Thursday, April 2

 Hi parents,

We ended our week on a high note, but I don't have much to write as we spent a lot of the day just finishing up work from earlier in the week.

The students are showing exceptional story writing skill this year, I am really thrilled. 

We had our spelling quiz, and I marked most of them but there are a few I didn't get to yet, sorry for the inconvenience.

In cursive, we learned how to do capital C and D.

In French, we reviewed the super catchy days of the week song.

In the afternoon, we finishing watching a video on Canadian history. We also went outside and built a huge fort, and met with our buddy class for math games.

Have a nice Easter weekend!

Zac

Wednesday, April 1

 Hi parents,

We had a fun April Fools Day today with no tears! In the morning the students got new seats, went to Music, and then did an art activity in which they had to sketch the most beautiful floor tile in our school. As a follow up, they were challenged to find the one 'original' floor tile from when LBS was constructed, which is made from real marble, and the only way to tell is by tapping every tile with a pencil and listening for the difference in sound. 

That was my April Fools joke.

Yesterday we learned about writing awesome 'beginnings' to stories. Today, we focused on writing the 'middle'. Students were given a pre-written beginning and ending to a story called 'The Missing Carrots'. All they had to do was fill in the middle. 

In math, we looked at skip-counting patterns on the hundreds chart once again. This time we went a little further, examining 6's, 7's, and 9's.

In the afternoon we had yet another awesome author visit, from Melissa Allan, author of "Brave Like The Buffalo". She also taught the students the accompanying song and answered lots of questions.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz, and we haven't practiced much this week, so please review once more at home.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, March 30

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty straightforward first day back with lots of time for catching up and reviewing concepts.

We're about to start a 'story-writing' unit in writing, and so for today's Spring Break journaling, students were asked to write a short story about something that happened on the break. We talked about everything could be told as a story, but that in general, the most interesting stories feature some problem that the characters have to overcome.

We reviewed this week's spelling words, which are a review of the past 9 weeks' worth of spelling words. Please practice these at home as we only have 4 days in class this week.

In gym, we started our gymnastics unit. Please see the reminder post at the end of this blog around gymnastics expectations - this will just ensure we get to maximize our time in the gym and not spend as much time getting ready.

In math, we looked at the similarities between counting by 2's, 4',s and 8's. We talked about how counting by 4's is kind of like counting by 2's, but you skip every other number, and how counting by 8's is doing that same thing but with fours. I know that is confusing. The diagram will make it make more sense.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of March 29)

 Spelling List A (March 30 – April 2)

huge	downtown	face	north	are
light	lotion	know	dog’s	dogs

 

Spelling List B (March 30 – April 2)

crime	lowest	spices	sword	party
delight	vacation	knock	gyms	Jim’s

 

Spelling List C (March 30 – April 2)

acute	coward	cancel	horror	sharpen
brighten	position	written	Penny’s	pennies

I thought it might be a good time for a review - here are words taken from the lat nine spelling lists, with two from last week's, because there's no point in just having one form of "dog's". I'll be reading the last two words in a random order to see if everyone knows when to use the apostrophe s.

Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Zac

Wednesday, March 18

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. Our walking field trip to the ridge was wonderful. The weather made such a big difference. We talked about how the valley was formed, and the differences between the natural hill of the ridge, and the manmade one at Lake Bonavista.

We did Spelling Sentences today for the 's words. A bit of extra practice at home couldn't hurt this week, as our quiz is tomorrow, and the concept is a bit tricky.

We started painting two cornhole boards, which are going to be up for auction at MAPSS night in the near future! They look really good so far. 

We watched Napi and the Rock in the afternoon, and did Daily LA. 

Today was sadly Ms. Ireland's last day :( 

She was a great help in our class every Wednesday and we will miss her!

Tomorrow is student-led conferences - please book a time if you haven't already, as bookings will close tomorrow.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, March 16

Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. I was getting a little worried about the limericks because a lot of students were just not quite getting it - but something seemed to click mid-afternoon and now I'm thinking we're ready for St. Patrick's Day after all.

We had a good lesson on the new spelling words. I think the students have been curious about how to use apostrophes for a while so they listened surprisingly well. I'm excited to see how this week's quiz goes! If you're practicing at home, make sure to mix up the word order, and use each word in a sentence to test whether your child can tell whether its in possessive or plural form.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, so encourage your child to wear green :)

And please book a conference if you haven't already done so.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of March. 15)

 Spelling List A (March 13 – 19)

dogs	cat’s	goat’s	houses	bears
cats	bear’s	dog’s	goats	house’s

 

Spelling List B (March 13 – 19)

provinces	teachers	books	province’s	athlete’s
book’s	teacher’s	athletes	gyms	Jim’s

 

Spelling List C (March 13 – 19)

trophy’s	pony’s	hopes	Penny’s	country’s
ponies	Hope’s	trophies	pennies	countries

This week's words are meant to teach how to accurately use apostrophes. We're going to be discussing the difference between plurals and possessives. I also threw in some names to test whether the kids know to capitalize proper nouns, and on list C there are even some names that also double as plurals, one even with an -ies ending.

I am also going to be reading the words out in a random order so I think this will be quite a difficult week for spelling! 

Friday, March 13

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. Our walking field trip was a lot of fun. We went to the Lake Bonavista Promenade and learned more about the lake itself, and the community, and what the 'promenade' is meant to remind the community of and represent.

I have not had a chance to mark the spelling quizzes yet, but we did those when we got back.

We started writing limericks. Limericks are incredibly challenging poems. Staying on topic, while also adhering to rhyme and rhythm standards, is actually really difficult!

We ended the day with some Handball in gym.

I have finished marking the geometry quiz re-dos - they're a lot better than the first ones. I know we didn't study nearly as much either, so that suggests to me that a lot of what we'd covered before has actually stayed with the kids, and they were able to fill in some of the gaps this time around.

Stay tuned for next week's spelling words, and have a nice night!

Please book a time for conferences if you haven't already done so. 

Zac

Thursday, March 12

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. Thursdays are always good days because we get to do French and Cursive.

In honour of the 100th day of school, students did a fun writing task based on '100'. They wrote about where they thought they'd be in 100 seconds, 100 minutes, 100 hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and even millennia. I really enjoyed reading these.

In math, we did the Geometry Quiz Re-do. All around it went better than the first one. If anyone wants another re-do, I am happy to provide that as well. :)

In cursive, we learned our last lower-case letter, 'q', which means we can start working on the capitals. In French we learned how to say "I am happy" and "I am sad".

The spelling quiz is tomorrow, and we are also going on our second walking field trip. Please make sure your child is dressed for the cold weather!

Have a nice night,

Zac 

Wednesday, March 11

 Hi parents,

Today we did 'spelling sentences' with a new twist - all the sentences had to be about the same topic. 

In math, we reviewed for the geometry quiz re-do tomorrow. Based on what I saw today, the students have still got a pretty good grasp on these concepts, but that's also what I thought last time, so if you want to review any of this at home, it would probably not hurt....

The quiz will cover:

-parallel lines

-quadrilaterals

-regular and irregular polygons

-right angles

-sorting shapes based on attributes

-parallelograms, hexagons, rhombuses, pentagons

and for Grade 4s only:

-types of triangles

-measuring and classifying acute, obtuse, and right angles

In the afternoon we learned about glaciers, and how they've shaped the land in Alberta. 

Tomorrow is the 100th Day of School! We didn't have a chance to discuss a 'spirit day', but maybe we'll do something fun on Friday instead. 101st day of school is an even bigger milestone when you think about it.

Have a nice night,

Zac

 

Tuesday, March 10

 Hi parents,

Our first walking field trip was a big success. We walked to a great viewpoint of the lake, and did some journaling. Nobody got too cold. :)

In math, we did a multiplication 'check-in' (not for real marks, don't worry), just so I could get an idea of how we're all doing with multiplication. Long story short - we're doing great! I sent those check-ins home. They were a great insight into who needed a little extra help, and with what, and its all very do-able at school. Still, any extra practice at home is always valuable.

We did some more work with multiplication and area as well.

In the afternoon, we had a lot of work period time because I assigned a ton of work yesterday.

We also had a great discussion about communities and their unique landmarks.

Looking forward to our next walk on Friday!

Have a nice night,

Zac