Ms. Davis Grade 5 (2023-2024)

Happy Friday! This week, students finished their adaptation research project, where they chose one animal to research. They learned about three behavioural and three physical adaptations of their animal, and considered how these adaptations helped their animal survive in a wetland. They also considered three issues facing their animal, and came up with adaptations that would help them face these issues. In Math, students finished their work on creating equivalent fractions and moved on to ordering and comparing fractions. They learned how to see which fraction is the greatest by finding the common multiple and creating two equivalent fractions. This allowed them to create fractions with the same denominator, where they could quickly determine which numerator was greater. We will continue our work with fractions next week before moving onto decimals. Students finished up their Atlantic Region projects in Social Studies, and will be moving on to other regions next week. They will be able...

This week, we finished our math unit on estimating and comparing whole numbers, and moved onto fractions. We worked to create equivalent fractions using fraction strips. Next week we'll be ordering and comparing fractions, then moving onto decimals. In Science, groups presented their findings of the physical and behavioural adaptations of different organisms. Next week, they will be completing an individual research project focused on the physical and behavioural adaptations of wetland animals, and the dangers facing these animals that may require them to adapt to their environment. We continued to focus on paragraph writing in ELAL, spending time on what makes a strong topic sentence. Next week, we will be moving to supporting details. We also started our next read-aloud, listening to the podcast Six Minutes. As we listen, students will be sketch noting their understandings, and using their ideas in various activities. We finished the week off with an outdoor movement break to enj...

Happy Friday! This week, students learned about the physical and behavioural adaptations of animals and plants, and how plants and animals adapt over time to increase their chance of survival. Next week, students will be starting a wetlands adaptation research project, where they will choose a specific wetland animal to research. In Social Studies, students explored the Atlantic Region of Canada. Using resources provided by their teacher, students practiced putting information into their own words. Next week, they will be completing their first 'pitstop', a project focused on the Atlantic Region. We finished our first read aloud of the year, Wishtree. In the next few weeks, we will be starting our first novel study, where students will be engaging with the text in more depth. We also started focusing on writing paragraphs, and students were introduced to the Hamburger Paragraph this week. Students continued to estimate and compare whole numbers during math, and will be having t...

Happy Friday! This week, we began looking into estimating and comparing whole numbers. Students examined what it means to estimate and compare, and began a partner activity where they must research real estate prices around Calgary, rounding and comparing the prices. We learned about the elements of a story, and began to chart the picture book 'Where the Wild Things Are' on a story mountain. In social studies, students started their Amazing Race inquiry project, where they are traveling to the six regions of Canada and learning about their natural resources, the Indigenous groups in the region and how the region contributes to the Canadian identity. In science, students learned about different types of animals and plants. They had a blast with their adaptation science experiment yesterday, where they had to choose one of four tools (a fork, a spoon, a chopstick or a straw) to pick up as many beans from rice as they could in only 30 seconds. Today we had our first community walk...