Skating Week!

Skating was so much fun this week! The students really enjoyed getting out on the ice, and for some it was a first time skating in a long time! Our next week of skating will be Feb 14 - 17. 

In Language Arts this week, we have been doing lots of reading comprehension. I have been working with students in small groups to assess understanding of sequence and recalling of information they have read. 

Our spelling focus this week is on digraphs (ch, tch, sh, th) and where they can be found in a word. A digraph is where two (or more) letters make one sound. The students have been working through word sorts and their spelling sheets independently during Word Work in Daily 5. On Fridays, students complete their tests on Spelling City. 

Our grammar focus this week and when to properly use possessive pronouns. These are pronouns that show ownership of an object by a noun. 

One type of possessive pronoun stands alone, "The book is mine."

The second type comes before a noun, " That is my book."

To practice this skill, students paired up and were given a sticky with a possessive pronoun on it. Then they moved around the classroom, writing a sentence on their sticky using that pronoun and attaching it to the noun/object! 

 

In Math, we have been working through math centers and practicing our basic facts. On Monday, I have the opportunity to attend a math games-based PD and it full of fun activities! I have taken some time to work with students in small groups and teach them a game called "Betweeners". Students are given anywhere from 2-5 dice, each one representing a certain place value. In groups of three, students roll their dice, and then try to arrange their dice to be an "in between" number. This means they're not trying to be the highest or the lowest! It really has them using their problem solving skills and mathematical process of comparing numbers. 

In Science, we are continuing to discuss waste in our world and the ways human produce and process waste. As humans, waste is anything we have used and no longer need so we discard. This can then be sorted by waster, recyclable, waste and compost. 

Students have learned that we recycle 4 different categories; paper, plastic, aluminum and glass. We also compost our organic waste in two possible ways - bin/pile or worm compost (vermiculture!). 

In Social, we are digging deeper into our Natural Resources and how they make our province and its regions unique. They are able to identify the raw materials resources come from and where they can be found in our province. 

Please make sure to check Powerschool for upcoming field trip permission forms! We have a lot going on in Feburary! 

Hello Parents!
Just a few reminders about February! It's going to be a busy busy month!

Wednesday, February 1 – Winter Walk
Once again, Robina Baker Elementary School is participating in this school-wide event by going on a wonderful wintery walk in Devon’s trail system. Grades 1-4 will depart the school at 12:45pm, walk for approx. 45mins before returning to school for some Hot Chocolate generously provided by The Town of Devon.

Wednesday, February 8 – Pancake Day
The Grade 4s will be participating in the Pancake Day at Riverview Middle School (RMS) as a part of our transition to Grade 5 Plan.  At 9 am all three Grade 4 classes will go to RMS (about a 5 minute walk) for a free pancake breakfast.  After the yummy breakfast provided by RMS, the students will get a tour of the school and then they will walk back to Robina Baker.

Monday, February 13 – Ski Trip
Monday, March 6 – Ski Trip
The Grade Four classes will be going skiing twice this year. This first trip is February 13 with the second one occurring on March 6.  For both trips we will leave the school promptly at 8:40 am and arrive back at the school at 4:00 pm. If your student normally takes the bus home they will need an alternate ride home from the school that day. Every child is required to take a lesson at their level and will then have the opportunity to free ski the remainder of the day.  Students require a bagged lunch and proper winter wear (ski pants are a must).

**We will need volunteers on and off the hill for this trip. Please let me know if you are interested.

Tuesday, February 28 – Edmonton Waste Management Centre
The Grade Four classes will be going to the Edmonton Waste Management Centre.   We will leave the school promptly at 8:30 am and arrive back at the school at 12:30 pm.  Students will tour the EWMC facility which ties into the Science 4 curriculum of Waste and Our World.

**I will be looking at the survey from the beginning of the year to contact those who expressed interest in coming on this trip.

It has been a wonderful week for weather! It's been so nice to get our outdoor recess' back!

Quick Reminders: 

Skating starts on Monday! Please ensure your child comes prepared with appropriate equipment!
Our skating schedule can be found on the Calendar tab of this blog.  

Skiing! Our Ski Dates for Rabbit Hill will be Monday, February 13th and Monday, March 7th. More details on pricing will come closer to the date. 

This Week ...

 In Language Arts this week, our reading focus was to recognize that stories and writing follows a sequential order. We have worked on sequence in our personal writing, through our How To projects, so they did really great with this! 

Writing this week, our focus on KidBlog was to start creating multiple paragraphs. When working on our Talk About it Tuesday this week, students expressed their opinion on which fictional school they would rather attend - Hogwarts or Bailey Elementary - based on books we have read aloud as a class. Students then worked with the O.R.E.O format to state their opinion, give valid reasons and add an explanation or example as to why their reason is valid. With this idea, students created multi-paragraph writing, with each paragraph having their own topic the supported their overall main opinion. 

Here are some examples of student's work. 

We also started spelling this week! On the side of our blog there will be updates of our grammar and spelling focus. 

In Math this week, we have continued with our focus on Subtraction problems. We are reinforcing and practicing basic math skills to help us with borrowing and subtracting large numbers. 

Students are encouraged to play games or use Mathletics to practice their basic facts at home. 

In Social, the students are wrapping up their chapter and studying of the 6 Geographical Regions of Alberta. As a class, once students had presented their projects last week, we created study notes. This was an opportunity for students to build strong note-taking skills. We practiced basic studying strategies to help us prepare for our Regions quiz. 

As a class, we reviewed our notes, determining what we thought was important information on a region. Afterwards, the students separated into their houses to play a quick quiz game to see what they could remember. Then came the quiz. 

In Science, we started discussing - What is Waste? What types of Waste are there? and What do we do with it?

Students were asked to brainstorm all the types of waste they could think of and put it on a sticky, and then on the board. 

As a group, we sorted the waste into 3 different categories. I then put those stickies on paper and asked the students to try and come up with a rule for all the types of waste on their page. 

The rules they came up with were "Reusable Waste", "Non-Reusable Waste" and "Compost".

Through reading, we now know, there are various types of waste, and we would rename these groups: Recyclable, Organic (biodegradable) and Garbage(Solid/Liquid/Hazardous).  

Have a great weekend everyone!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had an awesome time over the break!

Heads up! Our skating schedule has been finalized! Please click here to view our skating times Jan 23-26.

To participate in skating, all students need to wear CSA approved helmets (i.e. hockey helmets - students will need full cages if they would like to play shinny, downhill skiing helmets, horseback riding helmets, BUT absolutely NO BIKE HELMETS. 

Our school does have skates and helmets available to be borrowed by students should they not have skates that fit or a helmet meeting the CSA requirement. 

JACKETS ON! Please remind your child they must wear their outdoor jackets while skating. Gloves are also required (they keep fingers warm and offer protection!) Ski pants are encouraged.

We are in need of one off-ice supervisor to join us. If you are able to come to one or more of the dates/times please let me know ASAP. It will be a first come first serve basis.

As a way to share about our holiday break, we started a fun activity - TWEETS!
Students used a graphic organizer to organize their memories from their break in sequence. Then through peer editing, students read each other's worked and checkedfor grammar errors, spelling, capitalization of proper nouns and proper use of punctuation.

Once they had them planned, students worked with a template within google slides to create their own Twitter pages (these are not real pages online). They did a great job with this and are becoming quite the tech savvy bunch!!

In Math, we began talking about subtraction of numbers up to 10, 000. We worked with base ten blocks and manipulatives to solve subtraction problems, eventually working borrowing tens into our lessons as well. Some students are still working to understand this process and are encouraged to practice at home on Mathletics.

In Science, we started discussing our new unit - Waste and our World. A main focus for the next few weeks will be what waste is, how humans create waste and how we can reduce/improve our biological footprints.

In Social, we have been finishing and presenting our Alberta's Regions Projects. Students have been working on these since before the break and have been doing a great job presenting.

In Art, we did a guided drawing of a snowman! They turned out so unique and cute!

 


Reminder's for next week:

Jan 18 is Beach Day - Dress in your fun beach wear, keeping it school appropriate!