As we race our way towards spring, February seems to be flying by and with two short weeks in a row, a professional day Friday followed by Family Day on Monday. Before you know it we will be in March! This term is winding down and that means it is almost time for us to send home another progress report to families
. It is very important to check in on ourselves and see how we are growing and changing as students. It is important to celebrate our successes and set goals for the future. 
We know you have all been working hard on the goals you created at the end of last term so its time to think about how far you have come.
We have worked really hard exploring a number of topics this term. In Math, we have been focused on understanding fractions in Grade 5. You should all be able to compare and order fractions, create equivalent fractions, and solve word problems using pictures and calculations.
We had a check-in quiz on Wednesday and it is clear to us you have all improved in your understanding of fractions over the past few weeks. Next up, we will be exploring how to convert fractions into decimals and how fractions are really just division!
Our GOW for this week surrounds the long weekend. The question was, “If you could plan a Family Day weekend, what three activities would you choose to do?” There were lots of options to choose, but the one that most of the class chose was doing a winter sport ( skiing, snowboarding, skating, or sledding). I wonder if you asked your family this weekend if they would consider one of your plans this weekend? This GOW was sent home for homework… due on Tuesday for those of you who didn’t get it done at school.
We also had our Viola Desmond quiz on Thursday. We had to explain how certain images ( that we used in our mini-books) connected to Viola’s life story. 
As we were deeply concentrating and focused, a surprise fire drill interrupted our train of thought— which was very tough to get back when we came back inside. 
Add to that the excitement of having 4 days off… let’s just say that we will need a bit more time on Tuesday to finish that quiz.
We wrapped up our Laws of Motion unit by working with partners on an experiment to answer questions of our own making. You were all required to write a question, bring in materials, write a procedure, collect and record data, write a conclusion. 
Basically, you all conducted your own experiments from start to finish and they turned out great. In the end, you were asked to explain why your findings are useful in the real world. This means that you had to think about the application of your discovery. This activity was science at its best! It was fun watching you all explore, discuss and discover.
Coming up for the next term, we are going to talk about Extreme Environments, have you studied this topic before? What environments do you think would be considered ‘extreme’.
On Valentine’s Day we celebrated by exchanging cards and treats (thank you to all of you who brought in things to share with classmates) and we added some “love” themed work throughout the day.
In Literacy, 
we learned about heart and love idioms and explored some figurative language related to love as well. We had fun with Valentine themed word problems in math and even solved some valentine mysteries by finding patterns.
Valentine’s day would not have been complete without some free time to enjoy each other’s company! It was a great day all around and we hope you enjoyed it too.
On the horizon, we have a short week
Your Blog Response this weekend is…
Family day dreams… An activity I would love to do that might take a few hours or more is ___________________________. Something that can be done at home and includes all of my family is _______________________________. Finally, an activity that I have never done but would like to try is _______________________.
Have a wonderful EXTRA-LONG weekend Division 6! See you on Tuesday!
Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis