Tuesday, January 31

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today! In the morning, the students finished up work from yesterday. We also did our regular morning math routine, which currently features: 

• One 3 digit subtraction problem (with regrouping)
• One 3 digit addition problems (with regrouping)
• Two Multiplication basic fact problems
• Two Multiplication 'multi-digit' problem (students must use algorithm or other strategy to solve)

Having daily practice with these skills helps keep it fresh in everyone's minds. Soon we'll start division and add those into the mix as well!

In Social Studies, we continued learning about the seven sacred teachings. Today's lesson was on 'Honesty', which is represented by the Sabe. The Sabe is basically a sasquatch. 

In the afternoon, we did Daily LA and Gym.

We also reviewed the Little Prince, and talked about the many quirky planets he has visited so far in the story. Then the students filled out 'planning sheets', in preparation for a big writing task - we're going to be writing our own 'chapters' of the Little Prince, in which he visits an eighth fictional planet, created by the students. The criteria for this writing is pretty flexible, but just like the other planets, this new planet must teach the little prince some sort of lesson.

Have a nice night!

Zac

The King is one of the many unusual characters the Little Prince encounters in his travels

Monday, January 30

 Hi parents,

We had a great day today - very artsy!

We spent most of the morning working with our artist in residence, Sharon Fortowsky, who led us through some amazing lessons on sculpting. We're sculpting clay replicas of foods commonly enjoyed by different cultures around the world. The research we did on Friday helped students get quite a lot from this experience! 

This work took up most of our morning, and we had Music and Gym in the afternoon, so there wasn't much time for anything else. We ended our day with some writing. Students wrote about their favourite restaurants, or just about their weekends. 

FIELD TRIP ALERT!

Today I sent home forms about our upcoming field trip: BE BRAVE & END BULLYING w/ THE CALGARY HITMEN!

This is one of the coolest field trips ever. And the entire cost has been generously covered by the LBS School Council. Please send back the forms as soon as you can. Volunteer opportunities were very limited for this trip and have already been filled. 

LBS Family Dance - Wednesday, Feb. 15

For more information about the Dance, Yearbooks, and the Cake Walk, Please See: LBS News

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 29)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 30 – Feb 2)

I’ll	I’m	Hadn’t	Isn’t	We’ll
Also	Body	Maybe	Piece	Roll

 

Spelling List B  (Jan. 30 – Feb 2)

Shouldn’t	Couldn’t	He’s	O’clock	He’ll
Become	Alphabet	Except	Grown	Simple

 

Liste de mots C (Janvier 30 – Fevrier 2)

Bleu	Rouge	Vert	Jaune	Blanc
Noir	Gris	Rose	Violet	Marron

All sight words this week! With it being a four day week, and the class beginning to work with our Artist in Residence, it didn't seem like the best week to introduce a brand new spelling pattern. 

And List C is in French.

Bonne chance!

Friday, January 27

 Hi parents,

Happy Family Literacy Day!

We spent most of our day researching foods from different countries.

The students wrote the spelling quiz, but didn't have a chance to take them home due to Family Literacy Day things.

Mr. Ripka volunteered, and the students had a great time reconnecting with him.

Have a nice weekend!

Zac

Thursday, January 26

 Hi parents,

We had another pretty good day today. In the morning we had a whole-school assembly about Family Literacy Day, which is tomorrow! Please see the bottom of this post, or yesterday's post, for more information.

We learned about some of the 'signature foods' of Alberta, and discussed how more often than not, the foods that are most popular in a community are also the ones that are easily accessed there. For example, how 'bison', 'beef', and 'canola oil' are all Alberta classics, but sushi, bananas, and kangaroo are not really things Alberta is known for. However, we also discussed how in modern day, a place like Alberta is full of diversity, so we do still have opportunities to try foods that are not naturally produced in our region. 

It would be great if you could talk with your child over dinner tonight about where different foods come from! When we work with our Artist in Residence next week, that's going to be a big focus, so having some prior knowledge would probably help students get the most from the experience.

On that note - please let me know if you are interested in volunteering for any / all of our Artist in Residence sessions! We will be working with clay. :) Here are the dates and times:

Monday, Jan. 30:     9:00 - 10:00

Thursday, Feb. 2:     10:30 - 11:30

Tuesday, Feb. 7:    9:00 - 10:00

Wednesday, Feb. 8    12:30 - 1:30

Please send me an email at zalink@cbe.ab.ca and let me know which days you are interested in. Thank you in advance!

We did two rounds of Daily LA today. We learned how to draw a traditional Chinese dragon. We also listened to the story of Lunar New Year.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz, as well as Family Literacy Day. Have a nice night!

Zac

Family Literacy Games 

Family Literacy Day - January 27

Hi parents,

Family Literacy Day is on  Friday, January 27!

Family Literacy Day - Games for Families

 

Wednesday, January 25

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty cool day today! One of our students brought in a Lion Dance costume, so we spent a lot of time learning about the lion dance, and just studying the costume in general, which has loads of intricate details and moving components. We did a little tour around the school too!

We had attended another special presentation too - this one was put on by the Calgary Public Library (virtually). It was an interview with an indigenous elder, who spoke about her family history, and the ways in which indigenous peoples weave (sometimes literally) their family's stories into certain important artifacts, such as drums, or moss bags, which are used to carry babies around. It was really fascinating! 

We did a math assessment today, which tested the students on their multiplication skills. All around, I was super impressed. The expectations for multiplication have changed quite a bit this year with the new curriculum - its basically shifted up a whole year, in that what was previously expected of Grade 5 is now expected of Grade 4s, and the Grade 4 expectations are now placed on Grade 3s. 

The students have absolutely risen to the challenge though. They did such a good job of effectively applying multiplication strategies to solve the problem, and although some errors did occur, they were mostly just minor computation errors. This is completely to be expected, since the students have only had a couple weeks to practice counting by 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's! The fact that they were able to set up equations to represent the word problems is an achievement on its own, and I am very proud.

That being said, if you want to start practicing times tables at home, it would surely be a great confidence booster. :)

 In the afternoon, we had Music, and worked on write-ups for the sacred teaching of 'Courage'.

Have a nice day!

Zac

Tuesday, January 24

Hi parents,

Today was an exceptionally good day for our class, which more than made up for yesterday's issues. Our morning work period was one hundred minutes long - that's over an hour and a half of self-directed work time! The students finished their writing task from yesterday (which was two+ paragraphs, the most we've done all year), as well as their morning math, spelling practice, and a quick french sentence.

In math, we learned about angles within polygons, and the 'rules' about them. For example, how the angles within a square always add up to 360. We reviewed terms like parallel, perpendicular, acute, and obtuse too.

The students practiced using contractions by taking pairs of words (for example:  I am,  He will, She has, etc.) and used them to create a contraction and then use it in a sentence.

In the afternoon, we talked more about the seven sacred teachings, and then did Daily LA.

We played Zookeeper in gym, and ended our day with multiplication practice. :)

Optional Bonus Table Point Opportunity:

Students were challenged to find and share an interesting fact about their table's "country" or "province".

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, January 23

 Hi parents,

We had a bit of an off-day today. Our morning was actually pretty good - the students worked on journal writing, math, spelling, and editing as usual. We learned about 'indents', and when to use them in paragraph writing. We also watched another video about the seven sacred laws, and learned about the Eagle, which symbolizes love.

In the afternoon, we had music, and then we got a special visit from AARCS, to thank us for our fundraising at the winter concert. The students got to ask questions and even to meet and pet a nice dog that AARCS brought (if they wanted to). Unfortunately, the presentation went over our gym time, which I thought wouldn't be a big deal because we'd already went outside for a bonus PE break in the morning and had lunch recess, but I guess I was mistaken. The wailing chorus of complaints was unlike anything I've heard all year, and I let the class know how disappointed I was in their lack of appreciation for what I thought was a pretty cool experience. I am very grateful for the students who asked respectfully if we were still going to gym, without interrupting or whining, and then accepted my answer with understanding.

So tomorrow we're going to dial it back and work to earn back some of the other pretty cool things at school. We'll be doing lots of math, reading, and writing. It'll probably end up being a nice change of pace, and a good opportunity to practice fundamental school expectations and skills. But I do hope it also helps the class be a bit more appreciative of the things that make our classroom special.

Have a nice day,

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 22)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 23 - 28)

Clean	Long	Only	Never	About
I’ll	I’m	They’re	Can’t	Aren’t

 

Spelling List B  (Jan. 23 – 28)

Agree	Charge	Degree	Fear	Giant
Wouldn’t	Didn’t	There’s	Haven’t	We’re

 

Spelling List C (Jan 23. – 28)

Question	Machine	Neighbour	Whether	However
Shouldn’t	Weren’t	Should’ve	Something’s	Nobody’s

We're working on contractions this week, as I'm sure you can tell! 

Good luck!

Friday, January 20

 Hi parents,

We had a really awesome day today, it was truly exceptional.

In the morning the students went to Music, before starting on their usual morning work period tasks. They worked hard for a full hour and never got distracted, so even students who were behind on tasks from earlier in the week were able to catch up.

The spelling quiz went well - I marked them but forgot to send most of them home. 

In math, we had a great lesson on angles, and the reason it was great was that the students were fully attentive the whole time. We talked about terminology like 'parallel', 'perpendicular', and 'intersect', as well as the different types of angles. We basically got through a week's worth of math in one big lesson. Please feel free to review acute, obtuse, and right angles at home though, as we did cover such a large amount of content today that more review would probably help.

Have a great weekend!

Zac

Thursday, January 19

 Hi parents,

Today we continued working on multiplication tables, and practiced skip-counting by 6's. At this point, the students have established a pretty solid understanding of multiplication, and are ready to start building on accuracy and fluency. Even just taking one minute every night to go over one of the skip-counting patterns could make a difference. We usually stop at 12 repetitions. 

We learned about 'possessive nouns' in writing today. The students wrote sentences to show their understanding of how apostrophes can be used to show ownership within a sentence, for example, "The boy's shoes", "The girl's idea", "James' toy".

In math, we looked at some more advanced perimeter word problems. You could try these at home too! 

Here's an easy example:

"A rectangular table is 100cm wide and 200cm long. What is the perimeter of the table?"

And a harder variation of the same problem:

"The perimeter of a rectangular table is 600cm. It is 100cm wide. How long is the table?"

We continued to learn about the Seven Sacred Teachings, with a focus on the first teaching - "Respect". We learned why the bison represents respect to indigenous peoples, and how we can show respect to others, ourselves, and the world around us.

We ended our day with Daily LA.

Have a nice night,

Zac

Wednesday, January 18

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today (and yesterday - sorry for the lack of blog).

The students finished writing their Martin Luther King Jr. paragraphs, edited their work, and some of them even shared them aloud with the class. 

We are currently working on two very different topics in Math.

First, we are learning about perimeter and measurement. The students completed worksheets which really put their perimeter-finding skills to the test. 

We are also continuing to work on multiplication. Each day, we're practicing skip-counting by different factors of 12. The students are already pretty comfortable with 2's, 5's, and 10's, so the next step is filling in those gaps. The new math curriculum basically says that Grade 3s should know up to 10x10, and Grade 4's up to 12x12. I figure the more practice the better, so we're all striving to achieve the Grade 4 level for multiplication recall.

This is another one of those skills where any and all practice you choose to do at home will undoubtedly help!

We've started an inquiry! It is about 'wisdom'. Our inquiry question is: "How can wisdom help us to live well?"

We've had some awesome class discussions about this topic. We've talked about how being 'wise' is different from being 'smart', and how wisdom often connects to topics and virtues that are impossible to measure. For example, respect, kindness, bravery, compassion, etc. 

For our Wisdom inquiry, we'll be learning about 'wisdom' from different times, people, and places. We're starting with the indigenous Seven Sacred Laws. But we will also look into all kinds of other philosophies and philosophers, including Marcus Aurelius and Socrates (my favourite guy).

We ended our day with "Little Prince Trivia".

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, January 16

  Hi parents,

First of all I want to apologize for having the wrong dates on every blog post from last week. Please don't hesitate to let me know next time 😅

Today, in honour of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we spent a lot of time learning about the man himself.

We had some fantastic class discussions around the history behind Martin Luther King Jr., and the ways in which our world has changed since then. 

Possibly the best discussion stemmed from the question: "If Martin Luther King Jr. could spend a day in our classroom, what would he think?"

I actually encourage you to ask your children that at home, because their answers were so incredibly thoughtful it actually made me emotional! If children are indeed the future then things are looking very bright.

In math, we learned about 'perimeter'. Students used rulers to measure the perimeters of various objects in the classroom. The class also seems to enjoy 'find the mystery side' activities. 

In the afternoon we had Music, Gym, and Daily LA.

We ended the day with more reading of The Little Prince. 

Have a nice night!

Zac

Spelling Words (Week of Jan. 16)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 16 - 21)

Five	Made	Very	So	Green
Save	Shave	Shock	Show	Sock

 

Spelling List B  (Jan. 16 – 21)

Decide	Beauty	Chance	Danger	Gentle
Single	Shingle	Crust	Crushed	Scene

 

Spelling List C (Jan 16. – 21)

Sheepish	Shadowy	Shaving	Shield	Dachshund
Shipwreck	Establish	Slingshot	Childish	Cushion

Last week's lesson on the difference between th- and f- sounds was a big hit, so we'll keep the pattern going! 

Friday, January 14

 Hi parents,

Today was a nice way to wrap up our first week of 2023. It's awesome to see that the class has picked up right where they left off - in fact, they may even be a few steps ahead!

The spelling quiz was a big success, and it was great to see that students had no problem distinguishing between the th- and f- words, even without sentences to provide context.

We learned about various units of measurement in math. We talked about cms, mms, ms, inches, and feet. The students took their rulers and measured a whole bunch of things in the classroom. 

We had Daily LA, and then learned about the months of the year - in French!

We ended our day with some Little Prince reading.

Have a nice weekend,

Zac

Thursday, January 12

 Hi parents,

We had a pretty good day today. In the morning, we learned about the "sandwich approach" to writing paragraphs. This involves creating paragraphs with a topic sentence (top bun), three supporting arguments / pieces of relevant information (the sandwich ingredients), and a conclusion sentence (bottom bun). The students wrote simple paragraphs superimposed over sandwich sketches to really drive the message home.

We also learned about the differences between 'regular' and 'irregular' polygons. While both types of polygons must be closed shapes made from only straight lines, in order for a polygon to be 'regular' it must have all equal sides and angles. So a square, equilateral triangle, equilateral hexagon, etc. are regular while most other shapes are not.

The class did a few backwards multiplication problems that involved taking an array, and writing the equation that matches it.

We ended our day with a Little Prince art lesson, and then some read-aloud time.

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz - have a nice night!

Zac

Wednesday, January 11

 Hi parents,

It was a great day back in Room 4.  The students finished work from earlier in the week, and then we met on the carpet for a sharing circle. This week our sharing circles have been "Circles of Memorization", as we are working to memorize the months of the year, and how to count to 10 in French. 

We talked about complete vs. incomplete sentences, and the students read a bunch of pre-written sentences and determined whether they were complete or incomplete, and why. They rewrote / completed the incomplete ones. A very common tendency I am trying to help the students change is beginning sentences with the word 'and', (unless it truly enhances their writing). 

We did yet another multiplication word problem:

A pair of shoes costs $42.

a) How much money do three pairs cost?

b) How much money do five pairs cost?

c) What is a the value of one shoe?

This one also was a huge success, even though it used much larger numbers than we've worked with so far!

In the afternoon, the students had Music, went outside for gym, and did Daily LA. We ended our day by reading The Little Prince. 

Have a nice night,

Zac

Tuesday, January 10

 Hi parents,

I don't have a lot of time to write tonight as we're moving everything back to the freshly painted Room 4, but I do want to say we had an awesome day today.

The students reviewed paragraph writing basics, and wrote descriptive paragraphs about the animal of their choice. I was thrilled by how well this task went since paragraph writing is one of the toughest things we'll do in ELA this year, and we're already off to a great start.

In math, we did another multiplication word problem, and we also did a graphing / shape review activity. 

We started to read The Little Prince.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing story. Some people say you should read it every five years, regardless of how old you are, as it seems to take on new meanings throughout the life of the person reading it.

Have a nice night!

Zac

Monday, January 9

 Hi parents,

We had a great first day back at school. The students were excited about our temporary new classroom but still were able to fall quickly back into our familiar academic routines, like Morning Math, spelling practice, and journal writing.

As you can probably guess, today they wrote about their Winter Breaks. We also talked about goals for the new year.

We had a lesson on the differences between the 'f' and 'th' sounds. While this may seem pretty basic, it's actually a lot trickier than you'd expect, and it's often something students may not realize they're having difficulty with until they explicitly start focusing on the sounds and noticing the subtle differences.

We solved a multi-step multiplication word problem as a class, which was basically:

"A Pencil case costs $16. 

A) How much money would two pencil cases cost? 

B) How about three?"

The students had no trouble calculating the cost of two. But I was happy to see that to calculate the cost of three, many students just added another $16, rather than starting over at the beginning. 

We concluded our day with Music, Daily LA, and Gym.

Please remember to send back Indoor Shoes!

Have a nice night,

Zac

Spelling Words! (Week of January 8)

 Spelling List A (Jan. 9 - 14)

Both	Found	Sleep	Use	Tell
With	Whiff	First	Thirst	Oath

 

Spelling List B  (Jan. 9 – 14)

Done	Grow	Pick	Flower	Money
Offer	Author	Thought	Fought	Myth

 

Spelling List C (Jan 9. – 14)

Though	Unearth	Thyroid	Empathy	Feather
Twelfth	Father	Fourth	Fathom	Filthy

Hi everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Winter break. To me it seemed especially long this year. It feels a bit like starting a brand new school year! That may also have something to do with the fact that this week, we'll be temporarily learning in Room 9, as our classroom is being painted.

This week our focus will be differentiating between 'th' and 'f' sounds. This will hopefully also be a good opportunity for students to practice pronouncing these sounds, as they're often a bit trickier and sometimes require some extra attention. 

Good luck!

Zac