On Friday March 31, our class led a school assembly on optimism.

Mr. McGaughey told the whole school that they had to come to school on
Saturday April 1 because of all the snow days that we missed. Then our
whole class jumped up and said "APRIL FOOL!"

Click on the picture to see the slideshow we made for the assembly (you
need adobe acrobat or reader).

The students in the primary division (JK- Grade 3) are invited to wear seasonal colours or Hallowe’en clothing for a short parade through the school on Friday Morning. Please ensure that your child’s costume is over top of other clothes which will be worn for the remainder of the day. Also remind your child that all clothing must be taken home the same day. This is especially important if it is the costume to be worn on Hallowe’en.

We will be having Hallowe’en activities in our classroom in the morning. Instead of a Hallowe’en party with sweets, we will have a class luncheon. Please feel free to bring a healthy snack or drink to share for our lunch. In the afternoon, we will have regular classes. Thank you– Mr. McGaughey

Mr. McGaughey’s Grade 4

February Newsletter

Please visit our new class website regularly at
http://par.scdsb.on.ca/classes/mcgaughey

New on the Website: 126 Ways to Show You Care, mp3 recordings of each
child’s speech, How to Play Doctor Dodgeball .

As the year progresses I will continue to post reminders, classroom
news, and examples of student work on our class web page.

Speech Presentations in Gym: Wednesday February 8, 12:30pm: 2 Students
from each junior class will be presenting their speeches. The
representatives from our class will be Tommy Tripp on snowboarding, and
Gillian Hutton on the Trent-Severn Waterway.

Units this Month:

Tuesday February 14: Scholastic Arrow book orders due.

Science: We are continuing our unit on Properties of Light and Sound.

Science Quiz—Light and Sound- February 20

Language Arts: We will be continuing our novel study of Chocolate Fever
Robert Kimmel Smith.

Health and Phys-Ed, Drama and Dance: We are learning dances such as The
Bunny Hop, and the Chicken Dance. Our focus in Phys-Ed is on aerobic
fitness and healthy lifestyles.

Math: Chapter 7: 2D Geometry: To be completed by Feb 14. Test Chapter 7:
Monday February 13

Chapter 6- Multiplication and Division Facts

For about three weeks, your child will be learning multiplication and
division facts to 9×9 =81. We will be using a variety of strategies to
remember these facts. The goal will be for your child to either recall
or be able to apply a strategy to find each fact. We will also be using
these facts to multiply by multiples of 10, such as 60, 80, and 200.

Throughout this time, you and your child can practise some activities
such as the following:

• Your child can look around for things that come in 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and
9s. Then they can ask and answer questions, such as “Our house has 5
front steps. How many front steps would 6 houses like ours have?” (30)

• Your child can use division to show sharing packaged or sets of
objects equally among family members. For example, this package has 24
cookies. Each person in our family can have 6 cookies because 24 ÷4 =6.

• Your child can locate items that come in arrays and identify the fact
family for each array. For example, a carton of eggs shows an array. The
fact family is 2×6=12, 6×2=12 , 12÷2 =6, and 12÷6=2.

• Your child can find items that have a measure which is a multiple of
10 or 100. Then they can ask and answer questions, such as “A new bar of
soap is 90 grams. How many grams are in 6 new bars of soap?” (540) and
explain how they know. (6×9 tens is 54 tens. 54 tens is 540.)

You may also want to visit the Nelson Web site at www.mathk8.nelson.com
for more suggestions to help your child with these units.

Sean McGaughey

Parkview School Phone #526-2091

Coming Up in Grade 4 January 13-20

Mr. McGaughey’s Grade 4 Class Parkview School

Please visit our new class website regularly at
http://par.scdsb.on.ca/classes/mcgaughey

New on the Website: How to make a towel print, The Twelve Days of
Christmas Rewritten, Book Fair Posters.

Reminder: January 17: 6:30 pm- Parkview School: EFSL Information
Meeting. EFSL Registration will be January 20-25 in the school office.

January 19: Scholastic Arrow book orders due.

Language Arts: Daily reading and Writing.

Speeches: Your children will be working on their speeches in class for
the next two weeks. They may sometimes bring speech home to practice.
Presentations in our class will be on the week of January 31- February
3. The school presentation will be on the following week.

Math: Chapter 5: Linear Measurement and perimeter, using mm, cm, dm, m
and km.

Science: Continuing investigations and experiments with the properties
of sound and light.

Phys-Ed.: Continue pre-volleyball skills unit.

Mr. McGaughey’s Grade 4

January Newsletter

Please visit our new class website regularly at
http://par.scdsb.on.ca/classes/mcgaughey

New on the Website: How to make a Towel Print, The Twelve Days of
Christmas Rewritten, Book Fair Posters.

As the year progresses I will continue to post reminders, classroom
news, and examples of student work on our class web page.

Reminder: January 17: 6:30 pm- Parkview School. There is an information
meeting for parents of students interesting in applying for grade 5
Extended French. EFSL Registration will be January 20-25 in the school
office.

Camp Kitchi: Dates and fees for Camp Kitchi are now being arranged.
Watch for more information about Camp Kitchi over the next few weeks.

Units this Month:

Science: We are continuing our unit on Properties of Light and Sound.

Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Art

For four afternoons in January, the entire junior division will
participate in an integrated unit on the Winter Olympics.

Math: Measurement: Nelson Math 4 Chapter 5

Over the next 3 weeks, your child will be investigating linear and time
measurement.

There will be opportunities to measure, to choose appropriate
measurement units, and to relate measurement units to each other. The
metric unit decimetre will be introduced.

Measurement Activities you can do at home:

• Your child can look around the home and find objects that could be
measured in decimetres. An appropriate activity would be to first
estimate the measurement in

decimetres and then compare their answer to the measured one. Your child
can then change the decimetre measurements to centimetres.

• Using a household ruler, your child could practice measuring and
record findings using millimetres, centimetres, and decimetres. It is
important for children to practice measuring accurately using tools such
as rulers.

• At home, you and your child can look for opportunities to measure how
long certain activities take to complete in hours and minutes, such as
completing homework, watching a video, or getting ready for bed.

Reading clock faces to measure the length of time certain activities
take will help your child build confidence in reading,

reporting, and measuring time.

Monday January 23 (Tentative): Math Quiz on Measurement: chapter 5

Chapter 7: 2D Geometry:

At the end of January through the beginning of February, your child will
be studying geometry, a very important strand of mathematics. Your child
will have many opportunities to explore geometric concepts using
concrete materials, think about the design of objects in the world
around, and create designs. At this time, your child will be focusing on
2-D shapes. Your child will explore 3-D shapes later this year.

At home, your child can:

• You and your child might enjoy using the concept of similarity to
enlarge drawings of cartoon characters. Draw a grid over the image, and
then, on a piece of paper, draw the same grid, but with larger squares.
Copy the shapes in the grid squares on the original onto the squares of
the larger grid.

• You might play a simple card game to help your child identify shapes
by name, as follows: make 20 cards showing names or drawings of
quadrilaterals, 4 each of parallelogram, rhombus, trapezoid, square, and
rectangle. Shuffle the cards. Then each player draws 4 cards. On a turn,
a player can discard 1 card and pick 1 new card. The first player with 4
cards in 1 category (all are trapezoids, or

parallelograms, and so on) wins.

• Your child might use drinking straws, cut to different lengths, to
explore the different shapes they can make with different side lengths.
They could also draw the shapes they create.

• You might help your child look for pictures in magazines that model
symmetry.

You may also want to visit the Nelson Web site at www.mathk8.nelson.com
for more suggestions to help your child with these units.

Speeches:

It is traditional in our school for all students from grade 4-8 to
prepare speeches to present in front of the class. We will choose a few
students from the class to present their speeches at an assembly in the
gym. Some of these students will be chosen to represent our school at
the area public speaking competitions.

Your children will be working on their speeches in class for the next
two weeks. They may sometimes bring speech home to practice.
Presentations in our class will be on the week of January 31- February
3. The school presentation will be on the following week.

Sean McGaughey

Parkview School Phone #526-2091

I am Mr. McGaughey and I will be your child’s grade 2 teacher this year. Some of my interests include computers and music. I look forward to meeting you all. If you have any concerns and would like to phone or meet with me, I can be reached at the school at 322-1281, or you can email me at smcgaughey@huc.scdsb.on.ca . I can be available for meetings before or after school or at our mutual convenience.

1) Daily agenda and homework sheets.

• Your child will be bringing home a weekly timetable every day, which contains their homework, upcoming assignments, and important notices. Feel free to use the back of this sheet to communicate with me. I check the agendas every morning.

• Homework: Your child’s will have a reading log to record the books read at home. There will be a few math and spelling assignments for homework from time to time. I will send mathematics workbooks home weekly, so you can keep track of their progress.

2) We have 3 main Class rules posted in our room.

Rules for Grade 2

1. We respect teachers, other students and their property.

2. We keep our hands, feet and objects to ourselves.

3. We follow teacher directions the first time.

3) Poetry and Songs Booklet: Repeated reading of poems and songs is an excellent way to improve reading fluency. Every other week, I will add one or two new poems to practise in class. On Friday, your child will bring the poetry book home to read together with family members. Remember to return the poetry book home on Monday, so that we can begin our new poems.

4) Scholastic Book Orders: Ordering books for your child through Scholastic Book Clubs is a great way to encourage a love of learning, and it also helps to provide extra resources for the classroom. I will be sending out Scholastic order forms in the first week of each month, and they will be due back to school about a week later. Orders are usually delivered in one to two weeks.

5) Important days to remember in our class.

Monday: Poetry books back to school, Gym- Bring your Gym Clothes

Tuesday: Reading Buddies

Wednesday: Library—Bring your library book, Gym- Bring your Gym Clothes, Hot Dog Lunch $1.25

Friday: Poetry books go home, Pizza Lunch $1.25

I’m looking forward to a great year teaching your child in Grade 2.

Thank you,

Mr. S. McGaughey