Happy Halloween, parents of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students.  Can you believe it, another month of school behind us and kids are well on their way to the routines that accompany new grade levels.  Students have been wonderful to work with as they have been enjoying the challenges presented, sometimes getting frustrated, other times rising to the occassion.  We have been busy this past week working on the concepts of place value and the number strands of multiples, factors, composite and prime numbers.  Both levels wrote tests today, Friday, on these strands.  It is hoped that next week we can move into a stronger focus on estimation in Grade 5, as well as the strategies used in finding outcomes.  Students were given outlines of these strategies at the beginning of the school year and should be looked at, nightly. Both integers and order of operations, will be strands taught in  Grade 6.  It is hoped that