Hello everyone!

We had a very busy, very Holidayish day today! Students started off the morning by completing their spelling and multiplication tests. We then had computers. Today in computers we did use the mathletics programs, and students will be continuing to use this program throughout the year. Students are also reminded that they are allowed to use mathletics at home. Challenge yourself to complete the extra lessons, tests, and play the math games. You can even use the new live mathletics features to play against our school or against our class! Next week in computers we will continue with our previous lesson on powerpoint.

In Music today, students were able to practice their Winter Concert performance. We will be singing two pieces, with Mrs. Jamieson’s class. The concert will take place on Dec. 18th, at 7:00 pm and we encourage parents to come out and hear some of the wonderful things that are students have been working on. It is a winter themed concert, and our class is doing two pieces on candles/flames.

In Art today we started to decorate our door for the door decorating contest. We are recreating Whoville from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. Students made 3-D snowflakes today, and Who-houses to decorate our village. Check out how it is looking so far. We will continue to work on the door until the contest ends later next week!

Have a great weekend, see you all Monday,

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Math: Gr. 4- pg. 92 #1-7

                                      Gr. 5 – pg. 82 #1-13

                         Social: Journal entry

                         Health: Activity 2A and 2B

                         Family Movie Night – Tonight @ 7:00 pm (Arthur Christmas)

Good evening!

We had a very busy, but a very productive day. In Language Arts today we returned to our Pink Grammar Books, to discuss Verbs in Verse. Students were asked to look at a verse, underline the verbs, and use the word choice skills we have been practicing in descriptive writing to choose a more interested verb. For example: changing moved to: wiggled, rolled, shimmied, sauntered, squirmed, etc. Then students were challenged to write their own verse! This is something that we will be doing more and more of in the upcoming weeks, as we will be participating in the Regional Municipality’s “Words in Motion” contest. More information to come.

In Science we reviewed the concept of precipitation today. In our “I Can” statements, students have been struggling to differentiate between sleet, snow, and hail. Today, students worked in groups to write a song about a specific type of precipitation. We learned that snowflakes are made under pressure, that the wind keeps pushing the hail up, that sleet is rain that passes the freezing point, and that “rain is just water, it could fall on Harry Potter”. All the groups did a great job, and hopefully some of these silly songs will help use to recall this information more effectively in the future.

Today in Social we discussed some of the animal life of the Rocky Mountain region. Students watched two short videos: GOat Sheep Goat, and G-Bear and B-Bear, and then we imagined (using the iformation that we gathered yesterday) that we had visited the parks. Students were asked to describe their trip in a journal entry that is due on Monday. Check out the videos at these links: 

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ARZ2IPpTBvw
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cos8SeP0fqE

We also added 6 new literacy centers to our classrooms today! They are: Fiction/Non-Fiction Reading, Buddy Reading, I Have… Who Has?, Classroom Journals, First Steps, and Science/Social. To prevent today’s blog from being extremely long, I will add more information about our new centers on another day.

Homework: Multiplication Test (2 times tables)

                         Spelling Test (tomorrow!)

                         Reading Journal (tomorrow!)

                         Read 20 minutes

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pg. 92 #1-7

                                      Gr. 5 – pg. 82 #1-13

                         Social: Journal Entry (Monday)

                         Health: FRIENDS 2A + 2B

                         Language Arts: Pink Books (tomorrow)

                         Family Movie Night (tomorrow) @ 7:00 – Arthur Christmas

Hello everyone!

Today we started off our morning by once again marking MY homework. Last night I had to compare something I read to myself, someone I know, and another text. I did this by selecting three character traits (eg. The rabbit was very imaginative), and then describing why I/someone else/another character shares this trait (eg. Willy Wonka is very imaginative, because he is able to think up so many wonderful creations to make in his factory). Students gave me an M overall, because we decided that there were some things that I could have done to bring the activity to a level P (eg. draw a picture, include more detail). I also wrote a response that was at the N/E level. This was trickier. While the work was started, it was incomplete. Without the completed response, it was too difficult to discern whether or not I understood the outcome.

In Science today we made barometers. However, students were challenged to create the barometer on their own! They were each given cling wrap, a container, tape, a popsicle stick, a straw, and an elastic band. As a group, they had to brainstorm ways that these materials could be used to measure a change in our classroom air pressure. Afterwards we disussed some of the successes and failures of our designs. All of the groups solved the problem before the end of the class. Great job everyone!

Homework: Multiplication Quiz (2s – Friday)

                         Read 20 minutes

                         Reading Journal (Friday)

                         Spelling Test (Friday)

                         Math: Gr. 5 – pg. 82 #1-4

                                      Gr. 4 – return signed test

                         Health: FRIENDS Home Activity 2A and 2B

                         Family Movie Night (Friday @7:00 by donation)

Hello everyone!

We had a very, very busy day today. Having no school on Friday, and then skiing on Monday meant that we had a lot to do today. The students did a great job, and showed great patience at finishing up activities from last week, and starting our new activities this week.

In Language Arts we have started to discuss the comparing reading strategy. So far this year we have looked at predicting, connecting, and comparing is very similar in a lot of ways. Students noted today that you can compare a text to yourself, or to another book, which would also demonstrate a text-to-self or text-to-text connection. As students have been winning prizes off their sticker boards over the last few weeks, it is my turn to do the homework tonight! I will be preparing two different comparing answers for students to mark tomorrow. One of the responses will be a B level response, and the other will be an M level response, so that students are getting more and more comfortable at using our outcome based reporting.

In Science today we reviewed air pressure – a concept that we have discussed before. We conducted an experiment on air pressure using water, cards, and cups, and today we talked about how to measure air pressure, and the importance of measuring air pressure. We will be building barometers tomorrow, our last device of the unit!

We also finished the foothills region today. Students reviewed the formation of communities and the importance of natural resources in community development. We also discussed some of the changes that the foothills region has seen over time. Specifically, we discussed changes that the Nakoda First Nations peoples may have seen in the region. We will be starting the Rocky Mountain region tomorrow.

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Reading Journals – Friday

                         Spelling Test – Friday

                         Multiplication Quiz – 2 times tables (Friday)

                         Gr. 4 – return signed Unit 2 Test

                         Language Arts – Miss B does the homework!

                         Family Movie Night – Friday @ 7:00 pm (Arthur Christmas)

Spelling Words: fond, obey, boyfriend, friend, beyond, forbid, drone, bone, done, one

POW (by Heta): Sophia owns a bookstore. She has one shelf that hold math books. There are 6 rows on the shelf. There are 6783 math books. If there is an equal number of books on each row, how many books are on each row, and how many books do not fit?

Good afternoon!

Another great day out skiing. We did arrive back at school a little after the bell, so if students are missing agendas, reading journals, etc. it is because of that. Do not worry, you can record your reading for tonight when the journals are returned tomorrow. Have a great night everyone!

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Multiplication Quiz (Friday – 2 times tables)