September 29, 2020

Tomorrow, all students are invited to wear orange.  Orange Shirt Day is held annually on Sept. 30. It is an opportunity for all people to come together in the spirit of reconciliation.  Orange Shirt Day began in 2013 when residential school survivor, Phyllis Webstad, shared how her orange shirt was taken away on her first day at a residential school.

Today we learned about pattern rules.  We found out that a pattern rule tells you what to start with, and how much to add or take away each time in a number pattern.

ex. start at 5, add 3 would be 5, 8, 11, 14, 17...

In Language Arts, we continued working on short i words.  We worked on writing sentences that use our spelling words, making sure that our sentences started with a capital letter and ended with a period.

We listened to the story Shin-Chi's Canoe. It is a powerful story about what being a child in a residential school would have been like.  We talked about how the story made us feel - sad, angry, confused, scared.  We also talked about the things we have in our homes that hold a special importance for us, and make us feel more connected to our family and culture.  

On Thurs. Oct. 1, we will be doing our annual Terry Fox run during our gym time.  Please help us be successful by adding an extra water bottle, juice box, or snack.  Depending on the weather, it might be a good idea to have a hat or apply sunscreen before arriving to school, as I won't be able to apply anyting at school.  If possible, you may support the Terry Fox foundation through the following ways:  

1)Donate online at:  http://www.terryfox.ca/BeddingtonHeights 

• Click the link above to donate or search for our school name at terryfox.org 
• There is no minimum donation, every dollar counts! 
• Receipts are issued immediately to donors by email 

2)Set up a student fundraising page https://terryfox.org/schoolrun/students/

• Students are encouraged to set up a page under their school name 

• Students can fundraise by sharing their link with family and friends  
• All student logins and links are private and secure 

3)Cash donations:  While we prefer online donations classroom teachers will accept cash donations.   

In Social Studies, we worked on making a puzzle map of Canada to help us better understand where Alberta is in relation to the rest of the country.  We will continue working on this tomorrow.

Meet The Teacher Video

 Hi parents!  The Grade 3/4 team has posted a video with an overview of our year for you to review on our grade team website.

The video can be viewed here:

https://sites.google.com/educbe.ca/grade-3and4-at-bhs-2020/home

Please email any questions you have to mcpulvermacher@cbe.ab.ca  

Questions for admin can also be submitted to me, but will be answered in an FAQ that will be sent out later on.

No school tomorrow.  Have a great weekend!

September 23, 2020

 Reminders:

Terry Fox run will be done during our gym class on October 1.  We will be accepting donations online.  Please see the blog post about Terry Fox for more information.

No school on Friday September 25, 2020

Thursday night there will be a link to our Meet the Teacher presentation posted on our blogs.  You will be able to view the presentation, and email questions to us.  Our admin team will be putting together an FAQ that will be sent to parents later in the month.

Today we worked on writing a complete personal narrative about a time we had to ask questions, work hard, use our voices, or be ourselves in order to solve a problem.  The students are in the middle of writing these as a reflection on the book "The World Needs More Purple People". If you would like to view the book online, you can do so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dnye4tPJL4

In math, we made a reference list of how to correctly write number words.  We noticed the pattern that happens when you have a tens number and a ones number together (twenty-five), and then talked about what happens when we put a hundreds number in front (five hundred thirty-one).  We were surprised that we don't use the word "and."

We learned about cubism in art, and began working on a self portrait.  It was funny to see pictures of ourselves from different perspectives all in one face.  Ours will look a little different, but the basic look can be found here: https://artprojectsforkids.org/another-cubism-face/

 This year marks the 40^th Anniversary of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope and we are excited to share that Beddington Heights will be proudly supporting this cause.  While this year’s event might look a little different, the result remains the same; to raise funds for cancer research. Let’s all use Terry’s message of hope and strength to inspire us during these challenging times. 

 

Each class will take part in the Terry Fox Run on Thursday, October 1st, 2020 during our scheduled Phys. Ed class.  

 

It is our priority to maintain the safety of students and staff while supporting this wonderful cause. To help support safety measures in all schools, the Terry Fox Foundation has created an online fundraising page for our school as well as provide classroom/individual “Terry” activities. Here are some of the ways you can support your child for this year’s Terry Fox event: 

 

1)Donate online at:  http://www.terryfox.ca/BeddingtonHeights 

• Click the link above to donate or search for our school name at terryfox.org 
• There is no minimum donation, every dollar counts! 
• Receipts are issued immediately to donors by email 

 

2)Set up a student fundraising page https://terryfox.org/schoolrun/students/

• Students are encouraged to set up a page under their school name 
• Students can fundraise by sharing their link with family and friends  
• All student logins and links are private and secure 

 

3)Cash donations:  While we prefer online donations classroom teachers will accept cash donations.   

  

4)Support your child’s “What’s Your 40?” Terry activity 

• Individual classrooms may be engaging in a Terry activities 40 times, 40 minutes or 40 ways… 
• Students at home can also join in by doing their own “What’s Your 40?” Terry activity 
• Try one of the suggested activities online (https://terryfox.org/schoolrun/whats-your-40/) or come up with your own 
• Share your activity on social media and tag others to join  

 

If our school raises $400 or more, Mr. Shackelton will have his class dress him up and do his hair and makeup for the school to see!

 

We are very excited to be a part of this year’s Terry Fox event.  This is our opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those suffering from cancer as well as build school spirit. We hope you will join us as our school community works together in the fight against cancer. Thank you in advance for your support! 

Stay safe, stay strong, 

September 21, 2020

 I was very excited to see the students again today!  It was great to be back.

We got new spelling words for the week today.  We are working on the short e sound this week.  Your child will be bringing home a list of their words for this week.  This is so you can see what they are working on at school.

In math, we continued working on patterns that increase and decrease.  Today, we made in and out charts, that added or took away the same amount each time.  See if your child can remember how we made them tonight.

In Science, we watched a video about reducing, reusing, and recycling in order to deal with waste.  This week, we will be doing some inventorying of the waste we produce while at school, and thinking of how we dispose of each item.

We did some relay games in Gym today.

If you have not returned the Digital Citizenship forms yet, please do so as soon as possible.  I would like to have the students use ipads for a Social Studies task later this week, but they can not use them without the forms returned and signed.

Please check the blog on Thursday for a Meet the Teacher Video Link.

September 18, 2020

 I have really missed seeing the kids this week.  We want to say a huge thank you to Mr. Beechy for working so hard with us all week.

We have started working on the idea of waste, and what we do with it.  Yesterday, a paper was sent home for students to find out how often they dispose of, or create waste in certain ways.  This is meant to be an as it stands right now snapshot.  In the coming weeks, we will be investigating ways that we can reduce the waste we create, showing greater Care fo Place and Care for Others in the process.

We created art this week using oil pastels.  We learned about colour, blending, tracing, and pattern through our work.

We continued working on finding words that use the short A sound, and finding examples of these in books, and practiced writing our words, learning about the different word work activities we can do, so that we have more choice later on.

We built our stamina in silent reading this week.  We will be keeping all books at school for now - no library books will come home.  This is so that they are all accounted for and quarantined properly at the end of each week.

We wrote about Terry Fox, and did a number of community walks in phys. ed. this week.

Please return digital citizenship forms as soon as possible.

Please stay tuned for information about Meet the Teacher and Pillars of Care, and what these will look like at our school this year.  

I look forward to seeing my friends in Room 12 again on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend.

September 15, 2020

 Hello Grade 3/4 Students and Parents!

We are excited to be in our third week of school already.  This week, I will be away as I am not feeling well, but we are super-lucky to have Mr. Beechy filling in for me this week.  Mr. Beechy and I are in contact daily, working on planning and keeping up to date on everyone's progress.

In math this week we are focusing on increasing patterns and how to represent numbers.

In LA, we have started our first spelling lessons of the year.  On Monday, your child brought home a list of words.  These are to give you a sense of what your child is working on, and the level they are working at.  We do not have weekly spelling tests, but will have periodic quizzes to check for enhanced phonemic awareness throughout the year.

In Science, we have begun talking about the concept of waste.  We talked about different forms of waste, and looked for waste in our school environment.

In Social Studies, we started by taking a Google Earth tour of Alberta today.  We also brainstormed what we know about the province already.  Tomorrow we will be working on mapping places in Alberta.  Tonight, talk to your child about any places in Alberta they have lived, or where they have family living.

I look forward to being back in the classroom soon.

September 2, 2020

 Happy first day of school to our families with last names beginning A-K!

Today was a great day.  Our class was very small, and we look forward to meeting all of our other friends on Friday.

Tomorrow I look forward to meeting all of our families with last names beginning with L-Z.

We spent a lot of time today reminding students to keep masks on at all times when in the classroom, but I was very happy to see that all students arrived today with masks to wear.  Please make sure to remind your child of this expectation.

A few things to remember to send from home:

Students will need their own water bottle that will be taken home every day to be washed.  Please ensure it is labeled.

Students require separate indoor and outdoor shoes. 

Students will be bringing home the garbage from their lunch in an effort to limit movement around the classroom at lunchtime.  With this in mind, you may want to consider using reusable containers when possible, particularly for items that have liquid or sticky substances in them.