Peer Check-ins

During reading today, students did a peer check-in activity when going over their work.  In their table groups the students took a part of the work we were checking and used their peers to help them in ensuring the accuracy of their work.  As each person shared, the table group would give a thumb signal to indicate if they felt the students work was as per requirements.  If changes needed to be made, reasons were given as to why, it was discussed and they'd work together to find an appropriate solution.

Researching Inventions

Using World Book Online, students today worked on researching, locating and noting information about inventions.  We've been talking about how to glean information from text and then write it in our own words.

Buddy Reading

4th Grade Purple is buddies with Kinder Red and almost every Friday we get together for 1/2 hour to do various activities with one another.  This week, Kinder Red practiced reading to their 4th grade buddy.  In return, 4th grade students were prompting the kinders with comprehension questions and decoding strategies.  It was nice to see how engaged the two grades were with this activity.

Medicine & Technology

Students were divided into two teams today: a technology team and a medicine team.  Within each team, the students then, in groups of 3, choose an invention within their category to research.  The inventions of choice ranged from: technology --> tv, telephone, computer, and medicine --> surgery, glasses, x-ray, band-aids.  The students then found their working location, used shared reading to find out about their invention, created a brainstorm web with facts about their invention, then took this information and wrote a paragraph.  It will be fun to hear about these various inventions when they present their information at a later date.

Graphic Organizer Use

Students use a graphic organizer to find main story elements from chapter 2 of our Leonardo da Vinci book.  They located the setting, major and minor characters, problem, listed a few main events, and gave the outcome of the chapter.

Our Favourite Inventions

In our IPC unit, the students have studied a variety of inventions thus far.  Keeping these in consideration, students choose one and wrote about it today during language arts.  They told which invention they liked, why they liked it, if it's a useful invention and why, and what changes they'd make to that invention if they were an inventor and had the opportunity to do so.  Feel free to click on the link below and check these out. :)

Our Favourite Inventions

Leonardo da Vinci

In reading this week, we're continuing to look at biographies through the study of Italy's very own Leonardo da Vinci.  As we read, we are learning about his childhood, how he came to be an artist, and the journey he embarked on throughout his career.

Today we used a pyramid graphic organizer to illicit information from the first chapter of our book.  This organizer is set up similar to a poem where the students find information from the text but have to display it in a certain manner (ie write the problem in only 4 words).  Team work and collaboration are what count in 4th grade purple and it was nice to see the conversations and problem solving going on throughout the room during this task.

Toilets

As we learn about different inventions, we come to realize that they aren't always novel or complex as we originally think.  It's fun to see the students recognize that even the simplest, nondescript things are inventions, such as gum, pencils, stools.  So today, when we got to read and analyze the toilet, students showed great amusement in learning how this invention came to be the process it underwent in becoming what it is today.  This is definitely an invention we are happy to have!

Ski Week Extravaganza

Interested to hear how we spent our ski week? The students started their morning off by blogging about their activities.  It was great to see how engaged they were in sharing this information, and of course doing so in different colours. ;)

Ski Week Extravaganza!

Learning to Fly - Inventions

Students were learning about flight, and all the inventions related to it, today.  In groups, they used information found in our readers about flight from 1485 to 1900s.  They took this information and put it into a timeline showing the evolution of air travel.

Cube Creator

Using this great site from ReadWriteThink, students used information from the Lou Gehrig biography they were reading to make a Bio Cube.  This is a great task to see students' comprehension of a subject in other ways and to have them illicit facts from literature.  4th Grade Purple was able to save  these to their USBs which we can print at a later date and actually make into a cube.  

On the website, you can make a variety of different cubes and even generate one suited to what ever unit you are studying in class.

Cube Creator

Inventions

As we study inventions, the students are starting to get into the mindset of what invention they would create if they could invent anything they wanted.  We decided to share these via Kidblog.  We'd love to share our wonderful, imaginative creations with you.

Inventions

Data Analysis Scavenger Hunt

On Monday the students have a math test on their data analysis unit.  In order to prepare for this, not only do they study at home but we also review in class.  We've currently been working on word problems and taking them apart to solve.  Today, we did a scavenger hunt activity that used our graphing skills along with recalling mean, median, mode and range.

The scavenger hunt was broken up into 4 parts (or different graphs).  The students would take 1 slip of paper then have to find the graph that goes along with it.  Once they did, they used the graph data  to answer questions.  This was a great way to review concepts and the students had fun while moving around.  They also got instant feedback on their work as they had to show me one slip, get it corrected and then get the next one ONLY if they didn't have corrections.  At which point, they'd go back to seek out their error.

Biography & Autobiography

In reading, students are looking at the genres biographies and autobiographies.

Through discussion, we noted that a biography is a real story about a real person's life written by someone else.  An autobiography is also a real story about a real person's life but it is written by that person, not someone else.

In starting this unit, we began looking at a biography about Lou Gehrig, the baseball player from the New York Yankees.  Students have read, discussed and analyzed the story thoroughly.  It is great to see the questions they come up with and the information they want to learn (although they do think I know everything about everyone lol).

All About Inventions

We are studying inventions in IPC this unit.  Students are looking at what defines an invention (vs a discovery), learn different types of inventions and the history behind them, as well as learn about patents, trademarks and copyrights related to them.  Here, students used a pyramid graphic organizer to illicit information from an  article "All About Inventions".  They then shared their answers in groups, and had to sign off on each other's work.  There were a lot of great conversations happening as well as reasoning to answers given.