ½ of 30. Therefore 14 is almost ½ of 30.

Step 2) ½ = 50/100 (percent is out of 100 – 2 x 50 and 1 x 50)

So, almost 50 percent of the students take the bus.

  

Textbook practice

Unit of Inquiry 

Today in UOI students had time to complete their tree classifying system on invertebrates. Next, students had a chance to be inquirers and were able to gain a greater knowledge on an invertebrate of their choice. Students used their research skills to complete the invertebrate research activity. 

Biodiversity is another short unit. We will have roughly 3-3.5 weeks of learning and 1/5-2 weeks for our summative, which will be due sometime during the last full week of April. More information to come in the upcoming weeks. 

Research on Invertebrates

And the most exciting time of the day.. Spirit Assembly! Today Mrs. Hocevar and Mrs. Padovan was the lucky teacher to get pied in the face. We will not pie a teacher in the face tomorrow due to parent- teacher interviews, thus we will pie TWO teachers in the face on Friday!! Who will it be? Mr. Conte? Mrs. Haag? or Mr. Foster? We shall see!

Homework/Reminders:
- Math lesson #9 due tomorrow
- In class spelling bee on tomorrow

- PJ Day tomorrow for those who paid- Literature circles due Friday
- Spelling test on Friday 

Important Dates/Items:

Monday, April 1 – Friday, April 5 – Spring Fundraiser

Wednesday is Ice Cream Day

Thursday is PJ Day

Friday is Casual Day & Dance Party (JK-Grade 2)/Electronics/ Casual Day - for those who paid(Grades 3-6)

Monday, April 8 – JK-Grade 2 Spelling Bee

Tuesday, April 9 – Grade 3-8 Spelling Bee

Friday, April 12– Spring Fundraiser trip to Scooter's

Thursday, April 18 – SITS workshop & Easter Spirit

Friday, April 19-Monday, April 22 – No School – Easter Weekend

Wednesday, April 24 – Bake sale & casual day
Friday, April 26 – Rock climbing, bake sale & summer uniforms begin

Tuesday, April 30 – Silent Dance

Have a great night!

Love,
Ms. Cass