Last week before Christmas Break!!!! Don't forget to get secret Santa gifts in by Thursday. We will open them on Friday. Friday is also PJ day, ending with a full school movie in the gym. All students need to have their fairy tale rough copies finished and be typing them this week. The students can log into their school accounts by going to the Norkam website and following the Free NX Linux Access link. You may need to update Java first, but then they can access their writing at home. When we return in January, they will edit and begin to draw the pictures.  You should have also received a permission slip for the tubing trip on January 13th. Please get the permission and money in A.S.A.P.  As always, if you have any questions please contact me at the school by phone or email rbonderud@sd73.bc.ca.  Have a great Christmas break and see you in 2012.

It's a short, but busy week. Wednesday afternoon is the dress rehearsal for the Christmas concert and Thursday and Friday afternoons are the performances. Don't forget to continue looking for or making creative gifts for our Secret Santa gift exchange, which will occur December 16th. 

READING and WRITING
The students have been reading fairytales, and they began creating their own original fairytales. We brainstormed the elements of a fairytale and they were all given the assessment rubric. They need to have a rough copy finished and be  ready to start typing by next Tuesday (December 13th). The goal is to have the fairytale completely written and typed into the word processor by the middle of January, so they can then begin illustrating (which will take several weeks). This week we will also learn about words that are often confused in writing, such as all ready and already, breath and breathe, cloths and clothes, desert and dessert, lose and loose, etc.

MATH
We will continue to work on multiplication of 2-digit by 1-digit, 2-digit by 2-digit, and with decimals. We did a quiz last week, but it was obvious by the results that the students needed more time with this concept. Many of the students still do not have their times tables mastered, which is making it very difficult for them to have success. Please continue to work on mastery at home.