Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Congratulations to our Potter House Cup Winners.....'

GRYFFINDOR! 

These kiddos worked hard, and came from behind and beat out their competition! Students receive points on a team basis from participation in class discussion, model behaviour and kindess to others. 

It was very close - the closest I have ever had!

 AND this is GRYFFINDOR'S FIRST EVER HOUSE CUP! Way to go!

On Monday, we all received a very important notice! There was a special mission for us to complete - and it came right from the big man - SANTA! 

Students have been working on sharpening the google skills! Working through a Google Slides project, all week we've been adding to our skills. So far, we've worked on how to use shapes, text boxes, word, art, attaching links, Google Earth, Google Maps and adding images to our presentation! 

This project was adapted from a booklet made by Digital Divide & Conquer on TPT

Task One: You've found out your mission, now text your Best Friend to ask for their help! 

Using shapes, text boxes and images students created text conversations with their friends to plan to find Santa's List!

 

 

Their second task was to search the world for the list! Students chose to either search continents, countries or cities. Then used Google Earth to find the location, and then linked it to their search list.

If you were to click on the location, the link would take you to that exact spot in Google Earth!

ie. New York City, USA

The third task was to look in our own town! As a class, we brainstormed all the places in Devon a couple of elves might visit and why! 

Using Google Maps - Street View - students found these areas, screenshot them and placed them into their slides explaining why they think they would visit there.

 

And of course - they had to check their own neighbourhood! Taking a birds eye view - or house - shot of their neighbourhood, students made paths using the line tool of where they thin the elves may have gone. 

At last, they have found the list! Using Pixlr Editor (a photoshop program}) students photoshopped themselves, holding the found list, in a snowy back ground! Then they created an instagram post all about it!

  

It was a super fun week of learning tons of different tech skills!

Math 

We wrapped up our addition unit! Of course this is a skill we will touch on all year, but for now we are done learning it! We had our quiz on Wednesday and everyone did great! One area I noticed we all struggled with was problem solving. Looks like we'll be doing lots of practice in the new year!

Science 

Students have begun their product flowchart projects. This is where they trace how a product is harvested, manufactured, packaged and purchased by the consumer. We're so close to being done! We will finish them in the new year. 

We will also begin our Wheels & Lever unit in the new year. 

Social 

Did somebody say FOOTHILLS? We took a  look at the next region of study, once again reading about the landforms, vegetation, and animal life here. 

Thank you to everyone for an awesome first half of the year! 

We also took some time to make some heartfelt cards for the Holidays! You might see one coming to you soon! 

We also had an AWESOME last day together! 

The Grade 4 Team whipped up a pancake breakfast and hot chocolate! 

Dec. 11-14

Only one more week left!

A Few Reminders:

• Dec. 20th - Potter Cup Party!
• Dec. 21st - PJ and Stuffies movie afternoon. 

Leduc #1 - The Good Oil Days!

We absolutely loved our visit to Leduc #1! It was so interesting to learn the ins and outs of the oil industry, how the rigs work, the science behind it all and of course a bit of history! Students were engaged the entire time and even had to put some of their Grade 3 science knowledge about rocks to work!

ELA 

Students have been working incredibly hard on finishing up their Night Before Christmas stories! Using the original poem by Clement C. Moore, students have adapted it to create their very own story. It was a challenge working with all the rhyming words - and sticking to a theme - but they go it done!

Using Google Slides, they have added picture to each page to create their own colouring books! Thanks Mrs. Spreen for this awesome idea!! 

I will be keeping these up in the classroom from now until the end of January for students to read each others. If you would like to see a copy, they can always show you from their google drive!

Math 

We are still working away on addition - and now with regrouping! Students are working on addition problems with numbers up to 4 digits.

We have worked on solving problems with various strategies - using base ten blocks, breaking them up into expanded form and using our basic fact knowledge. Using base ten blocks especially helps when we discuss regrouping, as they can physically see the trade of ones for tens. 

 We started by solving 2 digit addition problems, reviewing how to regroup tens to ones. Then we branched to 3 digit (regrouping tens to hundreds) and 4 digit (regrouping hundreds to thousands). 

Science 

We have been studying how various packaging materials are made. Students will know use this knowledge to complete a product/packaging flow chart project! They will choose a manufactured food and create a flowchart that shows how the product is made and packaged, how the package is made and how the consumer uses and disposes of the product. 

Social

Two Regions down, Four to go! Students are digging deep into the regions of Alberta spending time researching the different landforms, climate, vegetation, animals, resources and daily life. 

This week they worked on putting their information into their MyMaps creations! Here is a video to give you a peak into what we're doing. 

Christmas Dress up Fun!

Dec. 3 -6

A Few Reminders: 

• Dec 10, 11, 12 - Kids Paint Days! Check Weekly update and email for sign up options. 
• Dec. 11th - We are heading to Leduc #1! Please check PowerSchool for the online forms.  
• Dec. 20th - Potter Cup Party!
• Dec. 21st - PJ and Stuffies movie afternoon. 

All that hard work sure paid off! The Christmas Concert was absolutely wonderful! I was not able to snap pictures of the performance (as I was on ipad duty!) but here are a few snaps of the cuties before heading in!

They look SO GREAT!!!

ELA

Reading

 This week we have been getting into the Christmas Spirit by reading various versions of T'was the Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore. While reading, we have been taking note to compare the characters and their relative setting. Each version the Santa is a little different, reindeer can be very different and they are directly related to where they take place. Below are the different versions we have read: 

Now we are beginning to write our very own versions! Some working titles so far are: A Penguins Nights Before Christmas, A Unicorns Night Before Christmas and even an Albertan's Night Before Christmas!

We also have finished our Historical Fiction read aloud: Knights at the Kitchen Table by Jon Scieszka. This was an awesome book about three boys who get transported back in time to the middle ages!

After reading, we recapped the book taking notes on the important details: characters, setting, problem, solution and events. Students took this information and started a diary writing project. They retold the story, in diary format, as if they were there for the whole story! An of course, each one of us had to have a knight's name! 

Here are some student samples:

Math

Students have started addition! Using our newly acquired rounding skills, we started out with some estimating of sums. Students were given exact numbers, and rounded them to the nearest ten, hundred or thousand to complete the problem. 

i.e. 619 + 768 = 600 + 800 

Then we moved onto adding with 2 digits - which everyone did exceptional on! Some students needed reminders that we always start in the ones place, and move left as we solve. 

There was some confusion about carrying, and we needed to do some refreshers on who we regroup ones to tens, tens to hundreds, and hundreds to thousands. This skill will come in handy when we start doing addition of 2 digit numbers with regrouping next week. 

Science

The Life Story of Packaging! 

We have been learning all about how different packaging materials are made! So far students have taken notes and created flowcharts on the life of a carton and a glass bottle. Students created their flowcharts in google drawings and we able to add images to create posters!

Next week we will finish up with the life of a plastic bottle before we start our product flowchart project! 

Social 

Students have been back to the research and learning about our next region - the Boreal Forest! Through reading passages, buddy reading textbooks, students have been filling in their graphic organizers collecting information. 

Ask them about the Boreal Forests: vegetation, climate, landforms, animals, natural resources, jobs and daily life! 

Nov. 19 - 30

A Few Reminders: 

ELA

Writing
A big focus on our KidBlog writing was working on creating strong supporting details, with varied sentence starters. On Talk About it Tuesday students discussed their favourite board games. Choosing one, they had to explain why it was the best board game ever!

We also started to expand on our reasons, by giving examples or explaining why it is a good reason. This was the students firts introduction to O.R.E.O. Style opinion writing! We always triple stuff our oreo's with at least 3 strong reasons.

Students then took their planning and put it into well polished paragraphs! They did such an awesome job! When they went from plans to paragraph they worked hard to check their own work for punctuation, capitals and complete sentences! 

Here are some samples of work!

They did so great I had to put them up on our Daily Prophet wall!

In our Grammar work, we looked at incomplete and complete sentences. Students learned that sentences have to have a subject and predicate in order to be a complete sentence. The subject is WHO or WHAT the sentence is about. This usually is the main noun in the sentence. The predicate is what the subject is doing.

Reading 
We have been working on our inferring and predicting skills. Although these skills are similar, they are definitely different! Inferring is when we read between the lines to find out about character feelings, setting, or what is happening right now. 

To introduce this, we watched a video fro the series Simon's cat. These are videos without words, where we have to use our background knowledge and personal experiences to infer the characters feelings.

• How do you think the cat feels?
• Where do you think they might be going? Why?

We used our inferring skills on a second video - again with no words - to look for clues that would tell us about the setting. Students responded as a group to the video using Padlet. An electronic post it wall! 

We also worked with inferring during reading, as a group and individually. Students read passages describing a character and were to infer the setting or emotions of characters involved. 

For Predicting, it is a little different - predicting you are making an educated guess as to what will HAPPEN NEXT. 

Once again, we started this strategy with a video - For the Birds by Pixar. 

I paused the movie at certain points to ask students to predict - what will happen next? 

Using our background knowledge + experiences students made educated guesses as to what would happen next in the video. When we make predictions, as we carry on in the student they usually can be confirmed. This makes them a bit different from 

As a guided practice, we read through another book by our much loved author Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back. Pausing throughout the book, I modeled with the students how we make predictions. It is important to be able to back up our predictions with evidence or clues from the text. Once you have finished reading the book you need to check - was your prediction correct? We have read other titles from this author - This is Not My Hat with previous strategies, which helped when we made our predictions. 

As independent practice, students read through the book Dr. De Soto's on Epic! and recorded predictions they had while reading, clues that lead them to make the predictions, and then confirmed whether or not their predictions were correct or not. 

Math 
Students have been working with numbers before starting our addition and subtraction unit. First we looked at numbers and how we can sort them based on their attributes:

• Greater than a number 
• Less than a number 
• Amount of digits 
• Odd or Even 

As a group we worked on sorting various numbers into different circle diagrams.

Next we worked on rounding numbers to nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands. Students were very good at rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds and thousand - if it was the same amount of digits. However, there seemed to be a common struggle to round a 4 digit number to nearest hundred or ten. You may notice, we have a daily rounding problem in our agendas now for students to get a better grasp on this skill. 

Rounding has led us into estimating sums! As a class, using double and triple die, we rolled numbers, rounded them to nearest ten or hundred and then estimated answers. We discussed terms like over estimate, and under estimate. 

Next week we will start addition with regrouping! 

Science 
Bennett Center 
This was an awesome day! The Bennett Center came to teach use all about wheels and levers! Students learned about wheels, pulleys, levers, gears and got to put them into action!

We have sorted all our trash! We collected all of our waste in the class over a week, and sorted it into categories created by the students: plastic waste, organic waste, school waste, liquid waste, foil waste and paper waste. 

We weighed each category to see what we had the most waste in! By weight the hands down winner was organic waste! We toss so much food! Out of all the organic waste (6.8 lbs) only 1.8 lbs was completely used, finished non-compostable food! This really made us look at how much we throw out!

The category we had the most in volume in was... plastic waste! We realized so much of our lunch is wrapped in plastic, ziploc bags, etc. You may have noticed - we started a lunch waste challenge! We looked at the different between Mrs. D's lunch and QB's lunch. And how things that have disposable packages can packed differently. Everyone did AMAZING! I was so proud.. I baked them a loaf of banana bread and we all had a snack on Friday!

We also looked into the various packaging of products and their waste. Our experiment revolved around ketchup chips! We looked at 1 product that is packaged multiple ways. Each package has different post consumer waste and we analyzed if the packaging was necessary and how it affects the consumer.

Then of course we got to eat the product, which is always the best part!!! 

Social 

In Social, we looked deeper into the Canadian Shield as a region. Students read from reading passages, textbooks and websites to learn about the different landforms, climate, animals, natural resources, jobs and daily life in the Canadian Shield region. 

We also spent some time on Quizlet! I love this site! It is an interactive site where students work with vocabulary. After looking through flashcards and recording vocab we will be using all year into their duptangs, they were able to play some games! If you would like to see the site, students can access it through google classroom. 

In Art we created some star art! Using our line reference pages, students filled stars with lines, as well as, creating borders.