What a rainy week we had this week! It felt like everyday, someone came in with soaking wet feet, muddy clothes and often, soaking wet hair. It is the rainy season here in BC so this is a gentle reminder, bring an extra set of clothes (including socks and shoes) that you can leave here at school for the next few weeks until Spring Break. Many of you had to spend half a day soaking wet and shivering because you did not have any other clothes to change into. Also, don’t forget to bring boots and rain jackets every day. The weather here seems to change quickly and it is best to be prepared. We are sure that after Spring Break, we will have some better weather and MAYBE, we won’t have to play outside in such wet and muddy conditions.
Mrs. Gil was away sick for the last few weeks and so when she came back this week, she had a lot to catch up on.
She was happy with how much work you were able to get through while she was away and was even happier with the great feedback she got from the Teacher’s On Call who all said you were amazing to work with. You made Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil very proud! Thank you.
As February comes to an end, we have asked you to reflect back on the last three months and how much you have grown. We appreciate hearing from each of you about how YOU feel about your learning and growth as a student. 
We have seen tremendous growth in so many of you and we are excited to write progress reports that celebrate all your successes. Your voices are a very important part of the reports so we will be reading all of your reflections and doing our best to make sure your progress reports share all the juicy details of your growth in the last few months.
Ms.Petrovska has provided us with a overview of what you have been learning with her this term. Based on your reflections, many of you are enjoying her music class very much and she has helped you see your “music smarts”. This term she said you have been engaged in two ensembles: 
ukulele (focusing on strumming patterns and basic chords) and recorder (learning songs from the Recorder Karate Program while practicing proper posture, hand position and tone control). You explored the contributions of influential musicians and listened to a diverse
selection of jazz, blues, and ragtime pieces. Additionally, you watched a film about Johann Sebastian Bach, a renowned composer from the Baroque era, to gain insight into his life and musical legacy. Looking back and reflecting on the past term, you sure have explored and learned so much!
In Language Arts, we finished our good copies of our paragraphs about life without devices. Your paragraphs are really coming along and the feedback you are giving one another is definitely helpful. Introduction and conclusion sentences still seem to be the most challenging for most of you, but most of you have paragraph form down now. 
We are starting to focus a little more on reading comprehension now and this week, we learned about the “Author’s Purpose”. It is important to know what an author wants us to get out of their writing so knowing if something is meant to persuade, entertain, or instruct us is important to understand.
In Math this week, we worked on multiplying 2×1 and 3×1 equations. You seemed to get the hang of this quite quickly. It is awesome to see how quickly many of you are now able to recall your basic multiplication facts as you call out answers during our lessons.
Whether you are doing your Xtra Math practice everyday, or are practicing your times tables some other way, for so many of you the hard work is paying off now that we have begun multiplying larger equations. We also continued learning about area and how to calculate it. We worked on some practice pages to help strengthen and develop this concept further.
In Science, we have explored two types of rocks so far, Igneous and Sedimentary with one more to go, Sedimentary. It is great to see your enthusiasm and interest in this new topic. 
You are all getting the hang of testing for different physical properties to help identify the rocks as well. You have been using pennies, steel nails, scratch plates and your expert vision, to check rocks hardness and find other clues that may help you identify each rock.
On Thursday, we had our Geography check in/Assessment. It had three parts: facts about the continents and oceans, labelling these on a world map, and identifying some landmarks that can be found in North America, Europe, or South America. Spelling counted… BUT the list of the continents and oceans were available to copy.
Our “virtual travels” also took us to the continent of Asia. 
We practiced re-phrasing parts of the field guide in our words and we also watched some videos to learn a few more things about the biggest and most populated continent on earth. The Asia research assignment is on TEAMS and is homework ( Due on Thursday).
Our “Que Porter En Hiver” mini-me flip books are close to being finished! Some of you have already completed them and those of you who are not yet finished, keep working on them at home. They are due on Thursday of next week (Feb. 27th). Don’t forget to also review the Winter vocabulary so that you are ready for the check in on Thursday too!
For Career explorations this week, we did some work thinking about the difference between a “job” and a “career”. We asked you to think about what you MIGHT like to do for a career in the future and how much education you think you might want to have.
It was very interesting to see you explore your own interests and “smarts” through your answers to the small survey we gave you.
Many of you were surprised at what your surveys showed about you. Many of you “nature smart” or “music smart” people had never really seen yourself that way before. Next week, we will dive even deeper into specific roles and responsibilities in a variety of careers and see what other areas are of interest to you. More surprises are to come for sure!
Here is your Blog Response for this weekend.
Watch the video and take the quiz! You will find the video that you are to watch below. Once you have watched the video, as many times as you need, go to your Blog Response page. There you will find a link to a quiz. Take the quiz and in your response, tell us your score! Also, tell us two new things you learned from the video you did not know before watching it.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Gil