Good afternoon!

We had an incredibly busy, but pretty fun day today! We started off with our Wednesday French listening activity. Today we listened to “Hakuna Matata” in French. This is similar to the activity that we completed last week. Students use their knowledge of the English song to try and translate some of the French words. We heard: merveilleux (marvelous), phrase magnifique (magnificent phrase), philosophie (philosophy), bienvenue (welcome), chez nous (our home), croquant (crunchy), pas de soucis (no worries). Check out the link below to see if you can hear anymore words!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qrJ9rnIGyQ

We also had writer’s workshop again today. We started off with a small grammar lesson. We have been working with commas over the last few weeks. Today we added two new rules for using commas:

• Use a comma to separate two adjectives when the word and can be inserted between them.

             Eg. He is a strong, healthy man.

• Use commas before or surrounding the name or title of a person directly addressed.

             Eg. Yes, Doctor, I will.

                    Let’s eat, Grandpa.

We had a lot of fun with the second rule in particular!

In Science today, the Gr. 5 students practiced reading dials in order to dertermine electrical usage. They have to remember to read from right to left, and to pay attention to the direction of the dials in order to get a correct reading. In Gr. 4, the students studied for their Unit test tomorrow. They did this by filling in their study guide. The study guide contained the correct page numbers, but was missing information that the Gr. 4 students had to work together to find. They are encouraged to review this information tonight before the Unit Test tomorrow.

In Math, the Gr. 4 students are discussing breaking a set up into smaller parts. This can be challenging. Students are encouraged to look closely at the fraction to determine what steps to follow.

 

The Gr. 5 students are beginning to order decimals. Today we discussed using benchmarks to help.

We also completed our Mongolian themed door. Check out the pictures below!

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Reading Journal (Friday)

                         Spelling Quiz (Friday)

                         Multiplication Quiz (Friday)

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pgs. 184-185 #1-11

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 181-182 #1-8

                         Science: Gr. 4 – Unit Test Tomorrow

                                           Gr. 5 – Masters #28, 29

                         Book Orders – April 26th

                         Stuff Swap – Monday, April 22nd

 

Hello everyone!

Another busy day! This is turning out to be a busy week! Today we had our Multicultural Assembly. It was nice to see so many students dressed up for Cultural Dress Day! At our assembly we discussed our upcoming Jump Rope for Heart drive, Wonder (the virtue of the month), Words in Motion Poetry winners, Science Fair participants and winners, and we all sang a song that we have been working on in Music class. Our class was given a special task – they were given shakers by Mrs. Swansburg to use during the song. They had to practice in Music class, and they did a wonderful job today!

In Math today the Gr. 4 students discusses fractions in a set. We have already been hard at work practicing this skill, thanks to our Math live lesson, so today was a great day to make sure that we are getting comfortable with some of our new concepts and skills. The Gr. 5 students have begun converting fractions to decimals. This requires us to be comfortable working with equivalent fractions. Students are given a fraction, and then they must use equivalent fractions so that they are working with a fraction that is over 10 or 100. These fractions can easily be converted into decimals.

Eg. 4/10 = four tenths = 0.4

       75/100 = seventy-five hundredths = 0.75

We also discussed what this means in regards to money. Money frequently uses these concepts, and it can help us to better understand fractions.

Eg. 6/10 of a dollar = 60 ¢ = $0.60

       3/4 of a dollar = 75 ¢ = $0.75

A more difficult summary of what we worked on today might be:

Eg. Write 3/5 as a decimal.

       3/5 = 6/10 = 0.6

In order to solve these problems we have to be able to find equivalent fractions for a given fraction, so keep practicing your multiplication and division skills!

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Reading Journal/Readingo (Friday)

                         Spelling Quiz (Friday)

                         Multiplication Quiz (Friday)

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pgs. 181-182 #1-10

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 178-179 #1-11

                         Science: Gr. 4 – Unit Test (Thursday)

                        Multicultural Night – tonight @ 6:00 pm

                        Books Orders – April 26th

Monday!

We had a wonderful day. Thanks to everyone for being so flexible. As it is Multicultural Week this week, some of our subjects have moved around to accommodate some of our Multicultural activities. Today was Art Activity Day. We constructed a class quilt. In Mongolia (our theme), many people still live in tradition gers or yurts. These are felt tents that can be moved to accommodate a traditional nomadic lifestyle, but a yurt can actually stand for as long as 60 years. Many peoples decorate their yurts with wool rugs and tapestries. We used images of these tapestries to create our quilt. Students used a human figure motif (see below):

 

In Math today, the Gr. 4 students discussed the following benchmarks: 0, 1/2, and 1. Students are asked to examine whether an object is closer to 0, 1/2, or 1. This can be difficult, especially when examining other fractions! The Gr. 5 students are working to compare and order fractions. We completed the following Math live lesson, and then reviewed how equivalent fractions could also help us to solve the problem. Both grades have math homework.

Math live: http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/math5.html?goLesson=5

We also learned about someone named Jamie McDonald today. Jamie is currently attempting to run across Canada, without a support crew. His trip is to raise money for organizations such as SickKids. Check out his blog and some of his video posts (vlogs) below. We are going to continue watching!

http://www.jamiemcdonald.org/

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Multiplication Quiz (Friday)

                         Spelling Quiz (Friday)

                         Reading Journal and Readingo (Friday)

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pg. 179 #1-5

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 172-173 #1-12

                         Multicultural Dinner – tomorrow @ 6:00 pm

                         Book Orders – April 28th

                         Multicultural Dress Up – tomorrow!

Good afternoon!

I just wanted to add the pictures of our Mongolian themed door so far! The stones for our ovoo turned out great, and people will be able to flip them over the read what we were wishing for!

Good afternoon!

It has been a long time since our last Friday together, and it was nice to get back to our regular routine today. We started our morning with our spelling and our multiplication quizzes. Students have been doing very well with multiplication, and we will be starting a new mad minute sheet next Friday (we use each sheet 4 times). That means that students are still strongly encouraged to be practicing their multiplication at home, especially some of those higher numbers (eg. 7-12).

In Computers today we researched the country of Mongolia using the links below. This is because we are decorating our door for the door decorating contest with images inspired by Mongolia. Students explored the websites to get some inspiration. Our door currently features an ovoo that we have built together. An ovoo is man-made mountain. In Mongolia it is custom whenever you pass one walk around it three times and to add three rocks to the pile. They are thought to bring good fortune, and to help replenish the surrounding lands. Students created stones for our ovoo out of construction paper, and they each wrote something that they would like to have good luck with. Eg. Seeking luck in obtaining riches. These stones will be added to our door in a pile. We will also be adding some khadags as well (Wind Horses) which are blue scarves. Check out to picture of an ovoo below.

Computer Class Links

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/places/find/mongolia/

http://www.wartgames.com/themes/myths/mongols.html

http://mongols.mrdonn.org/dailylife.html

http://mongoluls.net/ger/ger.shtml

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pgs. 175-177 #1-12

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 168-169 #1-10

                         Science: Projects (due Monday)

                         Multicultural Night – April 16th @ 6:00 pm

                         Book Orders – April 26th

The Wood Buffalo Regional Science Fair is open to the public this Saturday from 9:00-11:00 am at the Syncrude Sports and Wellness Center. Timberlea has 6 projects entered, so feel free to go down and check it out!

“Almost all words do have color and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone’s eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her too.”

-Gladys Taber

Hello everyone! Today we started off our day by jumping into a new math unit. Both Gr. 4’s and 5’s are working on Fractions and Decimals. Both grades also used Mathematics Live today to introduce their units. This is an interactive video series hosted by LearnAlberta. Want to check them out? The link is below, but you may need to log in to LearnAlberta in order to use them. The district username is: LA19 and the password is: 1193.

http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/math5.html?goLesson=3

http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/math5.html?goLesson=4

The Gr. 4’s are working with proper fractions, and the Gr. 5’s are working with equivalent fractions.

In Science today the Gr. 5 students discussed how to measure wattage, or the electricity an appliance requires in order to work properly. We looked at various household appliances and used their wattage to calculate what the kWh for the object would be. This can be tricky. See below for an example:

Appliance	Wattage (W)	Kilowatts (kW)	Hours used per week (h)	kWh
Stove	12 200	12.2	2	24.4

The Gr. 4 students have begun “Light and Shadows”. We will be writing our Simple Machines Unit Test next week (Thursday), but we wanted to wait until we had completed our projects before we had to focus on studying for a test. Today we discussed sources of light (artificial and natural), and we focused on the importance of light. We also discussed that the sun is our most important light source.

In Language Arts today we continued to discuss poetry. We discussed two different poetic devices today: onomatopoeia, and rhyme. We created a list of onomatopoeia, and discussed their use is writing. These “sound” words can be great to use when you want to show the reader, not just tell the reader. What is an onomatopoeia? It is a word that’s sound suggests its meaning (eg. buzz). We also discussed rhyme. Rhyme is when the end sound of two words is the same (eg. moon and spoon, or moon and June). However, we did discuss the exception to this rule. Often poets will use words that have a similar end vowel, even in they are not perfectly rhyming words (eg. smile and wild). In order to further examine rhyming pairs we read “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” by Maya Angelou. Students picked out the rhyming pairs from the poem. Next week we will be using this poem to write our own rhyming couplet poems.

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Spelling Quiz – tomorrow

                         Multiplication Quiz – tomorrow

                         Math: Gr. 4 – pgs. 175-177 #1-12

                                      Gr. 5 – pgs. 168-169 #1-10

                         Science: Projects (due Tuesday)

                         Book Orders – April 26th

                         Multicultural Potluck Dinner – Tuesday (please RSVP)

                         Multicultural Week:

                                  – Art Activity Day (Monday)

                                  – Cultural Dress Up, Assembly (Tuesday)

                                  – What is it Wednesday? (Wednesday)

                                  – Door Decorating Contest (Thursday)

                                  – Multicultural Movie Night – CANCELLED! (Friday has been booked for the Gr. 5/6 Spring Dance instead)

Good afternoon!

We had a great day today, and a busy one. We started off we our Wednesday morning French listening activity. Today we listened to “Appelez-moi peut-être” or as it is known in English, “Call Me Maybe”. We listened to the song in English first, and then in French. Students were able to use their knowledge of the English lyrics to put together some of the French words and expressions. For example:

• ton jean déchiré – your ripped jeans
• bébé – baby
• c’est fou – this is crazy
• mon numéro – my number
• appel-moi, peut-être – call me maybe

Check out the following link to hear the rest of the song in French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQrwqON4Inc.

We also had Writer’s Workshop today. Writer’s Workshop is something that enables students to work on a single piece of writing for a longer time period than they are usually able to work on writing pieces. They also are able to edit and rework the piece, often producing multiple drafts before the complete a finished project. We do this by having students work in one of the following stations: rough writing, rainbow editing, share passes, writing a good copy, conferencing. Generally, students begin with a rough draft, but then they choose which station they would like to work in next. In this way, a piece might be edited several times, shared with multiple students for suggestions and ideas, and discussed in a writing conference with me. The students are able to see the progression of their pieces, and are able to see the amount of time and energy that can go into producing a strong piece of writing.

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Multiplication Quiz – Friday

                         Spelling Quiz – Friday

                         Science – Projects due April 15th

                         Book Orders – April 26th

                         Pink Shirt Day – tomorrow!

                         Multicultural Week (April 15-19)

                          – Monday (Art Activity Day)

                          – Tuesday (Try it Tuesday,  Cultural Dress-up Assembly)

                          – Wednesday ($2 Henna Tattoos)

                          – Thursday ($2 Henna Tattoos, Door Decorating Contest)

                          – Friday (Multicultural Movie Night)

                         Multicultural Potluck Dinner – April 16th @ 6:00 pm

                         – Please RSVP by tomorrow!

POW (by Chint): Solve and write a pattern rule for the following – 2, 2, 3, 5, 14, 69, 965.

Good afternoon!

I hope everyone had a great Spring Break. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to update the blog yesterday, it takes a while to get back into the swing of things. Today we more than made up for our time off. Students started off our morning with a reading comprehension activity. We work on reading (comprehension, strategies, etc.) most Tuesday mornings. Today we worked in our red workbooks. These workbooks contain readings and questions that relate to the Regions of Canada. We have been reading from these books for a while, and we always learn a lot through the questions sections. Today we read a story about a family driving across Canada. They started in British Columbia and drove in a motor home all the way to Atlantic Canada. What a great vacation. Students then answered some questions about the story, in order to practice and reinforce our ability to summarize and retell.

Both Grades worked on their final math problems today. The Gr. 5 students were designing a zoo. The zoo has to be rectangular, and has to contain safe and large enough enclosures for all the animals. Students are creating a map of their zoo, and they are also labelling the area, perimeter, and dimensions of the enclosures. The Gr. 4 students are working on a similar activity. They are creating a waterpark. They must organize the park in a way that creates a fun and safe environment. They are also creating a table to label the area of the various sections of the park. Both grades have a unit test on Measurement tomorrow. Students took home math books to help them study, so please remember to try some practice problems tonight everyone!

Homework: Read 20 minutes

                         Spelling Test (Friday)

                         Multiplication Quiz (Friday)

                         Math: Unit Test – tomorrow

                         Science: Projects – April 15th

                         Multicultural Potluck Dinner – April 16th (Please RSVP by Thurs.)

                         Pink Shirt Day – Thursday

Spelling Words:  commercials, memorial, miracle, comical, social, circle, coral, camel, comics, comma