Grade 6 T-Shirt Order Forms Went Home Today

Today we sent home order forms for T-Shirts that have the St. Anne logo on the front and "Class of 15" on the back with each child's signature inside it. If you would like to order a shirt for your child, you can do either by:

1. ordering online directly from the company (the website is on the order form)
2. filling out the order form and writing a cheque to St. Anne School. We will send one order in from the school. 

I highly encourage online ordering for your own ease and because there is a 10% discount for doing so. I am a little unclear about whether the 10% is given to the school or applied to each individual's order. If it is given to the school, we will use the funds to reduce the cost of the end of year trip. Otherwise - enjoy!

You will notice on your child's form that the size has been indicated. This is because we tried on some samples at school and I recorder each child's size. They should be accurate. 

The deadline for ordering is March 13th. It is a very strict deadline, as the company has setup costs and will not repeat a run for only a few shirts. Thus, please order either online or by sending in the form with a cheque by March 13th if you are ordering. 

If your child has misplaced the order form, please print off the one attached below. Orders should take 2-3 weeks after the due date to arrive at our school. If you have any questions about the t-shirts or anything else, please feel free to contact me at school any time. Have a great weekend!

T-Shirt Order Form

Science Presentations - Our Solar System

Students in our afternoon class have been learning about our solar system. In groups they researched some specific facts about each planet and then found a few additional interesting facts about each planet as well. They were also encouraged to find a video or other type of media that explained the solar system. Here are the presentations:

Reminder - Grad photos are tomorrow!

Just a reminder that grad photos will take place tomorrow. Please have your child wear a white collared blouse for girls or a white collared shirt and tie for boys. Thank you!

Kingdom Club Raffle for Sens Tickets!

On Friday, February 27, 2015 the Kingdom Club will be having a raffle for 2 tickets to a Senators game, which will take place on March 6, 2015 at the Canadian Tire Center. The Senators will be playing the Buffalo Sabres. Kingdom Club students will be coming to the classrooms to collect money and write down names on tickets for students. Tickets cost $0.25 for 1 ticket and 10 tickets for $2.00. All money collected will go to support the Me to We Foundation.

Decimals Unit

We have spent a great deal of time learning about fractions in the last few weeks. It is important that students have a strong foundation in their understanding of fractions in order to better understand their relationship to decimals, percents, ratios and probability.

This week, we are beginning to learn about decimals. Below is a beginning Blendspace unit that covers the basics of decimals. It only shows decimals to the hundredths. In grade 6, we learn decimals up to the thousandths. This is a great place to start however, and reviewing this unit with your child can greatly assist them in developing their understanding of decimals.

In our unit on Decimals, we will be covering:

• relationship between fractions and decimals
• comparing and ordering decimals
• rounding decimal numbers
• adding and subtracting decimals
• multiplying and dividing decimals
• multiplying and dividing decimals by 10, 100, 100 and 0.1, 0.01, 0.001 (mental math)

Here is the link to the Blendspace unit on decimals. I will be adding to it as we go along:

Decimals Blendspace Unit

Reminder about Leaving Ceremony Photos

Leaving Ceremony (grad) photos will take place this Thursday, February 26. The company supplies a cap and gown and backgrounds. Students are asked to wear a white, collared blouse for girls, and a white collared shirt with a dark tie for boys.

After the photos are taken, proofs will be sent out to parents along with order forms. There is no retake day, so please ensure your child is at school on Thursday in the morning. If your child is unable to get his/her picture taken on Thursday, you will be able to get his/her picture taken at the main office at your convenience. If this is the case, I will find out more details for you.

If you have any questions about the photos or anything else regarding our leaving ceremony, please feel free to contact me at any time. Thank you!

Language Learning in Grade 6

I seem to write often about what we are covering math, less so about what we do in Language! I thought I should write a post about what we have been doing lately in our language class. 

Since the New Year, we have been learning about the reading strategy of Making Connections in Language. We teach students to make connections in order to better relate to the text and better understand it. There are 3 types of connections that we generally make:

1. Text to Text - when we relate what we are reading to another book or text we have read
2. Text to Self - when we relate what we are reading to an event that has happened in our own lives
3. Text to World - when we relate what we are  reading to something that we know about that has happened in the world. 

In class we read a story called "Ryan and Jimmy and the Well in Africa that Brought them Together". This was read as a read aloud - I read it to the class - and had students answer questions about the story in their notebooks. This is an excellent, true story about a boy from Kemptville who has started a foundation to help provide clean water to thousands of people around the world. Students were able to make many connections to the text because it is similar to the founders of the ME to We movement, of which our students are very aware. 

We have also been reading Tuck Everlasting in class. In this story, we are learning that not everything that seems perfect is so. We read the story together and answered questions in pairs, groups and individuals. We are going to be completing a book summary of the story in the coming week. The students really seemed to enjoy this story. 

We have also been learning about formal letter writing and how it is different from writing a friendly letter. We have written a letter together as a class, have written letters with a partner and now will be writing a letter to Ryan and Jimmy asking them to come to the school to speak to our class. 

As part of Media, we will be reading a poster called "Are You Water Wise?" and making posters of our own to promote water conservation in our homes. We will be discussing some of the elements that advertisers use to gain our attention and make posters stick out in reader's minds. 

Our next language unit will focus on the strategy of Predicting. In this unit we will be reading a newspaper written from a pet's point of view and writing news articles of our own.  

Thursday is National Sweater Day!

Thursday, February 5th is National Sweater Day! St. Anne will be turning down the heat (by 2 degrees Celcius) and turning up our sweaters in the name of energy conservation. We are going to have a lot of fun (with a sweater contest!) and help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions! Two winners will be selected for each of the following categories, Most Earthy, Most Colourful, Coziest, Wackiest, and Sportiest.... So BE CREATIVE, ORIGINAL, and COZY, and most important, have fun!

Next Mathematics Unit - Fractions!

We are beginning a new unit in math - Fractions! This is often a challenging unit for students, but it is vitally important since a strong understanding of fractions assists students in better understanding other concepts such as decimals, percent, ratio, rates and probability.

In this unit, we will be learning about:

• what a fraction is
• equivalent fractions
• mixed numbers and improper fractions
• comparing an ordering mixed numbers and fractions (on a number line and otherwise)
• Adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators

I have begun compiling some websites that can help students practice these concepts at home in a Blendspace unit. Here is the link:

Fractions Blendspace Unit

After learning about fractions, we will be moving on to decimals, and from there working on percent, ratio, rates and probability.