Spelling Pods

The first Monday of the new calendar year = back to routine!  Therefore, this morning students jumped right back into Words Their Way (spelling) pods.  It was great to see how well they all remembered the routine and how swiftly they were prepared to start.  Great work boys and girls!

WTW sites on the blog

Journalling

Sorting new word sorts and finding the spelling patterns.

I Want to Learn

As part of our reflection, the students today thought of something new they'd like to learn to do.  This could be a whole new area of interest for them, or learning to do something new in a field they are already participating in (ex. If they already know how to play guitar maybe they want to learn a new song on the guitar).  They blogged these new items of interest on their Kidblogs AND learned how to upload a picture to accompany their writing.  I was super proud of how quickly they learned to do this.  Well done 4th Purple!! :)

(Click on the link below to read want we want to learn to do.)

I Want to Learn Posts

Goal Setting

As most adults tend to make New Year's resolutions, the students in 4th grade purple looked at making personal goals.  This morning we reflected on the past (2015) and things we did during this time, then pondered the future and made goals for ourselves.  It was great to see the students work through this reflection process - both about home and school life.

Amish Life

In IPC we're getting into our international outcomes for our Bright Sparks unit.  For these outcomes, students are comparing their life, and the impact of electricity on it, to the lives of others around the world.  Our first comparison group: the Amish.  Yesterday, students watched a video about Amish life and noted information learned from the video in the form of images.  Then, they completed a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting their lives to that of the Amish.  It was quite interesting to see how very different their lives are than ours, yet we both sustain good living.

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back to all 4th grade purple members and their families!  I hope everyone had a terrific winter break and that it was filled with many memorable moments.  We are ready to get back to academics today and to start us off we eased into the learning process with a reflection activity.  Students brainstormed different aspects of their break through a "snapshots" activity, which they then narrowed down to one topic and turned into a writing piece.  It's great hearing about the students' breaks and seeing the enjoyment on their faces when talking about what they did.  I missed them tremendously and it's great to have them back again. :)

Reward Time

Throughout the year the students work towards earning various rewards by displaying positive behaviour as a team.  They have worked very hard over the last couple of months to earn a combined reward of a movie and snacks.  Yesterday they partook in enjoying this reward by watching "Polar Express" and indulging in many sweets, even some reindeer cupcakes for a birthday treat.

Winter Program Prep

This week students have been getting ready for our Winter Program.  This includes practicing their choral read aloud, getting their choir songs polished and prepping all materials needed.  We are well on our way to being ready to share our choral performance, "Our Christmas Stockings" with you on Friday.  See you there!

Merry Christmas

4th Grade Purple presented me with an absolutely beautiful gift this morning.  Love this Christmas tree with all their little hands.  Such a momentous, touching gift and totally in the spirit of the classroom:  all of us working together as a team to create greatness.  THANK YOU to our classroom community for this.  I truly appreciate it!

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" project

Over the last couple of weeks, students have been hard at work writing a 3 paragraph piece based on the story "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs".  This is a creative narrative piece where students make up a story with the focus being on organization and word choice in accordance with sentence fluency, conventions and ideas.

Not only have the students published them via MS Word, with a copy in the hallway here at school and one sent home, but they've also now copied and pasted them into a blog post.

We hope you enjoy reading our writing.  Now.... on to personal narratives!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs project

Carlo Felice Choir Performance

Our lovely gr 3-5 choir, directed by Ms Silvia, went to Carlo Felice this morning to perform in support of Unicef.  The children did a great job!

Remainders Wanted

Students practiced for their upcoming math assessment (tomorrow!) with a game today that utilized both their division and multiplication (with checking their answers) skills.  They are well prepared to handle the assessment that lies ahead of them.  And we realized that we are loving remainders, especially when it means we get a higher score.

Winter Program Practice

4th Grade Purple has been hard at work practicing their lines for their Winter Program piece.  They are doing a great job!  Most of us have our lines down pat (memorized well) and we're working to ensure we choral read clearly and with good volume in our groups.

We can't wait to see you all there and show you our performance.  :)

Math Review Pods

In preparation for our upcoming assessment, students participated in math review pods today.  They were as follows:

1) Game: Remainders Wanted
*Students played with a partner where they used dice as divisors and chose a dividend from the gameboard.   Their goal, be the person with the largest remainder totals at the end.

2) Multiplication Practice
*Using a 6-sided die, students rolled 4 or 5 digits, used these to make up a multiplication algorithm which they solved and checked their answer using a calculator.

3) Teacher Led: Long Division Practice
*With whiteboards and markers in hand, students practiced solving 3 and 4 digit dividend long division algorithms (using a method of choice) and then checked their work using a calculator.  Self checking is important so students can continue to bridge the connection between multiplication and division and be able to identify where they made an error (if applicable).

Personal Narratives

We started brainstorming for our next writing project: personal narratives.

First students made a list of the various things they've done, places they've been, parties they've attended, holidays they participated in, etc.  Then they chose one event and made a web of the various activities they've done during that time.  We are looking at being very specific and detailed in our writing and with our details in order to have this information to easily help us in turning our personal narrative into a grand 3-paragraph writing project.

Reading Pods

Keeping our routine consistent is important in 4th Grade Purple.  Even though we were down a few members due to a day off tomorrow and many students gone until then, we still participated in our language arts pods.  Reading focused students did a variety of activities that utilized their reading skills in many ways.

Moving with Remainders

A great way to practice our math skills is through games where we are having fun and not realizing how much math we are doing amidst the joy. ;)  Today students learned how to play the long division game Moving with Remainders.  In this game, students move their pawn, roll the die, divide the number they are on (dividend) by the number on the die (the divisor) and their remainder is how many spaces they get to move for their next turn.  It's great fun, until you get a question where there isn't a remainder.  No spaces for you that turn! :p

Math Is....

As we do multiple math huddles (writing about how we link math to a picture), we stop to ponder the question...What is math?

The class brainstormed in partners then as a whole group to come up with what they think math involves.  Here is our current brainstorming (we will continue to add to this as more ideas come to us):

Problem Solving

In groups, students worked to solve translational word problems using division.  Each group was given a problem which they had to first decipher the information they know and then figure out what they were solving for.  Then they used any division method to solve their problem.  Working together helps students learn from and teach each other.