Students in room 8 have been asking all year for a pajama day. They have been working hard in completing their tasks and assignments, therefore tomorrow students will be allowed to wear their pajamas and bring a stuffie. I also have not heard back from any parents in regard to watching Wonder. Therefore in the afternoon, students will be watching the first hour to the movie. This will allow time for students to work on their Venn diagram and to participate in small group discussions focused on the questions I posted yesterday, I have also invited students to bring in snacks IF they want to. I said it had to be something small and that they would need enough for everyone (unless its their own snack). Please do not go out of your way for this, as an afternoon snack is a regular occurrence for our class.
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Well the students are getting excited for summer holidays. The energy has increased significantly compared to the past two weeks. We are trying our best to keep going, keep focused and keep learning.
This week in Math we will be working on probability and 3D shapes. Today we started a game where we rolled a deca dice and pulled a card. We went over rounding skills and students placed these numbers on a chart. Tomorrow we will explore the findings of these numbers and make inferences as to why some numbers are more likely than others to be recorded. Later in the week I would like to explore an activity where students s I wold like to explore 3D shapes and building bubble wands. To make this mini STEM project work, I would really like some pipe cleaners. If you happen to have any laying around your house, please send them in. This will help with making the 3d shapes stable enough to be dipped into the bubble water. In addition, we have finally finished reading the novel Wonder. This was an amazing book to share with the students to explore the topics of empathy, kindness, difference and courage. I recently watched the movie at home and thought that it would be neat to see if students could be able to catch the differences compared to the book. I would like students to participate in a discussion about why a movie producer may cut certain parts but keep others. How the author describes characters, but the movie projects them a different way, How we visualize certain events and anothers perspective of the same event looks different. This movie is rated PG therefore I felt it was important to ask for your permission before I show it. As I watched the movie myself, there are two parts where parents may not feel comfortable having their child watch. For example, there is a scene where there is physical fighting between students as one student stands up for another student. Another is when the main characters older sister has her first kiss with a boy. I have explained to all the students that we will have to respect the wishes of all our parents. If you are not comfortable with your child watching this movie this week, please send me an email and I will think of an alternative activity. Notices were sent home today for students who have been selected for the Thursday time slot of the talent show. Students who are in Fridays slot will be given either tomorrow or Wednesday. In Math we have been looking closely at how to build a bar graph. Students used the information from heart to heart to determine which station from our class made the most money. First we counted how many tickets each group got. Some groups only got 27 tickets, where as others got over 600. Our next step was to calculate how much money that translates to. Each student used a different strategy to find this. Some used a table and and created a column for 4 tickets equal $1, 8 tickets = $2 and so on. Sone students used division and others multiplication. Our third step was to round our calculations to the nearest dollar. This was a struggle for some students. Our final step was to place all this information onto our graph.
We will be continuing to work on graphing this week. Today students chose their own topic of interest and will be asking classmates questions and collecting data. They will then transfer that information into a bar graph to then share with their peers. Grade 4 parents - we will be sending out information about the grade 4 Farewell by Friday. I have mentioned in the past that it will be on Tuesday the 26th. Teachers are just working out some of the smaller details and once those have been considered, we will share with all of you. Students and I brainstormed last week how we can end our year with our final inquiry project. As we dive deeper into understanding waste in our world and how we can make a difference, we will also dive deeper into the natural waste management system of decomposers - specifically red wigglers. We thought about the different ways we have already shared our learning, through power point presentations, posters, I movie and short stories. Now students want to create a website. This is a new thing that we will be exploring, especially how to have 9 different working on the website simultaneously, but we will trouble shoot and work out the kinks as we go. Today students brainstormed the 9 topics of the red wigglers we will focus on:
Topics for Red wigglers: - Food/nutrients - - Reproduction - Life cycle - young - - Behaviours - actions - life style - - Environmental threats - protection - Habitat / How to make a bin - Biology - Anatomy - Characteristics - Blood type - Appearance - - Interesting Fact / uniqueness / diseases / Where do they come from? / relative animals / predators / Adaptations - - Castings - what is vermicompost - Why? So what??? - Decomposer - why we need them? - Types of worms for a vermicompost. - After Brainstorming the topics, students put themselves into "friend learning" groups and chose their top 3 choices. They will find out their topics on Wednesday. In Math today, we reviewed fractions and decimals. Some students still benefit from support in understanding how to draw fractions where as others are able to convert tenths and hundredths into decimals. Each day we will be reviewing the concepts while we work on a mini-project reflecting on heart to heart. We did have a lot of talking today in class so we ran out of time to complete our work. We had to use Math time to discuss how we keep our hand to ourselves and what it means to be a good learning and respect others. This took away time to complete the calculations of some of our heart to heart. By Wednesdays class, students are asked to figure out how much money each group collected in heart to heart tickets. If each ticket is $0.25, how much did each group collect? A - 27 tickets B - 69 tickets C - 27 tickets D - 110 tickets E - 167 tickets F - 130 tickets G - 62 tickets H - 201 tickets I - 142 tickets J - 623 tickets Students are challenged to NOT use a calculator, but to use an alternative strategy. They will be expected to share the strategy that they used to solve each station. This needs to be completed by Wednesday. Our new "class pets" have arrived at school. Today we received about 500 red, wiggly, slimy worms to add to our compost bin. However, we also learned that our plans for the worm bin were incorrect! But thankfully we can learn from our mistakes and make corrections. Our guest, Robin from Princess Dirt, was able to speak to us about the importance of red wigglers, how they play a part in our ecosystem and how we can take care of them. Ask your child tonight something that they learned about red wigglers. Maybe it is about the food we can add to the compost bin, maybe its what we did wrong in our compost bin or maybe its why they are important to our ecosystem. For the next month we will be exploring how the small actions of these decomposers can make such a big difference in such a short time. Reminder that tomorrow is heart to heart. If students are interested in participating in the activities, please bring in your donations. Doors will be open to parents at 1:30pm and we will be stopping the activities at 2:45pm.
Today I challenged the students to make higher learning connections with the information they have learned about different animals, their adaptations as well as the habitat in which they best survive in. As students worked through their "Where Would you Go Books?" they had to reflect back on what they have previously learned about the land of specific countries. What is the climate like? What natural resources are near by to support the wildlife? Where is the water located? Then they had to look at specific animals that live in those countries and make connections. The guiding questions of "Why is _____ one of the best places for _____ to live? What adaptation does the ______ that helps them live in the habitat of ______?" Some students are finding these to be very challenging questions. We will be working through these for the next couple of days and putting writers workshop on hold.
In math students are exploring the connection between fractions, decimals and percents. They used words today as well as base ten blocks to practice building and representing fractions in different ways. Grade 4 students will need to know up to the hundredth place value. We will be working towards adding and subtracting decimals as well as converting some types of fractions into decimals. Grade 4 Farewell I have had some parents begin to ask me about the grade 4 farewell. Teacher are still working on the minor details of this day but once Heart to Heart is completed, we will give more information. I can tell you it will be on June 26th. The assembly will be in the morning so all students can attend and then there is a planned activity for the grade 4's in the afternoon. More information will come once we can scratch off this first event. Yesterday was an amazing day to go to the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation. The weather may have been a bit hot, but overall it was a great day. The biggest take away from all the day was understanding how everything is connected in some way. For example we learned that trees are important to us, not only for the oxygen they provide, but they provide different necessities like shade and nutrients for the plants and animals we rely on. Some of the key connections we focused on were trees, foxes, Alberta rose, great horned owl, deer, bear, and cougar. Today students reviewed the information we learned yesterday, recreated the web and wrote about the different connections between each resource. Reminders
Students were sent home with the last field study field trip form. We are going to Telus Spark again to learn about water waste. Please send these forms back to school by May 31st. Students can start bringing in their quarters for Heart to Heart starting on Monday, Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser is due on May 30th. Any envelopes should be brought back to the school and delivered to their teacher. RTA will be hosting a RTA amazing race next week - Friday, June 1st: 1:45 - 2:45 event This is an opportunity for grade 4 students moving to RTA in September to explore the building with their families. There will not be any presentations. Today students worked hard on preparing a procedure for creating a vermicompost bin. We reviewed our research from last Wednesday, added more information and watched a video on how another person created their bin. As a collaborative, we created a 9 step procedure for creating a worm bin. 1. Drill 15 holes on each side of the bin and drill 6 hole on the bottom 2. Put 15 scoops of soil in the bin 3. Add a layer of leaves and twigs and dead grass 4. Add a layer of shredded newspaper 5. Mix up the wasted food Repeat # 2 - # 5 one more time 6. Bury the worms near the soil 7. Spray the top of the bin to make it moist 8. Replace the lid 9. Continue to add wasted food each day and check temperature Now we wait for our worms to get here next Wednesday! Tomorrow we are heading out to Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation area. Students were reminded today that tomorrow will be hot with lots of bugs. We spoke about bringing a water bottle, a garbage-less lunch and a hat. Students will be outside most of the day so wearing sunscreen and bug spray is encouraged. They will be carrying their materials all day.
We also spoke about ticks and there is the possibility of getting a tick where we will be going as we will be walking through a forest and long grasses. I suggested to students that they do a head to toe check tomorrow when they get home from school. There has not been any mention of anyone finding a tick out at Ann and Sandy Cross this year yet, but we want to prepare ourselves to be safe. As students dive into their next exploration unit of waste in our world, new questions begin to arise. What is waste? How can we reduce it? Where does it go? Why do we produce so much of it? Students began exploring this unit stating words that come to mind when we say waste in our world. The following wordle is what was created. From there we explored possible questions, problems, issues and concerns that we have about waste. Many topics like ocean waste, effect and affect of waste, compost, recycling and so much more were brought forward. Once I had a chance to explore this more, I realized a common theme from most groups questioned ways we can get rid of waste - composting specifically. I dived deeper into the topic and realized we can create a type of compost right here in our class to explore and investigate. We will be creating a vermicompost right in our classroom. Today we researched some of the things we will be needing for this project. Students listed a big container with a lid, leaves, twigs, newspaper, soil, and worms. Well . . . little do they know, we are getting worms in two weeks but we must get our bin ready for this new classroom pet!
If you have any of the following that you are willing to donate, please send it in with your child. We will need it for Monday. A small bag of old leaves and small twigs, and NEWSPAPER. In interest to our waste in our world topic, today we had a classroom presentation which a guest spoke to us about landfills. As we explore the composting side of things, we will also be exploring landfills and other ways to get rid of our waste. HEART TO HEART May 16th , 2018 Bring your quarters! At Maple Ridge School we believe that developing citizenship through helping others is part of who we are. If you are new to our school, the Heart to Heart Market is a way for kids to think on a more global level and find ways that they can contribute to others in the world. This year the Market will be held May 31st from 1:30-3:00. Students in grade 3 and 4 run the Market and vote on a cause they would like to give the money they make. Last year, it was The Calgary Food Bank This year, we have decided to give all money raised to the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. Each year the Grade 3 and 4 students create crafts such as bracelets, bookmarks, art cards, etc. that they can sell at the market. Some students have chosen to make other arcade type games that students or parents can play. A few days before the Market, Grade 3 and 4 teachers will distribute “Tickets” to each of the Homeroom classes. Any student who brings in money for the Market will be able to get 1 ticket for each 25c they bring in up to a maximum of 20 tickets. Students will get to go ‘shopping’ at the Marketplace on May 31st. (If you are unable to donate this year, each student will still get 4 tickets. We still want each student to experience the excitement of the Market. ) On the day of the Market, the grade 3s and 4s will be setting out a table or an activity where items may be purchased or played in increments of 1-3 tickets (any donation will be accepted). Students will get to go ‘shopping’ at the Marketplace using their tickets- with ALL proceeds going towards Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. Parents and family are invited to come on the day of the Market to purchase tickets to buy items or play games and just experience the energy and excitement the students have for this cause. Start saving your quarters! They all add up. We look forward to being able to send our love and support…from our hearts to theirs. Maple Ridge students have an opportunity to really make a difference! Hope to see you all there. Sincerely, All the Maple Ridge students and teachers of Grade 3 and 4 Students in room 8 have been exploring fractions. We have used different types of manipulatives to understand how the numerator and the denominator affect the size of the fraction. Students were able to determine that when the denominator is the same, the bigger the numerator the bigger the fraction. They then discovered that when the numerator is the same the opposite happens. The bigger the denominator the smaller the fraction. We will be working towards comparing fractions that do not have like denominators or numerators.
In Science we have began to look at Waste in Our World. Today we created a definition of what is waste. Together students came up with "waste is the collection of objects and materials that are no longer being used". We brainstormed examples of waste and spoke to the what we can do with waste. A new term was introduced today - vermapost (vermicompost). Students were asked to conduct a mini research exploration to understand what is vermapost and how is it different from compost. They will be sharing their understandings tomorrow, Heart to heart packages were sent home on Friday. All money collected needs to be handed in by May 30th. We are encouraging families to do this online. |