Mid-October

Voting

The middle of October has been an exciting time as we have learned about elections in Social Studies with Mrs. Rogala. Students have been learning about the Canadian government over the past few weeks including the difference between dictatorships and democracies, the roles and responsibilities of different levels of government, and about the main candidates and party platforms in our own riding during the federal election. The other two Grade 4/5 classes also learned about the same topics and we had a rally for the election on Friday, Oct. 16th. Each party leader made a short speech which included a promise for their campaign platform and their party chanted a slogan or sang a song. Students voted by ballot later in the day through a program called Student Vote. Our student team bloggers that week, Izzy and Nathan, decided to write their highlight about this experience:

This week in room 15, 16, and 18 we learned about government and had a school election. We had four different parties including Liberals, Conservatives,  N.D.P. and Green, and those are all the parties. Every Grade 4 and 5 voted and we are still waiting for the results. We will tell you the answers when we find out. (By Izzy and Nathan).

*Update: The Conservatives were elected at Linwood School. They ran on a campaign promise of a bake sale which will benefit a charity/charities chosen by the students. Students discussed the outcomes of the school election as well as the significance of the Liberal majority government in our federal election.

In English Language Arts, students have continued to write their autobiographies and some have begun the editing process. We spent some time this last week for on-demand writing assessments. Students wrote using a writing prompt: convince your reader that Canada is a great country. I enjoyed reading the students writing and found the assessment to be a helpful tool in identifying student writing goals for the school year. In Math, we are working on problem-solving routines as well as math centers to practice fast facts and develop our math vocabulary. In French, we are reading our first basic books and we are using those books to learn about basic sentence structures. In Health of this week we are learning about dog bite prevention and dog safety. In Visual Arts, we will finish our quilt art projects and spend some time on Halloween decorations and choice drawing. As always, our readers are welcome and encouraged to comment on our blog.

Election Rally