Wednesday January 29, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day...

• We did a few rounds of Daily 5 today. Some of us started book clubs, read in small groups or made a choice: Read to Self, Read to Someone, or Work on Writing. 
• The Grade 4s had French with Mr. Strand while the Grade 3s learned about similes and personification. We read a book and brainstormed
• In Math, some of us did a "Show What You Know Subtraction" sheet with and without regrouping independently.  

Reminders: 

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing
• Our new math learning intention is now posted in PowerSchool. It will be assessed and posted on Friday, January 31st 
• Swimming forms were sent home today. Please return form by: February 11, 2020. Swimming dates for Kindness Pod: February 24 -28, 2020 inclusive 
• Swimming Volunteer sign up can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080B4BAEA929AA8-swimming3
• "Who Do You Tell?" permission forms were sent home today. Please return them as soon as possible. 

Warm Feet and Heads 

• This week, the Eric Harvie Peace Ambassadors are collecting warm, new or gently used, adult sized socks and hats for Calgary’s homeless.  After our recent cold spell, supplies are low at our city’s shelters and we want to help to fill them back up before the next cold snap hits.  There are collection bins and a display in the hub where students can drop off donations during ignite time each day. 
  
  
  Please ensure:
  
  
  *socks are adult sizes
  *gently used socks and hats are washed and do not have any holes
  *socks are rolled into pairs
  *they are high enough to cover cold ankles
  
  
  Peace Ambassadors will be at our upcoming Sock Hop on Thursday evening to take donations as well!  If you would prefer to donate to our coin collection, Mrs. Zwack will happily purchase socks and hats.
  
  
  Thank you for supporting our Warm Feet and Heads project!

Tuesday January 28, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day... 

• Today we continued with our new IGNITE stations. Most of us are really enjoying using loose parts to create stories! 
• In Writers' Workshop, we wrote Haiku poems about the prairies using describing words. They are coming along beautifully.
• In Math, we learned the traditional algorithm as another strategy to solve subtraction equations.  We solved questions with no regrouping and regrouping from tens to ones

Ask me about... 
the traditional algorithm we learned in Math today. Let me share with you how to solve a subtraction question using the algorithm.

Reminders: 

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing
• Our new math learning intention is now posted in PowerSchool. It will be assessed and posted on Friday, January 31st 
• Swimming forms will be sent home this week. Please return form by: February 11, 2020. Swimming dates for Kindness Pod: February 24 -28, 2020 inclusive 
• Swimming Volunteer sign up can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080B4BAEA929AA8-swimming3

Warm Feet and Heads 

• This week, the Eric Harvie Peace Ambassadors are collecting warm, new or gently used, adult sized socks and hats for Calgary’s homeless.  After our recent cold spell, supplies are low at our city’s shelters and we want to help to fill them back up before the next cold snap hits.  There are collection bins and a display in the hub where students can drop off donations during ignite time each day. 
  
  
  Please ensure:
  
  
  *socks are adult sizes
  *gently used socks and hats are washed and do not have any holes
  *socks are rolled into pairs
  *they are high enough to cover cold ankles
  
  
  Peace Ambassadors will be at our upcoming Sock Hop on Thursday evening to take donations as well!  If you would prefer to donate to our coin collection, Mrs. Zwack will happily purchase socks and hats.
  
  
  Thank you for supporting our Warm Feet and Heads project!

Monday January 27, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day... 

• Today we started new IGNITE stations in the morning. These are the new stations: handwriting, loose parts story building, nature pictures with poetry and loose parts representation of a scene from Ticket to Curlew
• We did a few rounds of Daily 5 today. Some of us started book clubs or reading in small groups with a teacher. 
• In Math, we continued working on Subtraction with regrouping in the tens and hundreds

Ask me about ... 

the new IGNITE activity I chose to do this morning. 

Reminders: 

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing
• Sorry for the late notification of the most current learning update on Powerschool, you should be able to see it this evening. It will be assessed and posted on Friday. 
• Swimming forms will be sent home this week. Please return form by: February 11, 2020. Swimming dates for Kindness Pod: February 24 -28, 2020 inclusive 
• Swimming Volunteer sign up can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080B4BAEA929AA8-swimming3

Warm Feet and Heads 

• This week, the Eric Harvie Peace Ambassadors are collecting warm, new or gently used, adult sized socks and hats for Calgary’s homeless.  After our recent cold spell, supplies are low at our city’s shelters and we want to help to fill them back up before the next cold snap hits.  There are collection bins and a display in the hub where students can drop off donations during ignite time each day. 
  
  
  Please ensure:
  
  
  *socks are adult sizes
  *gently used socks and hats are washed and do not have any holes
  *socks are rolled into pairs
  *they are high enough to cover cold ankles
  
  
  Peace Ambassadors will be at our upcoming Sock Hop on Thursday evening to take donations as well!  If you would prefer to donate to our coin collection, Mrs. Zwack will happily purchase socks and hats.
  
  
  Thank you for supporting our Warm Feet and Heads project!

Friday January 24, 2020

Learning Intentions

• We continued to work on our Haiku and art for our prairie display.  Students - your use of line is great!  So thoughtful in creating 2D and 3D shapes.  
• We had a presentation today in celebration of Chinese New Year.  We learned about traditions and had a lion dance.  

Ask me about...

the math game we played today - Roll FROM 100.  Each Friday we are learning a new math game that helps us practice our mental math strategies.  You can play these at home.

Reminders...

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing.
• "Who Do You Tell?" parent information evening 6:30 - 8:30 pm this Thursday January 23, 2020.
• Our swimming lessons will be February 24 - 28, 2020 and forms will be sent soon.  Volunteer sign up can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080B4BAEA929AA8-swimming3

Thursday January 23, 2020

Learning Intentions

• Today we wrote Haiku poetry about the prairies.  It will accompany our art of prairie structures.
• Most math groups have now introduced the idea of subtraction with regrouping.  We are exploring a variety of strategies for this operation.
• All classes within the Kindness Pod have now had the Green Calgary presentation.  This was a great review of the concepts we have studied and students applied their design thinking to the challenge of creating a landfill that protects ground water well.

Ask me about...

our design when creating a landfill within our presentation.  What worked well in our design and why?  What did we change and why?

Reminders...

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing.
• "Who Do You Tell?" parent information evening 6:30 - 8:30 pm this Thursday January 23, 2020.
• Our swimming lessons will be February 24 - 28, 2020.  Volunteer sign up can be found here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080B4BAEA929AA8-swimming3

Wednesday January 22, 2020

Learning Intentions

• Within our new schedule, grade 4s have been studying French with Mr. Strand on Mondays and Wednesdays. During this time, our grade 3s have been working on 'expanding' sentences by adding details that answer the questions:  Who? Doing what? When?  Where?  Why?  
• We all began our art project involving prairie structures.  We are carefully examining the art elements of shape and line to create barns, farm houses and grain elevators.
• This week we are fortunate to have Green Calgary work with us to learn more about waste.  Miss Woo and Mrs. McLean/Mr. Kelly's classes went today and the others will have this opportunity tomorrow.  We are excited to tell you more about what we learned.

Ask me about...

Ignite.  We have been exploring symmetry through a variety of activities the last 2 weeks.  Let me tell you about them and what I now know about symmetry.  

Reminders...

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing.
• "Who Do You Tell?" parent information evening 6:30 - 8:30 pm this Thursday January 23, 2020.
• Our swimming lessons will be February 24 - 28, 2020.  Volunteer opportunities and forms will be forthcoming.
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• 

Tuesday January 21, 2020

Learning Intentions

• We were introduced to a new art project that we will be working on this week, "Prairie Lines".  We examined a variety of prairie structures, looking carefully at lines and shapes that we see in them.
• We have been reading the novel, Ticket to Curlew in class.  This book is about a family who moves to the prairies in 1915.  This novel is helping us develop an understanding of what life was like for new immigrants as they established their homesteads and communities. 

Ask me about...

the structure that I will be creating in art.  What lines and shapes helped me to create the structure?  Maybe I could even tell you about how the design connected to the weather on the prairies.

Reminders...

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing.
• "Who Do You Tell?" parent information evening 6:30 - 8:30 pm this Thursday January 23, 2020.
• Our swimming lessons will be February 24 - 28, 2020.  Volunteer opportunities and forms will be forthcoming.

January 20, 2020

Learning Intentions

• We are working on exploring a variety of strategies for subtraction with 2 and 3 digit within our math groups.
• We learned about Haiku poetry today and are beginning to practice writing our own in preparation for our prairie Inquiry art project this week.

Ask me about...

the strategies I know for subtraction.

Reminders...

• Wine Fund raising is ongoing.
• "Who Do You Tell?" parent information evening 6:30 - 8:30 pm this Thursday January 23, 2020.
• Our swimming lessons will be February 24 - 28, 2020.  Volunteer opportunities and forms will be forthcoming.

Friday January 17, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day... 

• Today's math number talk was focused on subtraction strategies. We introduced a new subtraction fact game called "Subtract-A-Graph" and we played it in small groups. 
• We did two rounds of Daily 5 today. 
• We did an art activity and a gratitude circle to end off the week. We had to come up with an inspirational word and write about why we chose it. 

Ask me about... 
the new subtraction math game we learned today. Let me share with you how to play it.  

Reminders: 

• It's going to be chilly for the rest of the week. Please ensure your child is dressed warmly for the weather. 

Thursday January 16, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day...

• During Inquiry we continued working in our new groups. One group started planning for a design challenge while the other groups had some discussions and created jot notes after watching a video or reading facts on a certain topic. 
• In Math, we are working on regrouping in Subtraction. Some of us worked on regrouping with larger numbers while others learned the 'Adding Up' strategy using a blank number line. We were quite focused during Math today. 
• In Gym, we continued practicing our dribbling and shooting skills in basketball. 

Ask me about... 
the new math strategy we learned today.

Reminders: 

• It's going to be chilly for the rest of the week. Please ensure your child is dressed warmly for the weather. 

Wednesday January 15, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day... 

• In the afternoon, the Grade 4's had French with Mr. Strand and the Grade 3's did Literacy. We had a discussion about 'What is a sentence?' We started off with a simple sentence and our task was to add descriptive words to make the sentence more interesting. 
• We did two rounds of Daily 5 today. We are starting to write interesting stories in our journals and reading a variety of different books. 
• In Math, we did another Subtraction number talk. We worked on solving word problems and played a math game with a partner. 

Ask me about...
What we learned in Inquiry today. Let me share with you one interesting fact I learned in my Inquiry group.

Reminders: 

• It's going to be chilly for the rest of the week. Please ensure your child is dressed warmly for the weather. 

Tuesday January 14, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day....

• During Inquiry we continued working in our new groups today. Some of us started having discussions on a topic we will be learning more about in the next few weeks while others looked at pictures or watched a video on the history of the land and what it was like way before humans existed 
• In Math we did another Subtraction number talk before continuing with the word problems we started yesterday. Many of us were able to solve the second word problem on our own using a chart to organize our work. We even came up with many answers! 
• We did 3 rounds of Daily 5 today! For one of the rounds, we were finishing up the good copies of our poems in our visual journals. We are working hard to build our stamina in reading and writing. 

Ask me about... 
The math word problem we worked on today. Let me share with you what the problem was about and the strategy I used to solve it.

Reminders: 

• It's going to chilly for the rest of the week. Please ensure your child is dressed warmly for the weather. 

Monday January 13, 2020

Learning Intentions for our Day ... 

• During Inquiry we started working in our new groups today. Each of the groups had a classroom visit from Sa'kakoto. He talked about the importance of the number '4' and the different languages he has learned in the past year. 
• In Math, we started off with a Subtraction number talk. Then we were given two Subtraction word problems to solve using a chart to organize our work. Most of us noticed a pattern as we were solving the problems and came up with many answers!
• We started reading "Ticket to Curlew" during our read-aloud after lunch. We made observations by describing what we noticed and what we think the book will be about just by looking at the front cover. We started reading Chapter 1. 

Ask me about ... 

What we learned in our Inquiry groups today. What was your favourite part of Inquiry? 

Reminders: 

• It's going to be chilly this week! Please dress warm for the weather. 

Friday January 10, 2020

Learning intentions for our day...

In math we worked on building our understanding of SUBTRACTION using a Frayer Model.  We discussed and recorded the following:
*Definition       *Illustrated  Example    *Real World Applications    *Related Words

During snack we have been reading the picture book, Unstoppable Me!  This book highlights 10 important 'lessons' that can help us to approach life with a growth mindset and achieve our goals.  A great way to start our new year and focus on goal setting for the next term.

In Inquiry today we categorized the items we looked at yesterday by the simple machine they represented.  Then, we recorded in our visual journals the 6 simple machines and a real world example of each.  

Ask me about...

the lesson from Unstoppable Me! that I would like to work on.  

Reminders...

Please ensure your child is prepared to go outside in this weather.

January 9, 2020

Learning intentions for our day...

In math we worked on building our understanding of ADDITION using a Frayer Model.  We discussed and recorded the following:
*Definition       *Illustrated  Example    *Real World Applications. *Related Words

In Inquiry today we introduced a number of items to the class and asked them to examine them and look for what they might have in common.  We tried a few ways of categorizing the items and then watched a Bill Nye video to learn a bit about Simple Machines.  Our intention was to be able to name the 6 different simple machines shown in the video!

We began a new focus in Ignite this week where we are doing a number of activities to explore symmetry which we introduced prior to the break.  

Ask me about...

Simple machines!!  How many of the 6 can you describe to your parents?  Can you give an example of each that we use in every day life?  Homework:  Do a scavenger hunt at home to find some other examples and write or draw them on a slip of paper to bring tomorrow!

Reminders...

Please ensure your child is prepared to go outside in this weather. 

Learning intentions for our day...

• Today we almost finished our story writing assessment which is meant to give teachers a snapshot of where each student is at.  This will lead to some work on building story writing skills in the coming weeks.
• Today's math number talk was focused on subtraction strategies and connecting them to what we know about addition.  We introduced a new subtraction fact game and had just a few minutes to give it a try.
• We are preparing for some new work in Inquiry next week by thinking and journalling about what makes Alberta special.  

Ask me about...

Here are a few online math games that you can play to help you develop your mental math fluency for addition and subtraction!

http://www.abcya.com/clear_it_addition.htm

http://www.abcya.com/math_bingo.htm

http://www.abcya.com/math_facts_game.htm

subtraction-4-row

Reminders...

• Please remember to bring back your indoor shoes from home.  
• It's going to be chilly this week!  Dress warmly...

Tuesday January 7, 2020

Learning intentions for our day...

• What a great first day back!  Although we all came in ready to learn, we reviewed expectations for Read to Self before delving into our Daily 5 routine.  Some of us also needed to choose new books and visited the Learning Commons.
• In Math, we began to examine the relationship between addition and subtraction by using the 'Make 10' fact families.  We created equations to show our understanding of this relationship.
• We are about to focus on story writing so as a jumping off point today we started a writing activity to show what we already know.  We were given a picture prompt and began to plan a story which we will write tomorrow.  So many wonderful ideas emerged!  

Ask me about...

Here are a few online math games that you can play to help you develop your mental math fluency for addition and subtraction!

http://www.abcya.com/clear_it_addition.htm

http://www.abcya.com/math_bingo.htm

http://www.abcya.com/math_facts_game.htm

subtraction-4-row

Reminders...

• Please remember to bring back your indoor shoes from home.  
• It's going to be chilly this week!  Dress warmly...