This week was full of fresh air and clear skies. It was a little chilly outside, but it was dry so all your breaks were dry and full of fun!
We continued our work around recognizing our past accomplishments and planning for what comes next. Starting 2025 by looking at our successes and how we accomplished our goals is really helping us make new and achievable goals for the new year. We are so impressed with how well you know yourselves and how you apply the SMART strategy when setting these new goals. Paragraph writing has been a focus for us
lately so we combined goal setting with paragraph writing and you all wrote a paragraph explaining your own accomplishments. Doing this helped you understand how important it is to know how to write a clear paragraph. We use paragraphs in all kinds of ways in all different subject areas. Once you have the form down, your ideas will flow and your writing will be clear. You are all getting there, way to go! 
During our weekly GOW ( Graph of the Week) you also get to practice this skill as you respond to our weekly survey question. This week we asked “What are your favourite winter sports” and you wrote a paragraph describing your top three out of the choices given. Many of you took this home to finish, because we just didn’t get it fully done while at school. Please have that finished and in the IN BOX before Thursday.
Our study of the moon centered around the phases the moon goes through every month. We learned that there are eight phases and we discussed how the phases even happen. Next week, we will be looking at how the moon is related to Ocean Tides. Also, we will be learning about how Indigenous People value the moon and sun and also how they discovered a lot of the science around what is happening in the sky.
We are building our understanding of Multiplication. This week we learned that you can multiply numbers using simpler multiplication facts that you already know.
Also, we used mental math strategies to relate unknown facts to known facts. You started your work in pairs with a known fact and used it to figure out unknown facts. As well, you were also asked to start with an unknown fact and related it to known facts.
Our study of GEOGRAPHY is up and running! This week we were introduced to the 7 Continents and the 5 Oceans of the world. The continents are the areas of LAND that make up the earth and the Oceans are the large water bodies around the land. 
We watched two You Tube videos that helped us gather some facts about each continent and each ocean. We also labelled and coloured a map of the world. Some of you took the map home to finish the colouring. Remember, the water is being coloured blue and land is coloured green. The only continent that we left white on our map was ANTARCTICA, because it is frozen and covered with ice for most of the year!
Our final Young People’s Concert was on Wednesday. It was a spectacular show brought to us by Rainbow Dance Theatre. 
The group uses LED lights and darkness to Ilumidance. Remember, that was the made up word the Director used to describe what their form of dance. It was amazing to see how they made their own props and choreographed such cool dances. There were owls and serpents, butterflies, and beautiful flowers. The dancers were costumed in electro-luminescent wire and fibre optic fabric while they danced to classical, tango and modern music motifs. What was your favourite part of the performance? Can you explain the performance to your parents?
Speaking of performances… your Reader’s Theater lines should be getting close to being memorized! Next week on Thursday and Friday, your group will be doing a dress rehearsal for the rest of the class. This should be like a “run through” of your performance… and you should be as close to ready as you can be. After each group performs, you will receive feedback from your classmates and from Mrs. Davis. Final performance and assessment will happen the following week ( Jan 30 and 31st).
Your Blog Response for this week is:
How do you feel about performing? What do you enjoy about it? What do you find challenging?
Have a wonderful weekend Division 7!
Mrs. Gil and Mrs. Davis