Every month we will post a new set of key ideas and concepts that your child will be learning in their classes at AV. They are meant to help keep you aware of what general topics are being covered in order to be more efficient and effective in assisting your son or daughter at home. Throughout the year, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us through email at either daniel.ellis@ocdsb.ca or audree.kresic@ocdsb.ca.

Therefore, during March, the following areas will be covered:

English

In English class, we will continue looking at creating persuasive texts for the purpose of understanding some of the techniques used to convince people of ideas and arguments. We will be connecting some assignments done in English to the math unit being covered this month by having students create a team logo for their fantasy hockey team they will be managing. Students will also be creating a bilingual written summary of the specific reasons why they selected the players on their teams making sure they give evidence and/or support for their reasons. They will also present this information to the class.

Also, from time to time, students will be asked to respond to different bellwork assignments from class (Picture of the week, Video of the week etc.) on Google classroom.

Finally, starting in September and continuing until the end of May, students will have the opportunity to choose a minimum of one book to read each month of the school year. They will complete a short assignment at the end of each month on one of the books the read to be submitted through Google classroom. This month it will be due on March 30th.

Math

Moving into March, we will be starting a new unit that will incorporate many different math concepts. Students will become team managers for their own fantasy hockey team based on current NHL and CWHL hockey players. They will need to create a team that fits under a salary cap, search for player stats, and calculate player/team points based on an algebraic formula. While this is the main idea behind the project, we will also be connecting other concepts such as representing money amounts, probability, adding, subtracting & multiplying decimals, comparing/ordering fractions/decimals, estimating percents (Gr.6), displaying information in graphs, and calculating mean/median.

Finally, we occasionally take the time to discuss the many connections between math concepts learned in class to other strands/terms that we have previously looked at or will look at later in the year. This is to impart in students minds that all things in math are connected and that they will likely see some topics again in later units.

Stay tuned for next month’s post reflecting our learning goals for April.