January 29, 2020

Students in room 5 have been collaborating in groups to write skits about realistic friendship issues for grade 4 students.  The scripts are complete and we are ready to present to the class tomorrow.  Each group will also make a poster with additional solutions for students to try if they encounter a similar problem.  

Today, we practiced adding numbers left to right to increase our comfort and flexibility with other strategies we are less familiar with.  Ask me to demonstrate this strategy for you.

January 27, 2020

Today, in gym, we started Mission Impossible.  Some of us were able to complete the entire circuit twice without knocking anything over.  We have been debating which part is the most challenging for our class.

In Science, we are continuing our Beakerhead challenge.  We discussed the theme of Movement and Energy and are brainstorming art and design possibilities in each of our groups.

Reminders: 

• All book orders are due tomorrow 
• Report cards are released Thursday  
• PD day Friday (no school for students)
• Bring a hair tie all week for gymnastics (Mission Impossible)

January 24, 2020

Here are room 5's highlights from this week:

• We worked hard on our landscape pictures (MH)
• We researched different energy sources used in Alberta (DE)
• This week we spent some time exploring the gymnastics stations in the gym (SD)
• We are almost finished writing our friendship skits in Health and are practicing to perform them (GPC)
• We have been reading a new book called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and it uses lots of names for the same character (LH)
• Our buddies joined us in our classroom today and we read a book with them (AV)
• This week we started playing recorders in Music (MF)
• We are exploring our addition and subtraction strategies in math by using larger numbers during our number talks (KB)

Reminder:  Book orders are due Tuesday

January 22, 2020

Our morning class has been busy working on two different collaborative projects.  In Health, groups are finishing writing a script that illustrates a realistic friendship problem for grade 4 students.  They will perform the skits to demonstrate a strategy to solve the friendship problem and create a poster to teach other students about additional strategies to use.

In Social Studies students began researching different energy resources in pairs.  The next step is to create a flyer that has information about the positives and challenges of their chosen resource. 

In the afternoon, we have begun designing our elastic band super hero for the Beakerhead challenge.  Ask your child about their designs.

Reminders:  Bring your recorder each day.  Book orders are due on Tuesday next week.

January 21, 2020

This week we have begun our focus on gymnastics in gym.  Today we learned about how to use the equipment safely.  Tomorrow students will continue to explore the different stations.

We have started a Beakerhead challenge in room 5.  Ask your child about the superhero they are designing.

In math we are learning to estimate sums in different ways.  We have practiced 3 strategies:
1) Adding the highest place value (thousands)
2) Change the numbers to the closest thousands
3) Use a number line to add the thousands and hundreds
We have discussed how each estimate is different but that all are valid.  Ask your child which strategy they are most comfortable using.

Note:  Book orders have gone home today.  These are due next Tuesday, Jan. 28th (orders can be placed online)  


Reminders:  
-Students need to bring their recorder to school starting tomorrow and needs to remain in their backpack 
-Bring elastics for gymnastics (if you have long hair)

January 17, 2020

Here are some learning highlights from room 5 students:

-"We had buddies today" DB
-"Today we started our perspective art in our journal" SM
-"Today we got our math assessments back and checked it over" SD
-"We are now finished chapter 6 of Edward Tulane" MM
-"Today was fun snack - yay!" MF
-"We got to play math games today" MH
-"Yesterday we started perspective art" GPC

Note:  Students have received their math assessments back and have made corrections.  Parents, please sign and return Monday.

January 15, 2020

Students in room 5 have been making the most of the cold weather by bringing games and activities to do during recess and lunch break.

Our class has started a new read aloud called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.  We each drew a grid in our visual journals and each square will represent one chapter.  We will draw something from the chapter so at the end of the book we can retell the story in our pictures.

This afternoon we looked at ways to estimate sums.  Tomorrow we will explore why estimating is a valuable skill and where we can use it in our lives.  We also took time to explore our grade 4 question:  How are human and natural systems interrelated.  Ask your child about what this means to them so far.

Stay warm!

January 13, 2020

This morning our class played a new game in gym called British Bulldog.  We also set up the mats in the gym for gymnastics which begins this week. 

In Music students learned about the woodwind family and played a game. 

In Math we played partner games to strengthen our subtraction mental math skills with 2-digit numbers. 

As a class we wrote a success criteria and worked on our landscape pictures to demonstrate what we know about foreground, middle ground, background and the horizon line.

Note:  It is anticipated that we will be having indoor recess breaks all week.  Students are encouraged to bring games and activities from home to play during our morning break.  Please label items with your child's name. ⛄🌨🎲

January 9, 2020

This morning in Health students were assigned a new project.  We will be focusing on friendship issues that can occur in grade 4 and strategies we can use to solve them.  Students were given the opportunity to choose a topic.  We will begin our work next week. 

Ask your child about their Math assessment which was written today.

Reminder:  No school for students tomorrow (Friday)

January 8, 2020

Do you know the 4 parts of a landscape picture?  Students in room 5 do!  We have been learning about:

• foreground
• middleground
• background
• horizon line

Ask your child to explain each part.  We spent some time this afternoon reviewing representing, comparing and ordering numbers up to 10 000 in preparation for our assessment tomorrow.  Ask your child to share different ways to represent numbers. 

Reminder:  Math assessment tomorrow 📝

January, 6, 2020

Happy New Year!

Students were excited to come back to school to see their friends and teacher.  Today we:

• tried a new Number Talk called SPLAT!
• got our rubrics back for our inventions, which include self-assessments and marks from the teacher
• reviewed some typing and writing in the iLab
• got our assigned spots on the risers in Music
• reviewed what we learned about fossils and fossil fuels to prepare us for our next topic in Social Studies:  Natural Resources

We are curious to find out how many of our parents/family members work in the oil & gas industry.  Please have a conversation with your child about this topic tonight.