October 31, 2020

 Hello Parents/Guardians and Grade 3/4 Students!  Happy Halloween!

I am still waiting for physical flyers to arrive at school, but wanted to let you all know that this year we will be offering Scholastic Book Club orders through our classroom.  The order system has changed a bit this year, to accomodate more online options. Flyers will be sent home as soon as they arrive, but in the meantime you are able to shop online at www.scholastic.ca

When placing an order online, please enter our class code: RC192920

Happy Reading!

October 28, 2020

 Today we counted the seeds in our pumpkins.  All of our groups decided to skip count by 10s because they thought it would be the fastest and easiest way to count such large quantities.  Ask your child how many seeds were in their pumpkin.

In LA, we worked on writing sentences, and then had time to choose a couple of word work activities to complete.  Our words this week focus on the sh digraph.  

In Social Studies, we identified the 6 geographic regions of Alberta on a map, and located Calgary and Edmonton.  We will be researching these regions for the next few weeks.

Reminders:

Tomorrow is costume day.  Students are welcome t wear costumes, but must still wear a proper face mask, and cannot wear a full face halloween mask.  All accessories (weapons, tools etc.) must be left at home.

No school on Friday

Clocks turn back 1 hour this Sunday.

Picture orders are due November 6

October 26, 2020

 Mrs. P is back today!

Today we contributed our ideas to make a page in a shared book being written by the whole school.  The book is called "If you Give a Beluga Some Bacon."  Ask your child what happened on our page.

We got pumpkins.  We read "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin."  Today, our class measured the circumference of our pumpkins, how many lines are on our pumpkins, how much our pumpkins weigh, and we made an estimate of how many seeds would be in our pumpkin.  We also started a drawing of our pumpkins.

Tomorrow we will be gutting the pumpkins, in order to prepare to count the seeds.  Students should wear something with short sleeves, or bring an apron/smock if they have one.  This is a bit messy.

Later this week we will be counting the seeds, and com[airing our estimate and actual values.

We did our nominations for Pillars of Care today.  We will find out who this month's winners are on Wednesday.

Reminders:

October 29 is costume day for those students who want to wear one.  The costume must be worn to school, and students will not have the opportunity to change out of them, as we are limiting students in the washroom due to Covid protocols.  Students must still wear their face masks - Halloween masks are not an acceptable substitute.

October 30 - No School

November 6 - Photo Orders Due

October 23, 2020

 We tried having our first virtual reading buddies meeting today.  We learned a few things about technology, and learned that we really need headphones.  Please send a pair of headphones to school for your child to keep in their desk for the year.  This will allow your child to be more focused during online activities.  

Today we did our last day of community walks in our observation of the Walk for Wenjack.

We had free writing Friday.

We continued working on how to represent numbers in a variety of ways.

In art, we drew the soles of our shoes to use as a part of our display board about our week of walking.

October 21, 2020

 Today we logged into Raz Kids on the laptops at school.  Raz Kids is an online leveled reading program that students can access both at school and at home.  Your child is bringing home a yellow card with their Raz Kids and Mathletics logins on it tonight.  This is for them to keep at home to use as needed.

In math, we worked on counting "groups of" today, as a part of our learning about skip counting.

In LA, we are focusing on writing complete sentences with a capital letter and a period.  We also tried adding an adjective to our sentence today.

Reminders:

Costume day October 29 - this is optional.  Students are allowed to wear their costume to school all day, but MAY NOT bring weapons (real or pretend), masks, or graphic/violent imagery on their costumes.  Students MUST still wear their face mask all day.

No School October 30

October 19, 2020

 Happy Monday!

This week we will be going for a 1.5km community walk every day in Phys. Ed.  It is quite cold outside on these walks, so please make sure to remind your child to have their winter gear with them every day.  We are participating in the Walk for Wenjack in an attempt to have our school walk the over 600km that Chanie Wenjack attempted to walk when running away from the residential school he lived at in 1966.  More information on Chanie's story can be found here: https://downiewenjack.ca/our-story/chanies-path/

In math, we were working on skip counting today.  Using a 100 chart for reference, most of the students were quite successful.  We will be transitioning away from having a reference chart soon.

We are spending one more week working with long vowel sounds - this week a, i, and e

In Science, we began writing about ways we could reduce the amount of water we use at home.  We will be continuing this later this week.

Your children are bringing home their reading logs today.  Last week our class read 253 min. in total.  This was over the course of 2 days, so this week we hope to see a number closer to 1000 min.  Please return the reading logs on Friday.

October 15, 2020

 Today was picture day!  It was great to see the kids looking so awesome for their photos.

In Social Studies, we have continued working on building our research skills using laptops to help us find some specific information about Alberta.  This time we found the provincial tree, animal, bird, mineral, and capital city.

In Science, we have continued to talk about waste water.  The students were asked to keep an eye out tonight for places in the home where we use water, and come prepared to talk about them tomorrow.

In Math, we continued working on skip counting using a 100 chart.

Reminders:

Please return the reading logs tomorrow, so we can start to tally our class' reading time for the week.  I will keep them over the weekend, and send the logs home with students again on Monday.  You can include your weekend reading in next week's log.

Costume day October 29

No school October 30

October 13, 2020

 Today we worked on the long and short u sounds.  We read a story called "A Mule Named Sugar Cube"

We continued working on our expanded form addition strategy in math.

In Science, we learned about the water treatment cycle.

If your child has their own headphones that they can keep at school please send them in as soon as possible.  This helps reduce noise when we are all using computers at the same time.

Important Dates:

Picture Day October 15

Costume Day October 29 (optional)

No school October 30

October 12, 2020

Happy Thanksgiving to all our families who observe this holiday.  For those who do not, I hope you are enjoying a cozy day at home.  

Looking at the snow falling this morning, I just wanted to send a quick reminder to students and families that our class is outside for a 45 min. block every day, so having a warm jacket (and maybe mittens) will be important this week.  

Also, just a reminder that students must have 2 pairs of shoes - an indoor and an outdoor pair.  Now that the ground is wet, it is especially important that students have dry indoor shoes to wear to cut down on mess in the hallways and classroom.

Thank you, and I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!

October 9, 2020

Oops.. This post saved as a draft instead of publishing... Here is the news from Friday, October 9

I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone for a great first month (and a bit) of school! We have had a wonderful time getting to know our new classmates, and getting into our learning.  As many of you are aware, our school has been able to open another Grade 3/4 classroom beginning Tuesday October 13.  To my departing students, you are all amazing and I want you to have a great time in your new classroom with your new teacher! To my remaining students, our learning adventure continues and I am excited to see how we will all grow throughout the year! 

This week we learned how to use expanded notation to help us add large numbers:

376 + 286 = 

300+200=    500

70+80=          150

6+6=                 12

                        652

In writing, we worked on developing our own ideas, and building our stamina in attempting to write on our own. We also worked on writing proper sentences using the word because.

In Science, we worked on the anatomy of a landfill, and investigated why we shouldn't openly burn garbage.

In Social Studies, we used our laptops to begin learning research skills to find specific information about Alberta, including the longest river, highest mountain, and largest city by population.                 

Reminders:

Monday October 12th No school (Holiday)

Thursday October 15th Picture day

Thursday October 29th dress up in costumes day. (This is optional for all students)

Friday October 30th No school (PD day)

October 6, 2020

We will be using laptops tomorrow.  Any students who have not returned the Digital Citizenship form that went home in September will not be able to use the laptops.  If you still have this at home, please fill it out and return it with your child tomorrow.

Today we learned about the anatomy of a landfill, including the measures being taken y the City of Calgary to mitigate some of the negative impacts of landfills.  We also talked about alternatives to landfills, including burning, composting,  recycling, re-using, and not buying things that produce garbage in the first place.  The video we watched can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP54rKPFFYI

In math, yesterday we worked on making a bar graph about our favorite holidays.  This also helped us learn about some of the cultural celebrations that other members of our class have.  Today, we worked on representing increasing, decreasing and alternating patterns on a 100 chart.

We saw the most amazing rainbow when we got to school today.  We were so inspired that we spent 40 min this morning writing about how the rainbow made us feel, how rainbows are made, and stories about getting to the rainbow.  Ask your child what they wrote about.

We had Music today. Check out Mr. Weins' blog to find out what is happening in Music class.

This month is Literacy Month at BHS.  Starting next week, we will be inviting students to sign up to bring in a favorite picture book from home.  Students can either read the book to their classmates themselves, or ask me to read it if it is a little challenging or they are feeling shy.  All students should be prepared to talk about why they love the book, and if they are reading it themselves, should have it rehearsed at home the day before their turn to share.

Important Dates:

No school this Friday October 9

Individual school photos October 15

Costume Day October 29

No School October 30

October 2, 2020

This has been a busy week of learning in our classroom.

In math, we have been working on increasing and decreasing patterns.  Some Grade 4 students have also started working on alternating patterns - a pattern that adds and subtracts alternately.  At home, see if your child can state the pattern rule and extend these patterns:

5, 7, 9, 11...

10, 14, 18...

21, 18, 15, 12...

2, 9, 6, 13...

Our word work was focused on the short i sound this week. We went on a word hunt in our reading books for short i sounds.  This weekend, you could have them take a look in a book for short i, short e, and short a sound words.

In Science, we learned what a landfill is, and what happens to garbage when we throw it away.  This weekend, you could talk to your family about what you recycle, compost, or throw out in your home.

We worked on mapping Canada in our Social Studies lessons. Next week, we will begin mapping the geography of Alberta.

 Happy Friday!

October 1, 2020

 We did our Terry Fox run today.  We ran many laps of our field. We also designed our own Terry Fox shirts and used the letters in “Terry Fox” to build new words

In math, we worked on how we represent numbers using base 10 blocks, words, addition sentences and expanded notation.

In Science, we talked about why the city of Calgary provides homes with three different bins for our waste, and why recycling is important.  We watched a video about why recycling is important, and learned what a landfill is.

If you have not signed and returned your papers from the beginning of the year, or your digital citizenship forms, please do so and send them back to school.  We are missing several digital citizenship forms and cannot use technology without these being returned.