Wednesday, April 29

 Hi parents,

Today we finished watching a video on Voyageurs. The students wrote in their journals as if they themselves were voyageurs, describing their adventures and hardships, and trying to use as much historically accurate information as possible. Some kids decided to build a trading post and river scene in their spare time. I'm always pretty excited when a social studies topic sparks games like this (it does not happen often....)

We learned about citing sources and creating a reference list, as part of the animal research project. We talked a bit about reliable vs. unreliable sources. The students created basic reference lists to keep track of the sources they've used so far in their research. When I say 'basic', I mean just listing the book titles, article names, and authors. We're not expected to worry about proper APA or MLA formatting just yet, thankfully. 

Multiplication & Division Quiz - May 5th

This quiz will feature:

-8 basic fact problems, multiplication and division

-6 "fill in the blank" basic facts (for example, 3 x ___ = 12) (Grade 3 only)

-4 long multiplication problems (e.g. '342 x 4 = _____') (Grade 4 only)

-2 word problems involving basic facts

-4 long division problems (Grade 4 only)

-A 'factor tree' problem (Grade 3 only)

-A picture problem in which students must write an equation to describe a situation

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, April 27

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, we started our animal research project. Students chose an animal from a variety of options, and were given a book to use for researching that animal. They read through their books and took some notes, categorizing the notes into sub-topics. Tomorrow we're going to use other sources for research to fill in some gaps, and learn about citing sources.

We went over this week's spelling words, and had music and gym in the morning.

In the afternoon we did Daily LA, and learned about voyageurs in social studies. We also started to learn about line graphs in math.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of April 26)

 Spelling List A (Apr. 24 – May 1)

quit	quiz	aqua	quad	quick
quite	quiet	equal	queen	quest

 

Spelling List B (Apr. 24 – May 1)

quote	squid	quill	liquid	sequel
quiver	quirk	quack	squad	quilt

 

Spelling List C (Apr. 24 – May 1)

square	quality	quarter	request	banquet
require	antique	quickly	question	frequent

The theme this week is 'qu', and these words are quite difficult. Although this is a letter blend the students probably learned in Grade 2, they likely haven't had to write many words beyond the ones on List A.

Study hard! Good luck! :)

Thursday, April 23

 Hi parents,

We had an awesome crazy hair day. Thanks for helping out with that, I'm sure the pictures will make the yearbook, they're just so good.

We had a lot of work period time today. 

We also had the spelling quiz. 

We learned about 'sub-topics', and how you can break any topic down further and further as you go into more and more specific detail. For example, you could take a big topic like 'animals', and then make a sub-topic on 'ocean animals', which could have a sub-topic on 'deep-sea animals', and so on. Next week, students will be researching animals, taking jote notes, and then writing multi-paragraph papers on these animals, so having a good understanding of how to break a big topic (the animal), into sub-topics (habitat, diet, adaptations, etc.) will be crucial.

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA, and then watched a virtual book-reading of 'How To Be A Good Ancestor', by Leona Prince. She also answered audience questions after. It's been cool to hear from so many authors this year.

The spelling quiz went okay. Students were generally pretty good about spelling the words correctly, but lost marks for apostrophe placement. That may be something worth reviewing a bit.

Tomorrow is a PD Day, so have a great weekend, and stay tuned for next week's words!

Zac

Wednesday, April 22

Hi parents,

We had a busy day today. In the morning, we did Spelling Sentences, with two twists - the sentences had to all be on the tsame topic, and they also had to start in different ways. The hope was that this would help students prepare for paragraph writing, and from what I saw, it did.

In Health, we learned about permission, refusal, and boundaries. The students worked in groups to act out short skits illustrating situations in which a person might have to politely say no to a friend.

In the afternoon we did Daily LA and math. Math ended up being really hard today. We were doing fill in the blank type division problems, which really confused the students.

Problems like "8 / ___ = 2", for example, or "____ / 3 = 3".

These will inevitably become easier with time, as students build a stronger understanding of fact families,  and further develop their ability to recall basic facts. But practicing at home would definitely help too.

Tomorrow is Crazy Hair Day, and students are also allowed to bring a stuffy. :)

Have a nice night,

Zac

Our Art Card masterpieces are on display

Tuesday, April 21

 Hi parents,

We had an awesome day today. In the morning, we kept working on the biography paragraphs we started yesterday. We talked about 'indents', and staying on one topic or sub-topic per paragraph.

In math, we did a skip-counting challenge that the students absolutely knocked out of the park. I gave them 90 seconds to count as high as they could by 2's, 3's, 4's, 6's, 7's, 8's, 9's, 11's, and 12's. They did so well we're going to re-do the challenge next week with only 60 seconds.

For Health (just regular health - not 'grade 4 only') we learned about dangerous substances, and how to be safe if you encounter them. We talked about illegal vs. legal substances and the students brainstormed examples.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Monday, April 20

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. In the morning, the students read simple biographies, and took jot notes. We started to turn these notes into topic sentences of paragraphs, and we'll complete the paragraphs tomorrow.

We learned about contractions, and looked over this week's spelling words. We also had Music and did Mission Impossible in Gym.

In the afternoon we had Daily LA, and in Math, the Grade 3 students worked on factor trees, while the Grade 4s used the stamp game for long division. We're really speeding through the whole division unit and I think we'll probably have a quiz around the end of April.

Thursday, April 23 - Crazy Hair Day

This Thursday is Crazy Hair Day for our class, as chosen by students who won last month's table prize.  Students are also allowed to bring one stuffy.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (week of April 19)

 Spelling List A (Apr. 17 – 24)

I’d	he’s	don’t	I’ve	you’ll
it’s	I’ll	can’t	I’m	she’d

 

Spelling List B (Apr. 17 – 24)

They’re	didn’t	she’ll	you’re	hasn’t
aren’t	they’d	mustn’t	where’s	that’s

 

Spelling List C (Apr. 17 – 24)

couldn’t	should’ve	wouldn’t	doesn’t	hadn’t
who’s	we’ve	they’ve	when’s	weren’t

The theme of this week is common contractions. We'll be talking about apostrophes and how they essentially are used to combine two words (did not --> didn't). For this week's quiz, apostrophe placemeent matters and capitalization of I also matters.

Good luck!

Friday, April 17

 Hi parents,

We ended our week on a good note today, but I don't have too much to say as most of the day was spent on Work Period. The students did an awesome job continuing work on their stories and paragraphs about friction.

We used the computers one last time to practice basic typing skills, and discussed 'factors' in math. We'll do more work with those next week.

The spelling quiz also went well although I haven't finished marking them yet.

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

Zac

Thursday, April 16

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today. 

In the morning, the students had music and gym, and we also started turning our jot notes from the Friction video into actual sentences, and paragraphs. We learned the cursive capital letters G and H.

 In French, we learned the months of the year.

In the afternoon we had a practice lockdown. The students did an awesome job at this. We also learned some more computer skills, and the kids are successful in starting to type their stories. We learned how to change font, size, spacing, etc. as well as how to undo. Some kids figured out how to share their work with other email accounts. We'll do a bit more work with computer skills tomorrow and then I think we'll wrap it up for the year, although typing up good copies of stories / other work will still be available as a responsible work choice sometimes.

We had a mini quiz for social studies today. Students were challenged to arrange 5 events from Canadian history in order, and to list the three reasons why European explorers mainly went on their voyages.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, April 15

 Hi parents,

We had a good day today. The students were really excited to use the computers. We did some lessons on logging in and out, and opening google docs. We'll do some more learning around basic computer skills (typing, internet safety, etc.) tomorrow and Friday, and then that'll probably it for a while.... I like to keep the tech use to a minimum.

We played kickball in gym, and worked more on our 'jot note' writing from yesterday. Tomorrow, we're going to attempt to turn these notes into paragraphs.

In math, we played Classroom of Doom, which is a math game that helps students practice basic facts using all operations. Division is going quite well - I think the students are getting it faster than multiplication, and there semes to still be a lot of enthusiasm around it.

In Social Studies, we learned about Samuel de Champlain. 

Have a nice night!

Zac