Good afternoon families of room 18!
We began our day by diving into fractions and practicing ordering and comparing them. This is a difficult concept for students to work through without visuals and so we spent some time helping students see that different numerators and denominators can easily be misinterpreted if we don't think carefully about what they represent.
After math we moved straight into social studies (Day 1s can feel very long so Ms. Ryan built in lots of body breaks and stretches to help energize student thinking!) and discussed the Statute of Westminster and how that changed Canada's identity.
When we came back from recess, students worked on the book cover art project they started last week. They were reminded of the expectations and told that any of the art that was not finished in class will need to go home for homework as they have now had two full classes to complete this work.
After lunch, students read some more of Fish in a Tree with Ms. Ryan and completed a comprehension check-in. They then made it down to gym before coming back up to class for language arts during which they completed their picture book story mapping activity and were introduced to six word stories. Students were challenged to see if they could sum up their story in 6 words or less.
Reminders:
-Please return fun lunch forms for Thursday
-Dance permission wavers were sent home today, please return these signed before April 4th
-Tomorrow is the last day of school before spring break (March 22)
-School resumes APRIL 3rd (Tuesday)
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Monday, March 19, 2018
Monday, March 19th, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18,
Math: Today we prepared ourselves for a fractions lesson tomorrow that will introduce students to equivalent fractions. We will be looking at how you can write fractions that represent the same value using different denominators. We will also be working on ordering these fractions so that students make the connection that larger numbers do not equal larger fractions.
Language Arts: We started discussing narrative writing with Ms. Ryan! We looked at the parts of a story and identifying those parts within a story. Students will be working with two graphic organizers over the coming weeks to help them intentionally develop the quality of their narrative writing.
Science: We will be doing some work with Science tomorrow!
Social Studies: We are moving toward finishing up our current unit over the next few weeks and will be discussing some pretty important documents that have shaped Canada over the years. Today, students discussed big understandings from our previous project in order to prepare for our next steps in learning.
Reminders:
-Please return fun lunch money as soon as possible!
-No School this Friday!
-Any Scholastic order can be returned after spring break
Math: Today we prepared ourselves for a fractions lesson tomorrow that will introduce students to equivalent fractions. We will be looking at how you can write fractions that represent the same value using different denominators. We will also be working on ordering these fractions so that students make the connection that larger numbers do not equal larger fractions.
Language Arts: We started discussing narrative writing with Ms. Ryan! We looked at the parts of a story and identifying those parts within a story. Students will be working with two graphic organizers over the coming weeks to help them intentionally develop the quality of their narrative writing.
Science: We will be doing some work with Science tomorrow!
Social Studies: We are moving toward finishing up our current unit over the next few weeks and will be discussing some pretty important documents that have shaped Canada over the years. Today, students discussed big understandings from our previous project in order to prepare for our next steps in learning.
Reminders:
-Please return fun lunch money as soon as possible!
-No School this Friday!
-Any Scholastic order can be returned after spring break
Friday, March 16, 2018
Friday, March 16, 2018
Happy Friday!
Congratulations go out again to this month's Pillars of Care award winners: Darshini, Gregory, Jalen, and Qiana!
Today felt like quite a condensed day as we had set a goal to finish our research project for Language Arts/Social Studies. Students worked hard to finish and edit their work for today's deadline, and while some students have not yet finished their writing, many were able to complete this task on time. Ms. Ryan and I will be looking over these next week and sending home a paper copy of the work with some brief feedback. There were also a few students who were unable to work on a computer due to the shortage of laptops on carts and the fact that all 5 grade 4/5 classes are currently completing the same task related to some of our school development goals. They will be given extra time on Monday to finish their final product and will not be penalized in any way for the delay as it was completely out of our control.
In Math, we continued to work on word problems yesterday as well as a review period today with some questions to help students keep their ability with long division and multiplication fresh. It is always interesting to see how quickly these skills are forgotten after we stop intentional work around these, and so we will continue the review over the next week before break, and at other intervals until the end of the year.
We also had the chance to do some language arts related art yesterday in the form of interpretive book art. Students were asked by Ms. Ryan to consider their favourite book/most recently read book/Wonder, and how they could re-design the cover using concepts of complementary colours, analogous colours, word art and symbolism. These should be due back to school on Monday, if they were brought home to be finished.
Have an excellent weekend!
Congratulations go out again to this month's Pillars of Care award winners: Darshini, Gregory, Jalen, and Qiana!
Today felt like quite a condensed day as we had set a goal to finish our research project for Language Arts/Social Studies. Students worked hard to finish and edit their work for today's deadline, and while some students have not yet finished their writing, many were able to complete this task on time. Ms. Ryan and I will be looking over these next week and sending home a paper copy of the work with some brief feedback. There were also a few students who were unable to work on a computer due to the shortage of laptops on carts and the fact that all 5 grade 4/5 classes are currently completing the same task related to some of our school development goals. They will be given extra time on Monday to finish their final product and will not be penalized in any way for the delay as it was completely out of our control.
In Math, we continued to work on word problems yesterday as well as a review period today with some questions to help students keep their ability with long division and multiplication fresh. It is always interesting to see how quickly these skills are forgotten after we stop intentional work around these, and so we will continue the review over the next week before break, and at other intervals until the end of the year.
We also had the chance to do some language arts related art yesterday in the form of interpretive book art. Students were asked by Ms. Ryan to consider their favourite book/most recently read book/Wonder, and how they could re-design the cover using concepts of complementary colours, analogous colours, word art and symbolism. These should be due back to school on Monday, if they were brought home to be finished.
Have an excellent weekend!
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18!
Here is a recap of what has been going on in our class!
Science: Today students experimented with building parallel circuits. It was interesting for students to see that they could unplug a lightbulb and not affect the circuit at all. They also observed that both lightbulbs were quite bright and didn't experience any of the dimming that the lightbulbs on a series circuit had previously.
Math: Students have been working on decimal word problems this week and practicing the language that is used for different functions. Today, we spent some time brainstorming these words in order to remind students of what they already know and to alleviate the stress that occurs while students are trying to build comprehension of the question. All students were given their math quiz from this week to bring home and show to you today. If your child does not voluntarily show you, please ask as many of them have some excellent work to show you all.
Language Arts/Social Studies: Today students worked hard on writing their persuasive essays and putting their information into sentences that were stretched but not run on! They had to place their sentences into paragraphs and went over an exemplar with Ms. Ryan to examine what their paragraphs should look like. These writing pieces will be posted in their blogs and we will continue to keep you updated on their progress so they can be viewed from home.
Reminders:
-Please bring back jump rope envelope
-Fun lunch forms will come home tomorrow
-Pillars of Care assembly this Friday at 8:15am
Here is a recap of what has been going on in our class!
Science: Today students experimented with building parallel circuits. It was interesting for students to see that they could unplug a lightbulb and not affect the circuit at all. They also observed that both lightbulbs were quite bright and didn't experience any of the dimming that the lightbulbs on a series circuit had previously.
Math: Students have been working on decimal word problems this week and practicing the language that is used for different functions. Today, we spent some time brainstorming these words in order to remind students of what they already know and to alleviate the stress that occurs while students are trying to build comprehension of the question. All students were given their math quiz from this week to bring home and show to you today. If your child does not voluntarily show you, please ask as many of them have some excellent work to show you all.
Language Arts/Social Studies: Today students worked hard on writing their persuasive essays and putting their information into sentences that were stretched but not run on! They had to place their sentences into paragraphs and went over an exemplar with Ms. Ryan to examine what their paragraphs should look like. These writing pieces will be posted in their blogs and we will continue to keep you updated on their progress so they can be viewed from home.
Reminders:
-Please bring back jump rope envelope
-Fun lunch forms will come home tomorrow
-Pillars of Care assembly this Friday at 8:15am
Monday, March 12, 2018
Monday, March 12, 2018
Hello families of room 18! Happy Monday!
Here is a recap of what we worked on in class today:
This morning we had our last social studies research period before beginning to write our persuasive essays. Students were asked to take their best 3 arguments and place them into a graphic organizer with each being supported by 3 important details. There are a few students who have not completed their research and who will be encouraged to sit with Ms. Ryan or myself during some free time (lunch or recess) to complete their work. After today, we will begin to write out our paragraphs in a specific order to support our students in creating their best writing. When this written task is finished, it will be posted to our student blogs for you to see!
After recess we had TWO quizzes! These quizzes were meant to be a check-in on student understanding of material covered in classroom chemistry until now, and as an assessment of student understanding of decimals. Grade 5 students will be conducting interviews with me to extend their knowledge into grade 5 curriculum for this unit as the quiz was built for BOTH curriculums, but requires extension into the thousandths place value for the grade 5 students.
In language arts, Ms. Ryan had students review their persuasive writing practice paragraphs to look for punctuation and grammar errors, run on sentences, AND sentences that were too short that required more detail. Editing our work is a tough job for students in grade 4 and 5, but we continue to instill that it is a necessary function of writing.
In science, students are looking at series circuits and the meaning of a "load". Today we had the opportunity to tinker with our circuit sets to extend what we had learned previously about simple circuits.
**** IMPORTANT *****
Students in grade 5 who have missed a vaccination will be seeing Nurse Jonathan on Tuesday am. We just found out, so apologies for the delay in communication!!!
Here is a recap of what we worked on in class today:
This morning we had our last social studies research period before beginning to write our persuasive essays. Students were asked to take their best 3 arguments and place them into a graphic organizer with each being supported by 3 important details. There are a few students who have not completed their research and who will be encouraged to sit with Ms. Ryan or myself during some free time (lunch or recess) to complete their work. After today, we will begin to write out our paragraphs in a specific order to support our students in creating their best writing. When this written task is finished, it will be posted to our student blogs for you to see!
After recess we had TWO quizzes! These quizzes were meant to be a check-in on student understanding of material covered in classroom chemistry until now, and as an assessment of student understanding of decimals. Grade 5 students will be conducting interviews with me to extend their knowledge into grade 5 curriculum for this unit as the quiz was built for BOTH curriculums, but requires extension into the thousandths place value for the grade 5 students.
In language arts, Ms. Ryan had students review their persuasive writing practice paragraphs to look for punctuation and grammar errors, run on sentences, AND sentences that were too short that required more detail. Editing our work is a tough job for students in grade 4 and 5, but we continue to instill that it is a necessary function of writing.
In science, students are looking at series circuits and the meaning of a "load". Today we had the opportunity to tinker with our circuit sets to extend what we had learned previously about simple circuits.
**** IMPORTANT *****
Students in grade 5 who have missed a vaccination will be seeing Nurse Jonathan on Tuesday am. We just found out, so apologies for the delay in communication!!!
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Field Trip Notice for Tomorrow
Dear Parents:
Here are some reminders about our field trip tomorrow!
- We will be leaving Beddington Heights at 9:00am
- Students will not need money for anything
- Please pack a hearty lunch, garbageless lunches are preferred
- Bring a water bottle
- Dress appropriately for the weather, we will be walking to and from buildings outside
- Wear comfortable shoes
- We will be returning at 1:00pm
- Leave unnecessary items at home, we will be bringing pencils and paper to complete written tasks from school
Volunteers: Please meet us at school at 8:40 to organize our groups and receive field trip documents. Thank you for coming with us!
We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!
Chelsea Laird
Learning Leader and Teacher, Beddington Heights School
Calgary Board of Education | www.cbe.ab.ca/b372
t | 403-777-6610
f | 403-777-6613
Here are some reminders about our field trip tomorrow!
- We will be leaving Beddington Heights at 9:00am
- Students will not need money for anything
- Please pack a hearty lunch, garbageless lunches are preferred
- Bring a water bottle
- Dress appropriately for the weather, we will be walking to and from buildings outside
- Wear comfortable shoes
- We will be returning at 1:00pm
- Leave unnecessary items at home, we will be bringing pencils and paper to complete written tasks from school
Volunteers: Please meet us at school at 8:40 to organize our groups and receive field trip documents. Thank you for coming with us!
We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!
Chelsea Laird
Learning Leader and Teacher, Beddington Heights School
Calgary Board of Education | www.cbe.ab.ca/b372
t | 403-777-6610
f | 403-777-6613
Monday, March 5, 2018
Monday, March 5, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18!
This morning we had quite a heavy Social Studies morning with the beginning of research for our cross-curricular project. Students are being asked to research one of the following topics: World War I, The Great Depression, or the post World War II economic boom. They will be looking for evidence to support the argument that their event had the greatest impact on shaping Canadian identity as it exists today. Students are being supported by outlining a research process, discussing the difference between nice to know and need to know information, analyzing a resource for credibility, and a graphic organizer to help file the information they find in useful way. Students will have 4 research periods this week and will begin to formulate the writing piece to accompany their project beginning next week. Students will be asked to create a 5 paragraph persuasive essay for assessment of their research and their ability to use persuasion with their audience.
In Language Arts, students were given time to work on completing a practice persuasive writing paragraph in which they were asked to convince Ms. Ryan and I to either see, or not see, a movie of their choice. We discussed options of how to engage the reader, much like we do with our Book Reviews, by relating the movie to experiences or interests of the reader. These will be used as formative assessment to inform us of how to support students this week prior to writing our persuasive essays.
Math. It was a period of the dreaded WORD PROBLEMS! But, as usual, students worked through them admirably. In an attempt to extend our thinking, students took a break from our decimals and fraction centers and used what they know about these topics to try their hand at solving word problems. We used annotation to analyze the wording of the problems in order to fully understand what the problem was saying and discussed the variety of strategies used for these challenging problems. It was neat to see! We will continue with these tomorrow.
Gym - Students have begun our Jump Rope for Heart week!
Reminders:
-Jump Rope has begun in Phys. Ed. this week! Students are asked to remember to fundraise safely from those that they know, and NOT to go door to door in the community to stay safe!
-Field Trip this Wednesday to the Safety Expo: Bus departs Beddington at 9:00am
-Upcoming Pillars of Care Assembly, March 16th, winners will be announced next week!
This morning we had quite a heavy Social Studies morning with the beginning of research for our cross-curricular project. Students are being asked to research one of the following topics: World War I, The Great Depression, or the post World War II economic boom. They will be looking for evidence to support the argument that their event had the greatest impact on shaping Canadian identity as it exists today. Students are being supported by outlining a research process, discussing the difference between nice to know and need to know information, analyzing a resource for credibility, and a graphic organizer to help file the information they find in useful way. Students will have 4 research periods this week and will begin to formulate the writing piece to accompany their project beginning next week. Students will be asked to create a 5 paragraph persuasive essay for assessment of their research and their ability to use persuasion with their audience.
In Language Arts, students were given time to work on completing a practice persuasive writing paragraph in which they were asked to convince Ms. Ryan and I to either see, or not see, a movie of their choice. We discussed options of how to engage the reader, much like we do with our Book Reviews, by relating the movie to experiences or interests of the reader. These will be used as formative assessment to inform us of how to support students this week prior to writing our persuasive essays.
Math. It was a period of the dreaded WORD PROBLEMS! But, as usual, students worked through them admirably. In an attempt to extend our thinking, students took a break from our decimals and fraction centers and used what they know about these topics to try their hand at solving word problems. We used annotation to analyze the wording of the problems in order to fully understand what the problem was saying and discussed the variety of strategies used for these challenging problems. It was neat to see! We will continue with these tomorrow.
Gym - Students have begun our Jump Rope for Heart week!
Reminders:
-Jump Rope has begun in Phys. Ed. this week! Students are asked to remember to fundraise safely from those that they know, and NOT to go door to door in the community to stay safe!
-Field Trip this Wednesday to the Safety Expo: Bus departs Beddington at 9:00am
-Upcoming Pillars of Care Assembly, March 16th, winners will be announced next week!
Friday, March 2, 2018
Friday, March 2, 2018
Good afternoon families of room 18!
Today we combined math and art to create some pixel art. Students were asked to create an image on a grid of hundredths or thousandths (depending on the grade) and will then be creating decimals and fractions based off of the number of squares they used for each colour. We will finish this art on Monday.
Social Studies: We discussed the Great Depression today and how it changed and shaped Canadian identity. Some of the things we learned about were how different groups of people prospered during the Depression and some became much less fortunate as a result. Also, the idea that many innovations came out of such a difficult time as people tried to survive through disaster.
We also had fun in gym and with buddies according to our Friday schedule.
Reminders:
-Field Trip to Safety Expo on Wednesday, March 2, 2018
Today we combined math and art to create some pixel art. Students were asked to create an image on a grid of hundredths or thousandths (depending on the grade) and will then be creating decimals and fractions based off of the number of squares they used for each colour. We will finish this art on Monday.
Social Studies: We discussed the Great Depression today and how it changed and shaped Canadian identity. Some of the things we learned about were how different groups of people prospered during the Depression and some became much less fortunate as a result. Also, the idea that many innovations came out of such a difficult time as people tried to survive through disaster.
We also had fun in gym and with buddies according to our Friday schedule.
Reminders:
-Field Trip to Safety Expo on Wednesday, March 2, 2018
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