It seems as though everyone enjoyed their Christmas shopping at school last week. There were many excited faces in the halls.  We have a fun, busy week coming up before we are off for the holidays. We will be making a reindeer craft with an elf application to work in the North Pole as well as practicing our song for the concert on Thursday.  For the homework this week, I would like students to make cards for people they will be spending time with over the holidays. Please have your child include a drawing that is coloured and at least three positive comments about the person they are making the card for (e.g. “You are fun when we play cards together” or “You make me feel happier when I am sad about something”. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a restful and happy New Year. I am looking forward to the New Year with the students!

Math update: We have been creating graphs using the data we collected from our school wide survey on guinea pig names. We are organizing the data to find out which names are most popular for the primary and junior students. We will be creating double bar graphs to compare the data and see which names are voted most popular.

Language update: We have been researching guinea pig facts in order to create posters for a variety of locations in the school to educate the school population on the care and safety of guinea pigs. Students will have to create posters for different groups and ensure their information and pictures are presented in a manner which is appropriate for the target audience (e.g. those which will be in the staff room compared to those intended to inform kindergarten students).

We are happy to welcome two new additions to our class this week.  We  are very excited to have two guinea pigs as class pets.  We will keep the guinea pigs in the Learning Commons so all of the students in the school will be able to appreciate them.  Once they are settled in and are feeling comfortable, the grade 4’s will be able to help in their care.

Math update  We have been looking at interpreting and creating a variety of graphs this week. We will have the school vote on names for our guinea pigs so we can manage the data we receive in order to determine which name has the most votes.

Language update  We have been working on creating announcements to help inform the school of the guinea pigs’ arrival.  We will continue with media literacy as we create messages to educate ourselves and the school on the care and well being of the guinea pigs.