Today another one of our students celebrated a birthday! Happy birthday wishes were shared.
We began our morning by looking at a Global News article and answering the following question: What clues will this artifact give scientists about the past? Students came up with lots of interesting ideas:
With Miss Nanavaty we did a little more dancing. It was our last day for dance. We did dance play, where we listen to instructions provided while listening to the music. We are completing our good copy of our story that goes along with our pictographs. Our rough draft was where we got our ideas onto the paper. When we complete a good copy we are editing (using C.O.P.S.) and revising (making our work better). Our good copies of our pictographs are almost complete as well. In math we worked together to develop a new rule for multiplying by 3. When we multiply by three we use repeated addition or skip counting by 3s. We also learned how to use a multiplication chart!!! Music was a tad late.... oops! We listened to a song called "We are the World" and a few students got solos. During read aloud we learned that Ivan is coming up with a plan to help free Ruby from her life at the mall. Part of his project was discovered by Mack and he is afraid that it might happen again. He is very angry as he remembers how the humans captured him and killed his parents. In the afternoon students began their posters for the science presentations that they will be doing later this week. They have a checklist to make sure they are including all the important facts about their topic. Winter Activity Day is tomorrow. Students will be traveling around different outside stations run by the teachers. Please ensure your child is dressed for the weather. Also if your child has not completed the yearly chart for their "Winter Count" please return it with them tomorrow. We will begin this activity in writing. Reminders: Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Jan 20 ~ Scholastic Book Order Due (cheques only please) Jan 23 ~ Library Mobile Feb 3 ~ PD Day Feb 16-17 ~ Teachers Convention Feb 20 ~ Family Day Feb 23 ~ Fun Lunch
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We began our morning with some self-evaluation. Students had to look critically at the work they have done thus far with their pictographs and written stories. They used the four criteria we developed the other day to decide where their work currently is and came up with strategies for how to improve their work to become a 3 or a 4. Most students have written about the first major event in their story and have completed the matching pictographs. Some friends are taking it home to look at this evening. Tomorrow we will hopefully begin working on our good copy.
In math we looked at the slideshow on the blog that showed all the different strategies that students used yesterday for determining how many people were in the classroom without counting one by one. Students used mathematical language to describe groups of people. For instance we looked at four groups of four (4 x 4 = 16) and two groups of three (2 x 3 = 6) and one group of one (1 x 1). Students filled in the first two pages of their multiplication book with rules for multiplying by 1 and 2. We danced in the gym and drummed in music. It was fun! Read aloud of the "One and Only Ivan" had us feeling empathetic towards Mack because we recongize how sad and lonely he is. Ivan creates his very first finger painting. He is determined to save Ruby from the same fate as Stella. Lastly, we had buddies with our grade two friends. We looked at the artists Ted Harrison and Paul Goble to inspire our own artwork. We discussed how both artists used bright colours, outlined their figures and used simplistic looking images. Your can learn more about each artist here: Ted Harrison - http://tedharrison.ca/ Paul Goble - http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/authors/Paul-Goble.aspx Reminders: Jan 16 ~ Library Mobile Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Jan 23 ~ Library Mobile Feb 3 ~ PD Day Today we reviewed estimation, addition and subtraction with regrouping for our morning Eye Opener. We recognize the importance of having quick recall of basic facts as we work together to review the process for working through the problems. If your child struggles with basic addition and subtraction recall there are several great websites available to help them: As we moved forward into math, students were asked to determine the number of people in the classroom in a way that did not involve counting one by one. They were given unifix cubes and had to show their understanding. Students had several different strategies: making groups of four or three (exactly how the students were sitting at their tables); making groups of girls and boys; and counting by two's. Social studies and writing were a challenge today. We continue to work on our pictograph story but recognized that our pictures must match what we are writing. We came up with criteria for what a 4,3,2,and 1 would look like.
In the gym we warmed up with a game of "Fruit Bowl" and then played "Temple Run". Students did an amazing job dodging and using forward locomotive movements. Both teams were evenly matched with team 1 winning round one and team 2 winning the second time. For science we have mostly completed our research on our chosen topic. Tomorrow we will begin the planning phase of how to set up our poster and talk about how to choose the right information to include. Reminders: Jan 11 ~ School Council/Fundraising Meeting Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Jan 23 ~ Library Mobile Feb 3 ~ PD Day Another busy day of learning has happened in room 145! Today's eyeopener was an easy one, with most students recognizing the big word was pictographs. This ties in with our own creation of a pictograph story told from the perspective of a First Nations person that lived long ago. Students looked an example of a student created pictograph/story. See below: Today in mathematics we discussed the "Stretch Your Thinking" homework from yesterday that required students to come up with two different numbers, that when rounded, would provide an estimated difference of 520. After several students offered answers we noticed that an increasing pattern existed: 620 - 100; 720 - 200; 820 - 300; 920 - 400. We also examined various word problems that had students identifying which place value would allow them to come up with an estimate that was close to the actual answer when following the steps for subtracting with regrouping. During our read aloud of "The One and Only" Ivan, we discover why Mack's wife left, that Mack has not always been a cruel business man, and that Ivan feels a deep sense of responsibility to look out for Ruby (the baby elephant). When we think deeply about what we have read so far sometimes our opinions and ideas about characters change. Ask your child if they feel different about any of the characters now that we have more information about them. Lastly, we continue to study how quickly certain materials decompose. We have noticed that the orange peels and ferns leaves and turning brown, the paper doesn't appear to have changed much and that the plastic bag has not changed at all. Students will also be working in small groups to conduct research about specific topics we have learned about over the past few weeks and will create posters to present to their peers. Attached you can see what topic your child has chosen and the guiding questions that will help them find the information necessary to complete their poster. Reminders:
Jan 11 ~ School Council/Fundraising Meeting Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Jan 23 ~ Library Mobile Feb 3 ~ PD Day ![]() I hope everyone had a warm and restful weekend. Today we continued our exploration of the First Nations culture within Alberta. Students watched a video (see below) that described how these people told stories through the use of petroglyphs and pictographs . We then had to work together to answer the following two questions: 1. Why do you think Writing-On-Stone Provincal Park shoul be treated with great respect? 2. How is the park important to Alberta's identity? Students have recognized without these images, the stories of the First Nations people would be lost. Students have also brought home a sheet of paper that asks them to help track major life events over the past ten years. Work with your child to determine a minimum of 2 life events each year and record them on the paper provided. Please have your child return it to school on Monday, January 16, 2017. In the gym, Miss Nanavaty introduced students to new movement activities focusing on dance. Ask your child about what they did in the gym today! We continue to explore how estimation can be used as a tool to help check the accuracy of our work in mathematics. Students completed several word problems that had them looking at a chart and reading carefully to determine what place value would be used to estimate. They have brought home their duotangs and should attempt the "Stretch Your Thinking" component as homework. During read aloud today, students discovered how Ivan was captured in Central Africa. He describes his life before he is captured (how they fed, foraged, napped, and played), the members of his family (a troop), and how he is meant to act like a human when Mack brings him to live at his home. Students had opportunity to participate in several new literacy stations this week: 1) They can read facts about Alberta, decide which region they relate to and work with peer to place them in the correct location on the map; 2) Focus on reading a calendar and recording important upcoming events; 3) Work in their visual journals to complete a reader's response to the novel "The One and Only Ivan" and; 4) Smart Board Spelling. Lastly, students worked together to brainstorm many important life events that they thought would happen in the life of a First Nations person hundreds of years ago. They are using this information to create a pictograph depicting this story. They are focusing on the "I can" statements below when completing this task:
Reminders: Jan 11 ~ School Council/Fundraising Meeting Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Feb 3 ~ PD Day Today we completed our peer editing and revisions for our winter break writing. Students worked hard to contribute meaningfully to help their peers make their written work clear and convey the intended information. They wrote any questions that they had on a sticky note and then worked with their partner to determine how to best answer the questions they had within their written work. We are wrapping up our investigation of how to use estimation to help us determine if our asnwers are accurate when adding and subtracting. After some investigation in our table groups we determined that when working with two 3-digit numbers rounding to the hundreds gives an accurate answer and when working with a 3-digit and a 2-digit number it is more accurate to round to the tens place. Students then worked together to actually solve problems following the subtraction process to see if their answers were accurate based on their estimations. In social studies we continue to learn more about the aboriginal culture and the First Nations people that lived in Alberta long ago. We recognize that just like we do today, people would come together to learn new things, share stories, enjoy each others company, etc. We also discussed how life would have been much different for these people. Students recognized that First Nations people did not have written language or access to things like pencils and paper. We brainstormed how they might have shared their knowledge and stories. After listening to the book "The Crow's Tale" students determined that stories would be passed along verbally and that they often contained an important message. Some students suggested that oral story telling wasn't the only way to learn or tell about things. We briefly looked at pictographs and students will create their own story using pictographs next week after further study of how they were used in First Nations culture. Unfortunately, the Mobile Library will not be able to join us next Monday due to the cold weather. We are hoping that they will be able to join us on January 23rd. Reminders:
Jan 11 ~ School Council/Fundraising Meeting Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Feb 3 ~ PD Day Today students came into the classroom and discovered an interesting surprise.... they discovered a circle of rocks with a "fire" in the middle. There was also a specific type of music playing in the background. They were asked to complete a "See, Think, Wonder" upon their discovery, after which we came together to share our toughts and ideas. Students came up with a multitude of ideas. These are just a few:
Later in the morning students took their knowledge of rounding and estimating and played a math game with with a partner. Each student had to roll a dice to get a four digit number. They used both estimation and addition to determine who had the bigger sum. Students had the chance to drum with Miss Lysak for music and played a version of "Hunger Games" dodge ball with Miss Nanavaty in the gym. After lunch we continued to listen to the novel "The One and Only Ivan". We have reached a critical point in the novel where the older elephant (Stella, who suffers from regular infections from an old ankle wound) passes away. Ivan (the gorilla) is devastated and has promised Stella that he would look out for the baby elephant (Ruby) should anything happen to Setlla. In science we continued our study of waste and watched two videos. The first discussed the various types of man-made waste (https://vimeo.com/112401583) and the second showed how one small Japanese village is tackling the waste problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eym10GGidQU). Students will be focusing on the question: How has our impact on the environment been influenced by changing and different perspectives? Lastly, on Monday, January 9th grade 4 students will be invited to visit the Mobile Library bus. Students must have a valid Calgary Public Library Card to access the Book Mobile. You can find more information below. Reminders:
Jan 11 ~ School Council/Fundraising Meeting Jan 17 ~ Winter Activity Day Jan 19 ~ Fun Lunch Feb 3 ~ PD Day This morning we continued our writing about "Winter Break". Then we learned about the revising and editting process. Looking at a sample Mrs. Otterson wrote, students gave feedback about how to check for "C.O.P.S." (ask your child if they can remember what this means) and ways to improve her written work. Working with a partner, we then read each others work giving ideas and feedback.
Our word of the day is "revising" which means to go back and check your work to look for ways to make it better. In social studies we worked in groups of 5 and looked at each others brochures that were created to attempt to convince others to visit the region of our choice. We gave each other constructive criticism using sticky notes. This means that we told each other about the things we did well and areas where we felt our peers could improve. We looked at estimating sums again in math. Students had to add together three different numbers that came close to a total of 1000. We looked at estimation as a tool to help us determine if our work is acurate. If our actual sum is quite a bit different than our esitmation, it is an indication we should go back and check our work. Tomorrow we will be looking at how to do this with 4 digit numbers and when finding differences. In the gym we warmed with a game of "uni-dab" and learned a new game called "Treasure Hunters". Students had to run across the gym without being tagged by a dodge ball and bring back a treasure (aka a rubber chicken or a pini) to the starting point. If you were tagged you had to go back to the beginng and try again. During guided reading students created January calendars, looked at vocabulary from the novels they have been reading, worked to define the new words and wrote sentences using those words. Lastly, in science we are using our understanding of various types of waste to make lists of all the man made waste from school, home, and during recreation activites. Students then had to determine if it was biodegradable, recyclable, reusable, or ultimately winds up in the landfill. This will be important as we move forward to study the question: "How has our impact on the environment been influences by changing different perspectives?" Reminders: - Choir begins tomorrow at lunch (running Tuesday and Thursday) - School Council Meeting January 11 at 7pm - Winter activity today January 17 (pm) Welcome back from winter break! I hope everyone enjoyed the much needed time with family and/or friends.
We began our morning in room 145 by sharing all the wonderful things we did during our break, talking about the gifts we received or shared, and reminding ourselves about how to be a student again. On that topic students had to choose a prompt to describe/write about what they did during winter break. Our objective was to get down as many ideas as possible. We used guiding questions like: how, who, what, where, when, etc. to help ensure we had all the necessary details. Tomorrow we will be working with a peer to focus on revising and editing our work. It was nice to be back in the gym! Students really worked up a sweat playing a game called "Human Gauntlet". Students had to run across the gym without being hit with a dodge ball. If they were hit they had to move to the middle and attempt to tag another student with a ball. Students will be focusing on the following outcomes/skills in Jan - Mar:
In math, we did a quick Mad Minute to wake up our brains and ensure quick recall of basic facts. It is important to practice these skills at home too. You can visit websites like https://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-4 to help your child review. After a quick wake up, students looked at estimating/rounding numbers in the hundreds. Some students will be bringning this home to finish or to look at again. After reading aloud the novel "The One and Only Ivan", we learned that Stella (the older elephant) continues to struggle with a bad ankle. We made some predictions that she may be sold or put down because there is a new baby elephant named Ruby at the Big Top Mall. Ruby asks a lot of questions and thinks of Ivan as an artist! Guided reading went very well with students getting right down to work. It is important that your child continue to read every day for a minimum of 20 minutes! Lastly, during science we picked up where we left off, reviewing about waste and biodegradable materials. We are conducting an experiment to determine which materials will break down the fastest: orange peels & fern leaves, paper & carboard, or a plastic bag. Students are focusing on answering the "WHY" when writing a hypothesis. Ask you child to explain their hypothesis (I think the _______ will break down the fastest becuase ________). Reminders:
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Mrs. OttersonTeacher at New Brighton School and lover of the great outdoors! Archives
June 2017
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