February 9 - 20, 2015
Hello, all,
It seems as though this month is slipping past at an alarming rate. We have been very busy with extra activities in addition to our core courses.
As the month began, teachers attended the ATA sponsored Teachers' Convention in Edmonton. There were many great sessions as well as a lot of networking and catching up with colleagues I have not seen in a long while. It is always great to see people in the same profession to find out new trends, catch up on past students progress, and learn from their experiences.
On Monday, the grade 4 classes had to deal with another disappointing ski trip postponement - which will soon be turned to excitement as we are ski hill bound on March 2 and 27. Hopefully the weather cooperates and it is nice and warm but still enough snow to ski and snowboard.
On Tuesday we were lucky to go to Riverview Middle School for our first transition activity - a pancake breakfast (including bacon!), a tour of the school, and some fun activities in the gym with the grade 5 students and some of the RAT Pack. It was very good for the students to have this initial activity at the new school as it helped to alleviate some of the uneasiness that had been building about the transition. There are more activities planned and adults will be advised of them as the events draw nearer.
Wednesday was a whole day of regular classes - the only one this week!
Thursday 4S and 4F participated in 2 surveys including the Tell Them From Me Survey which has participation from all grade 4 students in Black Gold Regional Schools. These surveys took most of the afternoon. After the students had completed the surveys, many reported enjoying the activity as they felt they had a voice which would be listened to and they could say what they were really thinking or feeling.
Friday saw us attending the weekly assembly, participating in the JUMP ROPE FOR HEART AND STROKE jump-a-thon, celebrating Valentine's Day and pre-viewing pictures for the staff baby photo contest. What a day that was! Thanks very much to all families who sent treats for our celebration!
Among all of these activities, we worked on core courses. In Math, we are beginning work with multiple digit multiplication (6 x 425). We are breaking it down to multiplying each place (value) by the multiplicand. An example of this is: 8 X 531 = 8 X 500 + 8 X 30 + 8 X 1 = 4000 + 240 + 8 = 4248. It is complex to begin with, but helps the students to understand that each digit has a value and can be dealt with individually so it is less intimidating.
Some students have also been utilizing the free membership in XTRAMATH to help practice basic facts - we have had one student complete the facts in less than 3 seconds! This is a program which an be used at home as well as at school - ask your students about the details and password. The passwords have been written into the student's agenda.
In LA, we are continuing to work in our lit. circles. These will take us through the month of February and in to March before we are finished them. There are 7 activities the students must complete for each of the novels that have been chosen. All of the novels have an underlying moral as well as being an entertaining story.
We are also developing our story element of 'setting' during our writing section of LA. We have discussed places, time and weather as these elements are related to developing a story's setting. We will be continuing with mood, customs/traditions and dialect.
Social Studies has introduced 'Living With the Land' as our topic. This is an introduction to the first people who inhabited our provinces. We have listened to a story by David Bouchard called "Nokum is My Teacher" in both English and Cree. This provided the students with the opportunity to begin thinking about languages and how they are critical to a society to develop and flourish. We will be listening to and learning about michif, another language used in Alberta in early days, as well. If you are unfamiliar with either of these languages, you can listen to them on Youtube - it is quite interesting to listen to the different languages.
In Science, we continue to work through the theory lessons about simple machines. We will soon be applying this knowledge in actually building creations with simple machines and recycled materials. If possible, please start collecting toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, small cardboard boxes, beverage lids and other similar items which we may have for our building unit - thanks! Our Wheels and Levers unit test will be Friday, February 27 - theory only.
I sent an email last week regarding the cake walk and an update for our Drumheller trip. If you have not received these, please let me know and I will send them to you again.
Please remember that there is also a music blog and a PE blog which can be found by following the links on the RBES home page.
Remember that tomorrow is Rainbow Day - have your student dress in the colours of the rainbow or as many of the colours as they wish.
We will be completing the Staff Baby Photo contest tomorrow so if you have a student who wishes to participate, please send $1 for each page of guesses or $5 for 6 pages of guesses.
That's all for now - remember you are welcome to contact me any time.
It seems as though this month is slipping past at an alarming rate. We have been very busy with extra activities in addition to our core courses.
As the month began, teachers attended the ATA sponsored Teachers' Convention in Edmonton. There were many great sessions as well as a lot of networking and catching up with colleagues I have not seen in a long while. It is always great to see people in the same profession to find out new trends, catch up on past students progress, and learn from their experiences.
On Monday, the grade 4 classes had to deal with another disappointing ski trip postponement - which will soon be turned to excitement as we are ski hill bound on March 2 and 27. Hopefully the weather cooperates and it is nice and warm but still enough snow to ski and snowboard.
On Tuesday we were lucky to go to Riverview Middle School for our first transition activity - a pancake breakfast (including bacon!), a tour of the school, and some fun activities in the gym with the grade 5 students and some of the RAT Pack. It was very good for the students to have this initial activity at the new school as it helped to alleviate some of the uneasiness that had been building about the transition. There are more activities planned and adults will be advised of them as the events draw nearer.
Wednesday was a whole day of regular classes - the only one this week!
Thursday 4S and 4F participated in 2 surveys including the Tell Them From Me Survey which has participation from all grade 4 students in Black Gold Regional Schools. These surveys took most of the afternoon. After the students had completed the surveys, many reported enjoying the activity as they felt they had a voice which would be listened to and they could say what they were really thinking or feeling.
Friday saw us attending the weekly assembly, participating in the JUMP ROPE FOR HEART AND STROKE jump-a-thon, celebrating Valentine's Day and pre-viewing pictures for the staff baby photo contest. What a day that was! Thanks very much to all families who sent treats for our celebration!
Among all of these activities, we worked on core courses. In Math, we are beginning work with multiple digit multiplication (6 x 425). We are breaking it down to multiplying each place (value) by the multiplicand. An example of this is: 8 X 531 = 8 X 500 + 8 X 30 + 8 X 1 = 4000 + 240 + 8 = 4248. It is complex to begin with, but helps the students to understand that each digit has a value and can be dealt with individually so it is less intimidating.
Some students have also been utilizing the free membership in XTRAMATH to help practice basic facts - we have had one student complete the facts in less than 3 seconds! This is a program which an be used at home as well as at school - ask your students about the details and password. The passwords have been written into the student's agenda.
In LA, we are continuing to work in our lit. circles. These will take us through the month of February and in to March before we are finished them. There are 7 activities the students must complete for each of the novels that have been chosen. All of the novels have an underlying moral as well as being an entertaining story.
We are also developing our story element of 'setting' during our writing section of LA. We have discussed places, time and weather as these elements are related to developing a story's setting. We will be continuing with mood, customs/traditions and dialect.
Social Studies has introduced 'Living With the Land' as our topic. This is an introduction to the first people who inhabited our provinces. We have listened to a story by David Bouchard called "Nokum is My Teacher" in both English and Cree. This provided the students with the opportunity to begin thinking about languages and how they are critical to a society to develop and flourish. We will be listening to and learning about michif, another language used in Alberta in early days, as well. If you are unfamiliar with either of these languages, you can listen to them on Youtube - it is quite interesting to listen to the different languages.
In Science, we continue to work through the theory lessons about simple machines. We will soon be applying this knowledge in actually building creations with simple machines and recycled materials. If possible, please start collecting toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, small cardboard boxes, beverage lids and other similar items which we may have for our building unit - thanks! Our Wheels and Levers unit test will be Friday, February 27 - theory only.
I sent an email last week regarding the cake walk and an update for our Drumheller trip. If you have not received these, please let me know and I will send them to you again.
Please remember that there is also a music blog and a PE blog which can be found by following the links on the RBES home page.
Remember that tomorrow is Rainbow Day - have your student dress in the colours of the rainbow or as many of the colours as they wish.
We will be completing the Staff Baby Photo contest tomorrow so if you have a student who wishes to participate, please send $1 for each page of guesses or $5 for 6 pages of guesses.
That's all for now - remember you are welcome to contact me any time.
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