Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful two-week holiday! It is good to be back.

In Math, we are starting a unit on 2-D shapes. The goals of this unit are for your child to use shapes to make other shapes, to identify shapes that are congruent (the same size and shape), to identify and compare various polygons (i.e., triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, octagons) and sort them by their geometric properties (i.e., number of sides, side lengths, number of interior angles, number of right angles), and to recognize symmetry in shapes, designs and pictures of images. Your child should begin to notice interesting geometric designs in his or her world. You might talk to your child about how these designs have been created. Today we worked with tangram! Ask your child about “Sage’s Journey: How Tangrams Came to Be”

Throughout the unit, you and your child may engage in activities at home such as:

• Your child can look for shape puzzles at home. Look in resources such as newspapers and puzzle books. Your child could bring a puzzle to school to display on a class bulletin board or puzzle table.

• Your child can find and list things around the house that have more than one line of symmetry, and sketch at least 4 of these items and show the lines of symmetry.

• Your child could plan a symmetrical design for one wall of a bedroom or some other room in the house. This might include the placement of pictures or posters on the wall. Your child can draw a sketch of the symmetrical design, draw the line of symmetry, and describe how the design was created.

• Your child can find something at home, such as a rug, a vase, or a bedspread, that has an interesting geometric pattern. Have your child draw the pattern and describe attributes such as congruent shapes, lines of symmetry (e.g., vertical, horizontal, diagonal), and colour. Your child should then describe how the pattern was made. This is called the pattern rule. Your child might take the real object or a drawing of the object to class to share with others.

Scholastic Orders were sent home today and are due back on January 18th.

Homework folders also went home today as well as a book worm body part, please remember that they are due back on Fridays.

We will also be starting our unit of Dance in Physical Education classes. Some students cringe at the word “dance,” but gently remind your child it is all about participation and trying their best!