Wednesday, January 28

 Hi parents,

We had a really good day today.

In the morning we had the geometry quiz. It went a lot like the Addition and Subtraction one - pretty easy for the grade 4s, very difficult for grade 3. I think the reason for this is because Grade 3 is when all the new terminology is first introduced. In Grade 4, it just gets built upon further. So even though the Grade 3s and 4s did different versions of the test, I think the Grade 3 one was just inevitably going to be harder, because there were more concepts that were completely brand new.

We will definitely have a re-do of this one further down the road. But I'm not sure how much time I will have to specifically address these concepts in class, since we're moving on to multiplication and have a lot to cover in that area. So any practice you can do at home would be great. I'll send the quizzes home early next week to give you a better idea of what to practice.

In writing, we did a quick prompt: "If I had a tiny [animal], I would..." This is based on the short novel we're reading, "March of the Mini Beasts". 

We had a lot of time to work on Natural Resource posters too.

The spelling quiz is tomorrow because there's no school on Friday. Have a nice night!

Zac

Tuesday, January 28

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! The students spent most of the morning working on their natural resources posters. I saw a lot more effort today and it paid off. 

Tomorrow is our geometry quiz. To reiterate, here's what the students should know:

-regular / irregular polygons

-right, acute, and obtuse angles (measuring angles with protractor for Grade 4 only)

-equilateral, isosceles, and scalene / right triangles

-what a quadrilateral is, and a couple examples of quadrilaterals (rhombus, parallelogram, rectangle, square, trapezoid)

-regular polygons (equilateral triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, octagon) 

-parallel lines

-sides / vertices

We reviewed most of the concepts again today, and I do feel like we're ready for this quiz. But as always there will be opportunities for a re-do if needed.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, January 26

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today.

In the morning, the students started a mini-project for Social Studies, in which they're creating posters to show their understanding of Alberta's natural resources.  It might be helpful to talk to your child at home about the big ones - agriculture, fossil fuels, and forestry - and brainstorm all the ways these resources are used, and also how they connect to people's jobs in the province. 

We went over the new spelling words and had a good discussion about the 'ce' blend.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then learned about how we can describe shapes 'mathematically'. We talked about how to mathematicians, the 'attributes' of a shape (angles, sides, type of polygon, parallel lines, etc.) are generally the best way to describe them. We talked about avoiding words like 'big' or 'pointy', and using the proper terms, like 'obtuse' or 'acute'. 

Report Cards are coming up soon - and unfortunately a lot of students seem to be getting a little lazy with their work once again. The work above is a great example of what can be accomplished in just 20 minutes of hard work. Unfortunately about half the students in the class have still only traced their polygons - after about 30 minutes of work time. I know the class is capable of much more than this. But since we are a Montessori classroom, its really important for that motivation and focus to come intrinsically - not from fear of being punished, or having constant one-on-one teacher support, but from a genuine desire to complete work that you're proud of.

We had a big talk about this at the end of the day, and we've had many similar talks throughout the year, but effort continues to be our biggest struggle overall.

We are going to have our geometry quiz on Wednesday, Jan. 28.

This quiz will cover slightly different things for Grade 3 and 4, but here are the terms everyone should know. If you know all these you will crush this quiz.

-regular / irregular polygons

-right, acute, and obtuse angles (measuring angles with protractor for Grade 4 only)

-equilateral, isosceles, and scalene / right triangles

-what a quadrilateral is, and a couple examples of quadrilaterals (rhombus, parallelogram, rectangle, square, trapezoid)

-regular polygons (equilateral triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, octagon) 

-parallel lines

-sides / vertices

I know it seems like a lot, but we have covered all these terms in class repeatedly, and the kids actually do know them pretty well already. The bold concepts are most important.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 25)

Spelling List A (Jan. 23 – 30)

rice	once	face	ice	nicer
pace	mice	laces	dice	racer

 

Spelling List B (Jan. 23 – 30)

since	places	price	forced	space
twice	dancer	scene	spices	notice

 

Spelling List C (Jan. 23 – 30)

voice	piece	sauce	decent	recent
except	parcel	cancel	cement	fence

 

The theme this week is 'ce' words where 'c' sounds like 's'.  Good luck!!

Friday, January 23

 Hi parents,

Sorry about the missed blog posts this week - I ended up having meetings after school every day and didn't get to them. 

We had a pretty good week all around. The kids worked a lot on their 'special place' paragraphs, which we mostly finished up today, and I was quite impressed by their descriptive writing. 

Yesterday we had the addition and subtraction quiz re-do, and it was a huge improvement over the last one. It is clear that we're ready to move on from adding and subtracting. We'll still practice these skills daily as part of morning math, but we won't be focusing on them specifically anymore. On to multiplication. After we finish geometry that is.

We met with our buddy class and did a shape scavenger hunt, followed by a graphing activity. We reviewed some lesser-known quadrilaterals, like rhombus and trapezoid.

The spelling quiz went well from what I could see but I haven't marked them yet.

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Wednesday, Jan 21

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. In the morning we finished reading A Rovers Story. The ending was actually really moving, I don't remember liking it this much the last time I read it. It left just enough up in the air that the kids started making plans for a sequel.

Our Guest Speaker, Godard, taught the class all about space, rockets, satellites, and gravity. It was super cool.

In Math, we learned more about parallel lines and right angles.

We spent a lot of time working on the good copies of our 'special place' paragraphs.

The Addition and Subtraction Quiz Re-Do is Tomorrow! 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, January 19

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, the students took their notes and planning from last week and wrote detailed, sensory paragraphs. Often these paragraphs are almost cringey in how descriptive they are. But its a good writing skill to learn - when it comes to description, it's generally easier to dial it back when writing than to come up with more.

We had Music and Gym, and in the afternoon we learned about how to measure angles using a protractor. This is a Grade 4 skill technically but I don't think there's any harm in the Grade 3s getting a little extra practice.

We will be having our Addition and Subtraction Re-Do on Thursday, Jan. 22! I'm going to give this quiz to the whole class because I think most kids could benefit from a re-do. If anyone happens to score lower the second time around, I'll use their original score for marking. There's really nothing to lose.

The quiz re-do will be the exact same as the first one, but with different number values on each question. The one word problem about 'days until Christmas' will be completely different.

We have a Guest Speaker coming to talk to the class about space, forces, and inventions on Wednesday! 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 18)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 16 – 23)

now	how	owl	downtown	frown
slow	bowl	crow	blowing	glowing

 

Spelling List B (Jan. 16 – 23)

power	brown	growled	shower	crown
known	below	lowest	flown	shadow

 

Spelling List C (Jan. 9 – 16)

growth	borrow	narrow	tomorrow	burrow
coward	scowl	somehow	sundown	download

 

This week we are looking at the two sounds that 'ow' typically makes in words.

If you're practicing at home, it might also be helpful to challenge your child to do a word sort, and arrange the words in columns based on whether they sound like 'clown', or 'snow'.

Good luck!

Friday, January 16

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today but I don't have a whole lot to write about it!

Most of the morning was just spent on work period. We'd started a few bigger tasks yesterday, and everyone needed a bit more time to finish them.

The spelling quiz went well - I forgot to hand them back, but they're all marked, and the scores were higher than usual. :)

In math, we learned the types of angles. Students did a simple worksheet to reinforce these terms. I was able to work with about half the class to teach how to use a protractor. 

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words (probably not until Sunday - sorry for the inconvenience!), and have a nice weekend!

Zac

Thursday, January 15

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today and got started on a whole bunch of new work. My ipad is having issues so unfortunately I can't post pictures of any of it...

But in the morning we revisited sensory writing. The kids chose a familiar place and jotted down all the things they heard, smelled, felt, etc. when visiting that place. We're going to take these ideas and turn them into sentences tomorrow, and then combine all those sentences into super descriptive, sensory paragraphs.

For cursive, we learned how to write 'n' and 'y'. The students went to music, and when they got back, we reviewed the colours in French, and they started making little French cartoons, in which characters (usually fruit) were saying "Je suis _______" and declaring what colour they were.

In social studies, we worked on natural resource tables, that showed how the main natural resources of Alberta could be turned into useful products.

In math, we started to learn about angles.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz - we've only practiced a couple times this week, so any practice at home would probably be great.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, January 14

 Hi parents,

We had an okay day today.

In the morning we talked about sensory writing. That is basically descriptive writing that focuses on the five senses and uses powerful words that activate the senses of the reader. This lesson didn't go all that well because it seemed like we got stuck on the same basic words over and overs - so tomorrow we're going to try to expand our vocabularies a bit more.

In Math the Grade 3s did a numeracy check-in, and the Grade 4s did some coordinate plotting.

In the afternoon we had Daily LA, and then in Social Studies we learned more about Alberta's natural resources.

Have a nice night,

Zac