Grade 5 Camp

Today we had a great presentation from Asia Pacific Adventures giving us lots of details about the camp. There will be many challenges for you on the camp, including a traverse, hiking, orienteering, abseiling and camping!

Please make sure that your parents have returned the camping form back to us. The deadline is next Monday.

Remember you are not allowed to bring your mobile phones, jewelry, or any ipods or electronic devices such as PSP's. If you're not sure what you can bring ask me.

Don't wear jeans, crocs, flip flops, sandals. You will need two pairs of trainers. One that will stay dry, and one pair that you can get wet.

You should bring long sleeve tops and trousers. It will get cool in the evenings and there are mosquitoes.  You will need to bring a hat. No hat, no play!

Read the packing list you have been given. You should also take responsibility for your own belongings and pack your own bag before you go.

It is recommended that you don't bring your good digital camera. You can buy a disposable camera, and all of your teachers have digital cameras and will be taking lots of photos and they'll be available on the web site and you can take a copy away on your USB drives after the October break.

Charity Store
A big well done to the charity store community who ran their first store today for grade 1 and K5. They raised over 100 HKD! More details soon in the newsletter.

Bake Sale
A HUGE well done to the bake sake group who have added up the money from their first bake sale, and they made over 1400 HKD! It was highly popular and I know lots of teachers who are looking forward to the next one :-)

Communities
The other communities should be following their plans and looking at what they have to do next. Including who they should contact and how they can get started. There will be more time at the end of the day tomorrow to talk as a group.
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A big thank you to all of the parents who came to support our communities assembly this Friday. You can see pictures here from the presentations.

The assembly was just the start of the community and now the students have more members they need to work out how to run their community regularly. Some of the parents approached me about supporting the students more through this process. If you have connections with one of the communities that the students are trying to set up or wish to be more involved, contact me directly and I'll put you in touch with that community. Thanks to Tammy Moorefield who has volunteered to be the student council groups mentor.

How successful the communities are will depend on the students and their commitment to them. Having parents support and guide them through the process will help more of the groups to reach their goals.

Homework Schedule
You may have noticed that the homework schedule disappeared for two days. This was on purpose and I hope emphasizes to the students the importance of writing their homework diaries which they are given time to do each day.

Mathletics
Every student today received their personal login and password to mathletics a website that we will be using more to supplement their math curriculum. Students should have this stuck into their homework diary, and should learn both their password and their login! www.mathletics.com
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Assembly
This Friday at 8.45 grade 5 will be running the assembly. We will also take this opportunity to present our new communities to the other students, enroll members and advertise events. We currently have some great ideas and this Friday is all about taking action, making these communities a reality after lots of planning and organisation. All parents are welcome! Use your homework time to get ready for your presentation.

Chinese and Conference Forms
A small reminder to bring in your order for mooncakes and the conference letter.
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Dear Parents,

As you may have heard Grade 5 are busy planning new communities at HKA for our first unit of inquiry, How We Organize Ourselves. The students are currently forming their own communities which they will run and manage.

At the moment we are in the planning stage and your child should be discussing ideas that they and their group are having. In the future they may come home with some extra information and a letter that they write to you, to ask if they can take part in their community if it takes place outside of school time, or after school. They may also ask for you to volunteer some time. This is all of course depending on your availability, willingness to be involved, and your child's commitments during the week.

Until you receive this letter no definite plans have been made. Please ask your child to outline their ideas, help them to set realistic goals and ask them about the actual organization of their community. With your guidance and that of other school experts we hope to enable the students to successfully create and run their own communities.

It has been great to see the students so motivated during this unit and we look forward to sharing more with you as this unit progresses.

Regards,
The Grade 5 Team
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Today we began choosing our communities for our current unit of inquiry. It was great to see so many people with an idea of what they wanted to do and how they could take action.

At the moment we are still at the ideas stage. You can discuss your ideas with your parents, but don't ask them to help you just yet, we need to have a clear idea of what it is that you will need to have help with.

You can start brainstorming your ideas. You might want to start using bubbl.us and share what you are doing with other students in your group. 5SM will soon have bubbl.us accounts and will be able to join in the designs.

A great start to the each of your communities, well done for showing lots of enthusiasm!
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