Tuesday, February 10

 Hi parents,

The report card grind is over, and I can get back to posting regularly. Thanks for your patience!

We had a good day today. In the morning, we did Spelling Sentences, with the rule that every sentence needed to start in a different way. 

A few groups presented their posters on Alberta's natural resources to the class. We learned how pretty much all of the 'energy resources' are used in the same way - they're burned, to heat up water, to make steam, to turn a generator, and make electricity.

In math, multiplication has been going really well. The Grade 3s are getting the hang of it quite quickly. We did a cool colour by number /3-D animal worksheet today, and they turned out really well.

In the afternoon, we had Gym and Daily LA, and then we ended the day by making valentines cards for our buddies.

We will be making personalized, collaborative valentines cards for everyone in the class tomorrow too. :) If your child is bringing Valentines from home to give out, please make sure there are enough for all 24 students! 

I sent home the Geometry Quizzes tonight. There will be an opportunity for a re-do at the end of the month, but its likely we won't have a whole bunch of time for geometry review, so please go over the content at home! Its honestly mostly memorization - knowing how to spot parallel lines, irregular polygons, right angles, etc. makes all the difference with grade 3/4 geometry. If you know what those terms mean, its a breeze, and if you don't, its not really the kind of thing you can guess at or figure out.

Thanks so much and have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Feb. 8, and Feb 15) and Blog Update

 Spelling List A (Feb. 6 – 20)

are	part	hard	mark	park	cards
army	star	farming	barnyard	cars	bark

 

Spelling List B (Feb. 6 – 20

large	march	party	started	smartest	charts
alarming	harsh	cargo	carve	charming	apart

 

Spelling List C (Feb. 6 - 20

argue	sharpen	artist	hardly	market	charge
target	Martin	carbon	guitar	remark	arctic

 

Hi parents,

Next week is only three school days long, so the quiz will be bumped back to the following week. I decided to add two extra words to each list since the students will have a bit more time to study. The theme this week is 'ar', where it sounds like 'arr'.

We had a pretty good week this week.

Ms. Ireland has been working with the kids to write their own speeches, about how we can be good people and take care of the world and each other. They have been writing and practicing their speeches since Wednesday, and today a few kids actually presented them - I was so impressed! They took the public speaking tips to heart - eye contact, voice volume, rehearsal, everything was there. :)

In Math, we started multiplication, and its been going great too. We've learned the 'noodles and bowls' strategy, as well as 'arrays' and 'skip-counting'.

In French, we learned a few new verbs - mange, travaille, veux, and joue.

Today our school had an assembly to celebrate the start of the Winter Olympics! This month we're really trying to focus on taking on challenges and persevering through difficult work.

Have a nice weekend!

Zac

Looking forward to a great Februaruy!

The Gift of Reading - Feb 26

We are thrilled to have the incredible Canadian author, David Bouchard, come to Lake Bonavista School. He will be at our school on Thursday, February 26th. In the morning he will present to all students. In the evening, we happy to host a special parent presentation called "The Gift of Reading". You do not want to miss out on this opportunity to hear from this legendary writer.

Thursday, February 26

6:30pm

Lake Bonavista School

To help us with planning, please RSVP by February 24th using this link.

Thank you to our School Council for their financial support of this event.

Monday, February 2 - no blogs until Friday

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, Ms. Ireland read the class a book called "Be a Good Ancestor". Then the students brainstormed ways that they can be good people, by taking care of the world and people around them. 

We went over this week's spelling words, had Music class,  and went to gym.

In the afternoon, we started learning about multiplication. The students used various materials around the classroom to model and represent multiplication equations. We're going to spend a while on this step because it's so important for the students to build a real understanding of what multiplication is, before they learn the tricks to help them do it quickly.

This week I will be busy with writing report cards, so I likely won't update the blog again until Friday - if anything important comes up, I will send a SchoolMessenger email!

Thanks for your understanding!

Have a nice week,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of Feb. 1)

 Spelling List A (Feb. 2 – 6)

for	corn	port	story	born
sorting	lord	short	north	order

 

Spelling List B (Feb. 2 – 6)

victory	organs	glory	sword	forest
torch	scorn	snort	portal	ignored

 

Spelling List C (Feb. 2 – 6)

horror	format	corner	afford	informed
absorb	sorrow	vortex	orbit	thorns

 

The theme this week is 'or'. Good luck!

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 27

 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!!