Our day started out with our normal routine, and we started a new chapter book.  The girl in the book (Rilla) is worried about the big fitness competition thats coming up, or the bike part anyway!  Do you remember why?  In math we reviewed and introduced a new strategy called "Regrouping".  This is going to be like all our math, hard at first, then easy once we practice a bit!  We did Fast ForWord after recess, and played outside today (unless you were in choir).  After lunch we played scooter floor hockey in gym and had You and Your World with Mr. Lange.  In Art we finally got to decorate our book boxes!  Remember Interim reports go home tomorrow!  Get lots of rest, and I'll see you in the morning.

Today in Math we worked on Fact Families for the number 10.  That means all the math sentences where the number 10 is the answer.  How many can you remember?  We also worked on making relationship tree's to go with our fact families.  Do you remember how are adding and subtracting alike?  We continue to work in the computer lab doing Fast For Word and in the afternoon we worked with Mr. Lange and Mrs. MacIssac.  In gym we worked on different ways we could make a dance for the Ian Baillie "So you think you can Dance" Competition.  Our music can only be 30 seconds long, and our dance must have four elements: Start, Balance, Turn, Finish.  Can you teach your family how to do one of those 4 things?  Have a great night and get lots of sleep.

WELCOME BACK!   The first day of school for 2011!  We were an excitable bunch today, but better than a sleepy bunch!  We dove right in!  In Language Arts we previewed the new computer program that we will be using starting tomorrow called Fast ForWord.  We talked about how it can make new pathways in our brain, want to take a sneak peak, check it out at:  http://www.scilearn.com/products/fast-forword-reading-series/reading-lev...  There are demo's here and a bit about the program. We also talked about using hooks to start our story.  We came up with some good "hooks" to start our story.  A hook is the first sentence we write in order to "hook" the reader and make them want to read more!  Do you remember any hooks we came up with?   Check back soon with our new Calgary Project to hear some good hooks.   In math I was so happy I almost cried, the whole class remembered the answer to the question I asked them!  "How are adding and subtracting alike?"   They took one look at the relationship tree I drew on the board and said "adding and subtracting are alike because they show the relationship between numbers!"  It made reviewing how to make a fact family easy.   Then we worked on making a paper calculator for adding.  Do you remember how we did it?  (hint: number 0 to 9 across a top row, and 0 to 9 down the first column... can you fill in the chart)  In PE today we used the "big-feet".  We did this to practice walking with something on our feet!  Which is why we need to bring our snowpants everyday..... right!Check the memo's there are 2 hot lunch orders this week!  Have a great night and get lots of sleep!  

Well we didn't win The Great Door Contest!  No first place finish this time.  I was very proud of our class, we did our best, and we lost with dignity.  Do remember the name of the movie with the boxer who lost, but lost with dignity that Mr. McCallum likes? We did recieve honorable mention, mostly due to our presentation today with the judges.  It went as follows: 1. (Camden)  Unlike the other classes who just did a door, we did an enterence, an experience actually.  Please follow our team to learn more! 2. (Michael)  At first glance you might see an igloo at the North Pole, BUT some things dont seem right?  Do we have a mystery at Ian Baillie? 3. (Robin)  Penguins at the North Pole?  Of course not, these are statues!  They put gargoyles on castles to scare off evil spirits.  But who are the penguins meant to scare? 4. (Spencer) Do you think its strange that the direction arrow says "North Pole" and it points away, when clearly this is the North Pole! 5. (Zoe)  Please follow me (into the igloo).  This looks like a normal igloo at first, with handmade snowbricks, but if we push further what will we find?  (push past mat into the class room) 6. (Eryn greets judges, the rest of the class has on elf hats doing Daily 5 work)  Hi my name is Eryn the Elf!  You've found the secret enterence to Santa's workshop and solved the mystery!  Congratulations!   The kids knocked it out of the park!  Great job everyone!  The magician was amazing, other than the fact he tried to cover me in egg yolk good thing I had some magic to save me!  Have a great weekend, and hopefully next week we will have another special guest from China come visit us!  See you Monday!  

Im back!  I was sick for the last few days of school but Im feeling much better now.  Zoe did a great job for the Ian Baillie Christmas Count Down (check it out on the main page).  In our Clementine book today, Clementine had a great idea that involved Cherrio's, do you remember what it was?  We also had our first joint practice with Mrs. Hache's class for the Christmas Concert!  IM getting excited!   Stay tuned for a video preview (coming soon).  The agenda did say to get spelling tests signed today, but we didn't even have the test today!  Its our first order of business for tomorrow!  Im sure everyone will do great.  Christmas is coming quick, and things are starting to get very busy, so try to get lots of sleep and we'll see you in the morning!