October 15 - 18

We had a short, but busy week in 4A.

Following is an overview of the curriculum covered:

Language Arts

Grammar

This week our grammar focus was on adjectives. An adjective is a word that describes a noun. Adjectives can tell how many, what a noun looks like, feels like, sounds like or tastes like. This time of year is a perfect for working on adjectives and elaborative detail. The fall season and Halloween coming up provides so many great opportunities for describing things around us.

To practice using elaborative detail, the students wrote paragraphs describing their rooms. The intention was to purposefully add adjectives to their writing to create a vivid picture for the reader. The students traded their paragraphs with a friend who had never been in their room. While reading each others descriptive paragraphs, the students circled the adjectives used and underlined the nouns being described. They really enjoyed sharing their paragraphs with the class.

Using task cards, the students also identified the adjectives in a group of sentences.

Our library block has officially been scheduled on Thursdays during block 10. Please remind your child to bring their library books back to school every Thursday.

Math 

The students were given an opportunity to to use their new Mathletics accounts during class this week. This is an excellent math resource that follows the Alberta math curriculum. I have assigned specific activities that support the outcomes we are learning in class. Usernames and passwords are glued in the fromt your child's agenda if they would like to log onto the website at home.

We also finished our Patterning and Algebra Unit this week. The students completed an assessment to demonstrate their knowledge of the unit. These will be available for you to take a look at next week during Parent Teacher meetings. We will begin our next unit on Place Value on Tuesday.

Science

We focused a bit more on hazardous waste this week. We discussed that hazardous waste is all around us and we use items that can be dangerous in our everyday lives. After reviewing the hazardous waste symbols and what they mean, the students played a matching game. They matched up cards with pictures of the symbols, definition of the symbols, and different household items that would fall under the symbol categories.

Carbon Footprint - Research Paragraph

We also learned about greenhouse gases and how we can help to reduce our carbon footprint. Carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gas created when we complete our every day activities. The students were asked to use the Climate Kids website to research the different ways to help reduce our carbon footprint.

Following is an example of one students jot notes:

Four things I can do to reduce my carbon footprint include:

• ride your bike or walk instead of using a car
• instead of going to the drive thru park the car and walk inside
• turn off the lights when you exit a room
• if you have to drive a car take other people with you

After taking jot notes, students started creating a google slide

presentation to collect their ideas. Each student was given one slide to write a paragraph about how their can help to reduce their carbon footprint. Once their writing was complete they were able to add images to their slides.

PE

This week we worked on the manipulative skills of throwing, catching and striking. The objective was to experience and develop ways to receive, retain and send an object, using a variety of body parts and implements and through a variety of activities.

The students really enjoyed learning to play Nu'kem Volleyball.