Happy Wednesday!
Here is a recap of what has been going on in class over the past two days:
Math: We continued with centers today and students worked on building their understanding of fractions and decimals and the relation between them. It is a lively time during centers and students are learning through hands on activities. We will be finding a balance between instruction periods and centers over the next few weeks.
Social Studies: Today we began exploring our social studies project topics by viewing a video on World War I. We will be looking to have students compose a one page persuasive writing sample that they will use to convince an audience of which of the three following events had the largest impact on shaping Canadian identity:
-World War I
-The Great Depression
-The Post-WWII Economic Boom
Science: We experimented with dissolving materials such as salt, flour, coffee grinds, sugar, corn starch, among others, into water. It was an interesting experiment that was not very successful and so we will be following up with the variables of WHY it did not work. Students were asked to consider why the experiments didn't work when we already knew that many of the materials should have dissolved and didn't.
Language Arts: Ms. Ryan has been introducing the idea of persuasive writing to the students and has been doing some interactive activities with the students to get them used to using persuasive language, considering their audience, and becoming sales people for the purpose of their writing.
Have a great night!
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Monday, February 26, 2018
Monday, February 2018, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18!
Today was a busy Monday! Here's a recap of what we did in the classroom:
Math:
Today we completed many tasks during our math time. We worked on transferring our math from our Valentine's menus to a sheet so that we could clearly track and understand our computations. We did this in order to understand if we went over our spending budget, or if we managed to stay under budget. We also had the opportunity to continue some decimal and fraction centres that we began on Thursday in preparation for centres that will begin tomorrow that dig deeper into understanding decimals, how place value works with decimals, and how fractions and decimals are connected.
Social Studies:
We took on part 2 of our work with the Famous Five. Students are using strategies that teachers are exploring through our PLC work to help build comprehension, direct student attention to important facts and details, and help them recognize information that challenges them to design next steps. Ask your child about the Persons Case and if they can tell you how the Famous Five moved women's rights forward in Canada. As a grade 4/5 project hook, students will be watching portions of the "Canada: The Story of Us" documentary series produced by the CBC. This is one way we are trying to expose students to alternative methods of research, students will also be using books and electronic resources to research an upcoming project related to WWI, The Great Depression, and the Post World War II boom.
Language Arts:
Last week we began putting our work with figurative language and superheroes into an article that combined one or more superheroes from our class into a fictitious event. This was very fun to brainstorm and plan, but once students began to write it was clear that they have forgotten about the elements of article writing while also being challenged by the desire to write their article as a story. While Ms. Ryan and I are attempting to steer their writing in the correct direction, our efforts were being interfered with by the excitement of creating these writing samples and forcing them to write using a non-fiction style is now dampening the excitement. We may take a break from these writing samples for a day while we re-group and re-direct our focus.
Reminders:
** Pink Shirt Day (Anti-Bullying Day) is Wednesday, February 28th! Everyone is encouraged to wear a pink shirt to support anti-bullying efforts!
** Safety Expo Field Trip Forms - these are coming home today! We are asking that all students return their forms by Friday! We will need 2 parent volunteers.
** Jump Rope Fundraising forms - these are coming home today as well! Please return all donations and forms by Friday, March 9th!
** Fun Lunch - This Wednesday. March 28th
Today was a busy Monday! Here's a recap of what we did in the classroom:
Math:
Today we completed many tasks during our math time. We worked on transferring our math from our Valentine's menus to a sheet so that we could clearly track and understand our computations. We did this in order to understand if we went over our spending budget, or if we managed to stay under budget. We also had the opportunity to continue some decimal and fraction centres that we began on Thursday in preparation for centres that will begin tomorrow that dig deeper into understanding decimals, how place value works with decimals, and how fractions and decimals are connected.
Social Studies:
We took on part 2 of our work with the Famous Five. Students are using strategies that teachers are exploring through our PLC work to help build comprehension, direct student attention to important facts and details, and help them recognize information that challenges them to design next steps. Ask your child about the Persons Case and if they can tell you how the Famous Five moved women's rights forward in Canada. As a grade 4/5 project hook, students will be watching portions of the "Canada: The Story of Us" documentary series produced by the CBC. This is one way we are trying to expose students to alternative methods of research, students will also be using books and electronic resources to research an upcoming project related to WWI, The Great Depression, and the Post World War II boom.
Language Arts:
Last week we began putting our work with figurative language and superheroes into an article that combined one or more superheroes from our class into a fictitious event. This was very fun to brainstorm and plan, but once students began to write it was clear that they have forgotten about the elements of article writing while also being challenged by the desire to write their article as a story. While Ms. Ryan and I are attempting to steer their writing in the correct direction, our efforts were being interfered with by the excitement of creating these writing samples and forcing them to write using a non-fiction style is now dampening the excitement. We may take a break from these writing samples for a day while we re-group and re-direct our focus.
Reminders:
** Pink Shirt Day (Anti-Bullying Day) is Wednesday, February 28th! Everyone is encouraged to wear a pink shirt to support anti-bullying efforts!
** Safety Expo Field Trip Forms - these are coming home today! We are asking that all students return their forms by Friday! We will need 2 parent volunteers.
** Jump Rope Fundraising forms - these are coming home today as well! Please return all donations and forms by Friday, March 9th!
** Fun Lunch - This Wednesday. March 28th
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Welcome back families of room 18!
Today was an exciting day back for the students as Ms. Ryan is back with us for another two months. It will be lovely to have another set of hands in the classroom to help!
Today we had yet another technical difficulty in our classroom when the cable that connects to our smartboard decided to finally quit on us. As a result, some of our learning activities had to be put on hold, but the students were generous and flexible about having to make some changes to our schedule. Here's what we worked on:
Math: We continued to work on the Valentine's Day menus students began designing last week while I was away at a board meeting. It is one way to help students feel comfortable working with decimals and so far, they are LOVING the project. There was a tiny misunderstanding with how our guest teacher described the parameters of the assignment and so students were excited to be given some wiggle room today. This project will be due Thursday and students will be given time to work on the task tomorrow as well. We also played "Around the World" to keep up our multiplication facts.
Language Arts: Students continued to work on developing their similes and metaphors and will be taking this work forward tomorrow by designing a written task for their superheroes.
Science: We will be diving into science tomorrow as our technical difficulties prevented us from completing our assignment today.
Reminders:
-This Friday: Pillars of Care Assembly, winners will be announced tomorrow
-Valentine's Dance will be rescheduled for March as a Spring Fling
-Scholastic orders due no later than this Friday
Today was an exciting day back for the students as Ms. Ryan is back with us for another two months. It will be lovely to have another set of hands in the classroom to help!
Today we had yet another technical difficulty in our classroom when the cable that connects to our smartboard decided to finally quit on us. As a result, some of our learning activities had to be put on hold, but the students were generous and flexible about having to make some changes to our schedule. Here's what we worked on:
Math: We continued to work on the Valentine's Day menus students began designing last week while I was away at a board meeting. It is one way to help students feel comfortable working with decimals and so far, they are LOVING the project. There was a tiny misunderstanding with how our guest teacher described the parameters of the assignment and so students were excited to be given some wiggle room today. This project will be due Thursday and students will be given time to work on the task tomorrow as well. We also played "Around the World" to keep up our multiplication facts.
Language Arts: Students continued to work on developing their similes and metaphors and will be taking this work forward tomorrow by designing a written task for their superheroes.
Science: We will be diving into science tomorrow as our technical difficulties prevented us from completing our assignment today.
Reminders:
-This Friday: Pillars of Care Assembly, winners will be announced tomorrow
-Valentine's Dance will be rescheduled for March as a Spring Fling
-Scholastic orders due no later than this Friday
Monday, February 12, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18,
What a wacky Monday this was indeed! We had another slow day of accumulating students due to weather but by midday we had almost the entire class present! Here's what we were up to today:
Math: Today we had the pleasure of Ms. Harris joining us for math to have fun with decimals. We reviewed place value for both whole and part numbers and practiced reading decimal numbers out loud. Tomorrow, we will be looking at applying our subtraction skills to decimals to see how we can transfer our knowledge.
Social Studies: Students were given a picture prompt today to practice recognizing important information and relate what they see to concepts we have covered. The purpose of this activity was to see if students could extend what they have learned to historical images and to notice details they may not have noticed previously.
Language Arts: Students continued to work with Figurative Language in preparation for narrative writing.
Reminders:
-Outdoor Cross Country Skiing for gym - TOMORROW AND WEDNESDAY 1:30 - 2:30. PLEASE DRESS APPROPRIATELY.
-No School Friday, February 15th and 16th - Teacher's Convention
-No School Monday, February 19th - Family Day
What a wacky Monday this was indeed! We had another slow day of accumulating students due to weather but by midday we had almost the entire class present! Here's what we were up to today:
Math: Today we had the pleasure of Ms. Harris joining us for math to have fun with decimals. We reviewed place value for both whole and part numbers and practiced reading decimal numbers out loud. Tomorrow, we will be looking at applying our subtraction skills to decimals to see how we can transfer our knowledge.
Social Studies: Students were given a picture prompt today to practice recognizing important information and relate what they see to concepts we have covered. The purpose of this activity was to see if students could extend what they have learned to historical images and to notice details they may not have noticed previously.
Language Arts: Students continued to work with Figurative Language in preparation for narrative writing.
Reminders:
-Outdoor Cross Country Skiing for gym - TOMORROW AND WEDNESDAY 1:30 - 2:30. PLEASE DRESS APPROPRIATELY.
-No School Friday, February 15th and 16th - Teacher's Convention
-No School Monday, February 19th - Family Day
Friday, February 9, 2018
Friday, February 9, 2018
Hello families of room 18!
I hope you are staying warm on this frosty Friday!
Here's a recap of what we did over the last two days:
Health: Yesterday we had nurse Jonathan in to do an activity around mental health and the idea of 'Hope'. It was a really engaging activity and the students who made it in on that snowy Thursday had a really great time with it. We talked about things that give students hope, what helps keep us grounded or feel like us, our hopes and goals for the future, the people or things that give us support, and finally, what we'd like to let go of (such as anger, frustration, anxiety about math, etc.). Together, we will put our tree together on Monday so that we can refer to our personal journeys. Thanks go out to all the students who participated and participated in such a meaningful way! :-)
Math: Decimals! We dipped our toes into the decimal pool! We explored where we use and see decimals in real life and started to apply what we know about decimals to application and attempted some addition questions to help students see that the processes we have practiced with whole numbers remain the same for addition. We also used both days as opportunities to pull pairs of students to work on division processes. Today we did an additional division assessment (as per our Friday Check-Up schedule) which will need to be completed by all absent students next week.
Science/Social Studies: We did not do anything new in science due to significantly reduced numbers of students on both Thursday and Friday, and our reduced number of school days next week.
Art: Students explored point of view in art, considering how changing the direction of how we are looking at something changes depth and dimension of the object/scene. We then used pastels to blend colours and make our art look more realistic. Some students chose to begin colouring their art in with pencil crayons and then add pastels to add creativity and blending of colours in specific places.
Valentine's Day: As per the request by the office, students who would like to exchange Valentine's are asked to please make sure you have included enough Valentine's Cards for ALL students. There are currently 24 students in room 18. We will be exchanging cards for those who are interested at the end of the day on the 14th.
Reminders:
-Next week there will only be THREE days of school (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
-Thursday and Friday (February 15th/16th are Teacher's Convention dates and so schools will be CLOSED)
-February 19th is Family Day, NO SCHOOL.
-We will see you back at school on Tuesday, February 20th.
-SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS DUE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH!
I hope you are staying warm on this frosty Friday!
Here's a recap of what we did over the last two days:
Health: Yesterday we had nurse Jonathan in to do an activity around mental health and the idea of 'Hope'. It was a really engaging activity and the students who made it in on that snowy Thursday had a really great time with it. We talked about things that give students hope, what helps keep us grounded or feel like us, our hopes and goals for the future, the people or things that give us support, and finally, what we'd like to let go of (such as anger, frustration, anxiety about math, etc.). Together, we will put our tree together on Monday so that we can refer to our personal journeys. Thanks go out to all the students who participated and participated in such a meaningful way! :-)
Math: Decimals! We dipped our toes into the decimal pool! We explored where we use and see decimals in real life and started to apply what we know about decimals to application and attempted some addition questions to help students see that the processes we have practiced with whole numbers remain the same for addition. We also used both days as opportunities to pull pairs of students to work on division processes. Today we did an additional division assessment (as per our Friday Check-Up schedule) which will need to be completed by all absent students next week.
Science/Social Studies: We did not do anything new in science due to significantly reduced numbers of students on both Thursday and Friday, and our reduced number of school days next week.
Art: Students explored point of view in art, considering how changing the direction of how we are looking at something changes depth and dimension of the object/scene. We then used pastels to blend colours and make our art look more realistic. Some students chose to begin colouring their art in with pencil crayons and then add pastels to add creativity and blending of colours in specific places.
Valentine's Day: As per the request by the office, students who would like to exchange Valentine's are asked to please make sure you have included enough Valentine's Cards for ALL students. There are currently 24 students in room 18. We will be exchanging cards for those who are interested at the end of the day on the 14th.
Reminders:
-Next week there will only be THREE days of school (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
-Thursday and Friday (February 15th/16th are Teacher's Convention dates and so schools will be CLOSED)
-February 19th is Family Day, NO SCHOOL.
-We will see you back at school on Tuesday, February 20th.
-SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS DUE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH!
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Good Afternoon!
Here's a recap of what we got up to in class today:
Math: We have been using math time to support students who were identified as needing help with long division in a direct way. Small groups have been getting pulled by myself and Ms. Chen in the afternoons for extra practice and detailed support. Tomorrow we will be beginning work around fractions/decimals. We will have a follow up assignment on Friday to see how division has improved and will be sprinkling multiplication and division throughout the rest of the year in an attempt to "keep up" our skills for next year.
Social Studies: We have continued to discuss the building of the CPR and the reasons as to why it was important for bringing Canada together and protecting the land of Canada, but also how it began to drive separation between cultural groups.
Science: Today we completed an experiment using methods of separating mixtures. The students got to try 3 different methods of separation using a sieve, water, and filtration. Please ask your children what methods of separation worked best for the following mixtures:
-Marshmallows and chocolate chips
-Sprinkles and Chocolate chips
-Sand and water
Language Arts: We continued our conversation around figurative language today and examined some texts looking for metaphors and similes. We have also discussed onomatopoeia and have been working on a comic strip using pictures and sound effect vocabulary to tell a story.
Have a great night!
Here's a recap of what we got up to in class today:
Math: We have been using math time to support students who were identified as needing help with long division in a direct way. Small groups have been getting pulled by myself and Ms. Chen in the afternoons for extra practice and detailed support. Tomorrow we will be beginning work around fractions/decimals. We will have a follow up assignment on Friday to see how division has improved and will be sprinkling multiplication and division throughout the rest of the year in an attempt to "keep up" our skills for next year.
Social Studies: We have continued to discuss the building of the CPR and the reasons as to why it was important for bringing Canada together and protecting the land of Canada, but also how it began to drive separation between cultural groups.
Science: Today we completed an experiment using methods of separating mixtures. The students got to try 3 different methods of separation using a sieve, water, and filtration. Please ask your children what methods of separation worked best for the following mixtures:
-Marshmallows and chocolate chips
-Sprinkles and Chocolate chips
-Sand and water
Language Arts: We continued our conversation around figurative language today and examined some texts looking for metaphors and similes. We have also discussed onomatopoeia and have been working on a comic strip using pictures and sound effect vocabulary to tell a story.
Have a great night!
Monday, February 5, 2018
Monday, February 5th, 2018
Good Afternoon Families of Room 18!
Today was a busy day of catch up after the weekend! Here's what we were up to:
Social Studies: Students continued to learn about the implications and goals of Confederation, this time focusing on the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and how the building of a transcontinental railroad altered the development of our nation and changed the lives of many for both better and worse.
Math: Our quizzes from Thursday have been sent home with students today. Please take a look at your child's quiz, anyone with an "ES" on it will be pulled for extra support at odd times throughout the day or during recess/lunch. This is not meant to be a punishment and many student are offering to spend extra time with me for supervised practice so I will try to find nooks and crannies within our weekly schedule to provide extra support without taking free time from the students.
Language Arts: Students were given the task of creating zones of regulation plays last week and had the opportunity to present them today. It was really neat to see the strategies they proposed to triggers that send them into the zones and how they can support their classmates through those challenges. The feedback from the audience was quite useful and everyone seemed to enjoy the task. Great job to the actors in room 18!
As an update for interested parents, our cross country ski times will be next week on February 13th and 14th from 1:30 - 2:30. I will really encourage the students to follow the weather both of those days as being outside for an hour can be quite chilly!
Enjoy your evening!
Today was a busy day of catch up after the weekend! Here's what we were up to:
Social Studies: Students continued to learn about the implications and goals of Confederation, this time focusing on the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and how the building of a transcontinental railroad altered the development of our nation and changed the lives of many for both better and worse.
Math: Our quizzes from Thursday have been sent home with students today. Please take a look at your child's quiz, anyone with an "ES" on it will be pulled for extra support at odd times throughout the day or during recess/lunch. This is not meant to be a punishment and many student are offering to spend extra time with me for supervised practice so I will try to find nooks and crannies within our weekly schedule to provide extra support without taking free time from the students.
Language Arts: Students were given the task of creating zones of regulation plays last week and had the opportunity to present them today. It was really neat to see the strategies they proposed to triggers that send them into the zones and how they can support their classmates through those challenges. The feedback from the audience was quite useful and everyone seemed to enjoy the task. Great job to the actors in room 18!
As an update for interested parents, our cross country ski times will be next week on February 13th and 14th from 1:30 - 2:30. I will really encourage the students to follow the weather both of those days as being outside for an hour can be quite chilly!
Enjoy your evening!
Friday, February 2, 2018
Friday, February 2, 2018
Good afternoon families,
Here is a recap of what students were up to in room 18 over the past few days. Apologies for my absence yesterday, I appreciate your understanding as the students worked through the day with Ms. Locke and Mr. Strum in my stead.
Math:
Students completed a math quiz yesterday on division and were asked to complete the quiz using whichever method worked for them. These quizzes will be marked for Monday so that they can come home and be viewed by you, please ask your child if they don't volunteer to show you on their own. I also found out about a new strategy that Mr. Jackson was trying with students encountering challenges in his class called "Friendly Numbers". It is a really great way of using multiples that are accessible to students, such as 5/10/50/100, to break the dividend down as much as possible prior to needing to access their basic facts with the now, more manageable dividend. This method was introduced to the class today briefly, after the results of our quiz, we will see if it needs to be a class-wide strategy.
Social Studies:
Students have now completed the introduction to Confederation. They should be able to list at least 3 reasons why Confederation was a good idea, and some of the challenges that needed to be overcome in order to accomplish this goal. Ask your child if they can list the four colonies that were the first colonies to join Confederation.
Science:
We had lots of fun this week with experiments around mixtures. We started earlier this week by looking at types of mixtures using six different liquids to create solutions and suspensions. Today, we had the chance to work with Mr. Jackson to create a suspension in the form of oobleck which was really fun. Next week, we will be looking at different methods of separating mixtures.
Language Arts:
Students who did not finish their procedural writing will need to have this done this weekend as they will be marked. Our goal is to now move on to creative writing using the tools we have accumulated during our expository writing unit.
Phys. Ed:
Gymnastics is now finished! Congratulations to the girls who won Mission Impossible!
Have a fabulous weekend!
Here is a recap of what students were up to in room 18 over the past few days. Apologies for my absence yesterday, I appreciate your understanding as the students worked through the day with Ms. Locke and Mr. Strum in my stead.
Math:
Students completed a math quiz yesterday on division and were asked to complete the quiz using whichever method worked for them. These quizzes will be marked for Monday so that they can come home and be viewed by you, please ask your child if they don't volunteer to show you on their own. I also found out about a new strategy that Mr. Jackson was trying with students encountering challenges in his class called "Friendly Numbers". It is a really great way of using multiples that are accessible to students, such as 5/10/50/100, to break the dividend down as much as possible prior to needing to access their basic facts with the now, more manageable dividend. This method was introduced to the class today briefly, after the results of our quiz, we will see if it needs to be a class-wide strategy.
Social Studies:
Students have now completed the introduction to Confederation. They should be able to list at least 3 reasons why Confederation was a good idea, and some of the challenges that needed to be overcome in order to accomplish this goal. Ask your child if they can list the four colonies that were the first colonies to join Confederation.
Science:
We had lots of fun this week with experiments around mixtures. We started earlier this week by looking at types of mixtures using six different liquids to create solutions and suspensions. Today, we had the chance to work with Mr. Jackson to create a suspension in the form of oobleck which was really fun. Next week, we will be looking at different methods of separating mixtures.
Language Arts:
Students who did not finish their procedural writing will need to have this done this weekend as they will be marked. Our goal is to now move on to creative writing using the tools we have accumulated during our expository writing unit.
Phys. Ed:
Gymnastics is now finished! Congratulations to the girls who won Mission Impossible!
Have a fabulous weekend!
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