Tomorrow I am rolling out our new keyboarding program, Keyboarding Without Tears.
This was a popular handwriting tool for many teachers in younger grades, and their products are tried and true. KWOT has won multiple awards and comes highly recommended to teachers in classrooms that use technology, as well as those that may only dabble in computers.

I like to think that all our learners will love this program, but while some may hate keyboarding, I know the importance of being efficient on a keyboard, and want this understanding and skill for my students.

Please ask your student how they like it, and share with me any feedback about the program.
Canyon Elementary paid for our class license, so if you really approve, maybe thank Principal Pitchurski.

Hello Grade 5A Families! This is an update of what we focused on in Social Studies and Language Arts in grade 5A last week and a glimpse of this upcoming week in 5A.

This last week we retested Fountas and Pinnell for half of our class, watched a progressive documentary about Canada (check it out on my website: www.hessionsession.ca), began a workbook for Language Arts (Zombie themed for October), had our first quiz covering Part 1 of Wonder, signed up for another round of PenPalSchools, and created a spelling/vocab list for Part 1 of Wonder (our group novel study book). The spelling/vocab list is in your student's agenda. It contains 18 words of varying difficulty. I will be sending home Fountas & Pinnell results once the whole class has tested.

This coming week will bring: more Wonder, more spelling/vocab mastery, a new Art assignment, bigger discussions and bookwork about the Geography of Canada, and another swing at the "Friendly Letter". 

We are also implementing FreshGrade, an online digital portfolio for you to connect to your student's day or week. I realize that our agenda use may not be what you are used to, as we use them for morning writing warmups and homework/events... not really a synopsis of our day. FreshGrade is a strong new tool to link us together so you will see what your student is doing and be able to talk about it with them during your evenings and weekends. If you haven't responded to my FreshGrade invite, please do it now, as we are rolling it out starting tomorrow.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thanks for taking the time to read this class update.

Barbara Ann Hession
Grade 5 Teacher 
Canyon School

While your students were off of school on Friday, Teachers were at Matthew Halton High School taking classes with professionals and other teachers. We had many class offerings, with a focus on FNMI. Each staff member was able to choose 2 classroom sessions for the day. I attended a session on Sensory Needs in the classroom, as that has been a hot topic with kids and teachers alike (just think fidgit spinners...) as well as a tech session on Fresh Grade (a new digital portfolio program I am rolling out in class, just check your email). It was a productive day, learning fresh concepts and getting excited about better teacher-parent communication.