Student Led Conferences

I would just like to start out by thank all of you who made it out to Student Led Conferences this week! The kids loved being able to show you around our room and some of our current experiments!
If you were unable to come, let me know and perhaps after spring break we can arrange a visit day!

Just a reminder, we do have our Cake Walk coming up this Thursday. It is hoped that every student in Grade 4 donates a baked cake (homemade or store bought) to our fundraiser, as all proceeds are going towards our year end Camp Warwa Adventure! Please bring your cakes, first thing in the morning on March 23rd. Parent Volunteers will be collecting them and setting them up in the Meeting Place (Music room). The first Cake Walk will take place at Lunch recess, and the second at the Dance!

Those of you who have offered to volunteer your time to the cake walk, I will be emailing you with information this weekend!

It has been a busy week in our class(isn't is always?!).

In Science, we have set up a few experiments to observe biodegradable products and how they decompose. We first took a look at these two terms, and created a class meaning for them.

Next, we wanted to put it to test! What would happen to a lettuce leaf when covered up and left in dirt for a week? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT! Students made their predictions and put them into a powerpoint slide. You can check it out here!



This will show use the effects of decomposition using dirt and some squirmy decomposers.

We also had to ponder to ourselves, do all biodegradable materials decompose the same? This time, we're looking at a manufactured product - Toilet Paper! Comparing three different samples, we are trying to determine all are products made the same? Do they decompose the same? Does this affect their quality? How does this effect our environment?

We tested Cottonelle, Purex and School brand toilet paper. Placing them in warm water and then shaking them up to break up the toilet paper. In a week, we will check in and see who holds together the best!

In Social this week we have begun to take a look at our First Nations people and their connections to the land. As an opening activity, I gave each student a greeting from one of the 6 cultural groups of Alberta's past. Using ONLY their greeting they had to figure out how to get together in groups and then using our text, figure out which group they are! Ask your child how to greet someone in their groups language!

Check out our video on Class Dojo!

In Language Arts this week, we are still working with a focus on Poetry. This week we discussed how poets work to create imagery for their readers. This can be done through various techniques, including Figurative Language. The form of Figurative language we worked with this week was Alliteration.
Alliteration is when 2 or more words near each other have the same beginning sound. Here are some helpful tips from a blogger I found useful while talking with the students.

#1- Two words is enough to make a phrase alliterative.
Yes, Leah licked a luscious lemon lollipop is alliterative. But A caravan of camels was seen in the distance is also alliterative.
#2- The words have to be near each other.
Steph drove to Walmart to buy a new stereo is not alliterative. There are too many words between Steph and stereo to make that sentence alliterative.#3- The beginning sounds are the same, not the beginning letters.
The photograph was fuzzy is alliterative, but They found a green gem is not alliterative.

With this knowledge, we began to work on Animal Alphabet Alliteration poems! This was so much fun for the kiddos! And it had them working with their grammar knowledge or adjectives, nouns and verbs. 

We did some brainstorming as a class, and then the students had about 20 minutes to come up with as many animal alliteration on their own as they could! These are fun activities your children can do at home too! 

With Grammar this week, we focused on how verbs can change tense and are used in special circumstances. In small groups, students were given a bunch of words and without direction were asked to try and figure out how to sort those words. It was really incredible to see how their minds work together and all the different possibilities! Some students sorted words based on their spelling, meaning, etc. Most groups had caught the clue - They were all words that used present (happening right now), past (already happened) and future (going to happen) tense.  

Once they had this information, all students sorted their words into the three categories and worked on writing 5 star sentences (sentences that use who, what, where, when and why?). 

Of course for St. Patrick's day we had to work on some Limerick writing! This ties in well with our poetry study and has students working with their syllable knowledge and rhyming skills. 

In Math, we have been finishing up our multiplication strategies and had a quiz on Friday. Most students have a good understanding of regrouping when multiplying 2 digit by 1 digit, and 3 digit by 1 digit problems. A majority of our students still need lots of practice with their basic mutliplication facts to become super strong math problem solvers!

Next week we will be moving onto Rounding and Estimating Numbers.

We ended our week with our Pre-Spring Break House Cup! This break's cup winners were...SLYTHERIN!
The way house teams gather points is by participating in class discussion and answering skill testing questions! Congratulations Slytherin on your teamwork and sharp listening skills!
We spent the afternoon creating our own golden snitches, enjoying polyjuice potion, cauldron cakes (thanks again Mrs. D!!) and popcorn twists (thanks Mrs. L!) while watching the second Harry Potter movie.
We had our party a week early, as we have some classmates leaving for break early and wanted to make sure they were included!

Just a few notes for next 
-  I am away at a conference on Monday and Tuesday next week.
- Cake Walk and Family Dance on Thursday! All tickets available online through PowerSchool.
- No School Friday! Happy Spring Break!

Monday was our final ski and snowboard day this year! Even with low temperatures, everyone really enjoyed their last day on the hill! The sun was out and it was quite warm!!

Cake Walk Information!

Tuesday we had more visitors!
As you know, our Grade 4's are collecting all the recycling from our school to put towards our Camp Warwa trip. We actually have been working with Alberta ABCRC (Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Center) to make this possible! They have supplied our entire school with classroom bins for recycling juice boxes, cans or milk cartons.

Representatives from ABCRC came to our school Tuesday to show us what happens after our recyclables go to the depot! They introduced us to our 6 Recycler Heroes; Crash, Rebar, Shredder, Smelter, Crystal and Hydro! Ask your child about these heroes and what they recycle or create!

Each student was given a backpack, hat, water bottle, stickers and badges from the depot!

In Language Arts, we are continuing to study and reflect on Poetry. We discussed how poetry is an authors expression and includes voice, tone, themes and follows different forms. Poets write poems to make readers think; but they can also be written to persuade, entertain or inform readers.
During Read to Self, Students read poems from Shel Silversteins A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends, and chose one to reflect on.

Our Poetry writing focus was to practice with Acrostic Poems! During work on writing, students worked with the topic of food to create their very own poems.

In Math, we are continuing to work with 2 digit x 1 digit multiplication. This week we took a step further and started to add the skill of regrouping with multiplication. When learning this, I introduced the students to BEDMAS - However, we only focused on the MAS (Multiply, Add, Subtract). When working on a math problem we always multiply before we add.

This same concept will be carried into our learning of 3 digit x 1 digit multiplication. A great way to help your child become stronger in math is to practice their basic facts up to 9 x 9.

In Science, we have taken a really close look at packaging of products. We compared the packaging of two different brands of chips, analyzing the cost it would take to create the packaging, how necessary it is and if we could improve on the packaging.

Next we looked at how packaging is made from our raw materials. Different packaging has different cost and effects on our environment. Different packaging will be more protective and appropriate for different products. With this knowledge, students are going to create a flow chart of the production and packaging of a product and the steps required to get it from nature to your table.

A Few Reminders: 
- This weekend is our Girls Floor Hockey Tournament! Watch our girls take on some other Black Gold teams!

- Next Tuesday is our Student led conferences. If you would like to book a time to come visit on Monday, as Tuesday will not work for you, please email me or let me know in your child's agenda.

- Next Friday we will be having our second Harry Potter House Party celebration before Spring Break. This is also St. Patrick's day! We are hoping to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret's. I will be sending negative consent forms home if you do not wish for your child to watch this film.

- March 23rd is our Annual Cake Walk, we are hoping to have a cake donated by each family from Grade 4 to auction off in our Cake Walk. Tickets are available on Powerschool and will be sold the morning of the 23rd to participate at Lunch Hour, as well as, at the dance in the evening.

Hot Dogs for Humpty!

3C is raising money to adopt a hippo! Humpty is a hippo who was found as a baby is a muddy pit. 3C is selling hot dogs to raise money to care for Humpty for $1.00. Hot dogs will be handed out at lunch on Wednesday, so please have your money in by then!

That time is approaching... the time for our Annual Cake Walk at the Family Dance! On March 23rd, during the day and at the Family Dance we will be holding our Cake Walk Fundraiser!

This week we have begun our unit on Poetry in Language Arts. In this unit students will read poems, respond to poetry, experiment with writing their own poems. To introduce this unit I read aloud a few poems from Shel Silversteins, "Where the Sidewalk Ends". While listening we compared the differences and similarities between poems, even with the same author. Next, we will practice reading poems and building our fluency.

If you have gotten the chance to check out our KidBlog, you may have noticed we have a theme to each day! Students have been working on paper this week for KidBlog, completing their daily quick-write. To tie in our Social Studies with KidBlog, we have been researching a different small town in Alberta (trying to hit each of the 6 regions). Usually, we look into communities that have "World's Largest..".

The students have been doing a really great job and taken a serious interest in their research! This week we looked into Frank, Alberta (the ghost town known for the Frank Slide in 1903) and I was so impressed with multiple kiddos who went beyond their assigned work and created an interesting facts web on the board!



As we work our way through multiplication strategies in Math, students are encouraged to use all the knowledge and tools we have been building throughout the year to solve problems. Our focus this week is on the standard algorithm of multiplication, multiplying 2 digits by 1 digit.


In Science, we are discussing the packaging of products and whether or not it is necessary!
We opened a package as a class on Monday, first looking at the box from the outside(packaging), guessing what could be inside (product) and then opening the packaging logging all the materials used and which raw materials may have been processed in the making. Once we opened this large box, we discovered it held ONE metal dust pan! Some of our discussion points included:
- Was all of the packaging necessary?
- How does it benefit the consumer?
- How does it benefit the product?
- How does it affect the environment? (use of raw materials, recycling, etc)
Students are encouraged to look at the products they open or use at home and their packaging. Using the discussion questions above, feel free to ask your child and encourage them to take pictures and bring them into class! We'd love to hear all about it!

On Tuesday we visited the Edmonton Waste Management center and got a first hand peek at how the waste is sorted in Edmonton. This was a great way to help the students make the connections from what we have learned about waste and recycling to real world

Inside the sorting center for recyclables!

In Social we are finishing up our Natural Resources posters and students are beginning to present them to their peers. A lot of the students put a lot of effort into the research and posters, they're beautiful!