FEBRUARY 11 , 2011 W E E K L Y U P D A T E

Dear Parents,

Gong Hei Fat Choi! I hope you had an excellent holiday with your family as you celebrated the Year of the Rabbit.

This has been a short week but filled with learning I can assure you. Students returned to class and immediately started consolidating their understandings of

fractional numbers. They were given an imaginary HKD 10,000 and went shopping online! Next week they will make some real world connections with this information

as they recalculate their numbers with discounts (Apple store and a 7.5% discount!) and taxes (only 4.5%!).

We’ve continued our exploration into our central idea through the read aloud novel Iqbal and our literature circles with The Breadwinner. We’ve revisited our concepts

of causation and responsibility and I was pleasantly surprised to see the excellent connections that the students are making.

If you link to the “Sharing the Planet” tab (here), you will find a variety of Public Service Announcements. The students deconstructed these announcements to come

up with some common features that they can consider when creating their own. These features are also listed and are totally derived from student discussions.

Next Friday, February 18, progress reports and portfolios will be sent home. I strongly encourage you to sit with your child and discuss the portfolio. Allow your

child some time to explain his/her learning and discuss how he/she is coming along with regard to the goals we established at the Three-Way Learning Review.

Please note: Swimming for Grade 5 will begin on Monday, February 28 and will follow the same timetable as last semester. 5A will have their swimming time on

Thursday.

Please refer to important information with regard to Spring into Reading on this

blog post.

Kind Regards,DJ MacPhersondonaldmacpherson@cdnis.edu.hk & http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/teachers/

donaldmacpherson//

Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit

GRADE 5A @ CDNIS