Week 11

In Math we continued practicing subtraction computations starting from 10 000, using the regrouping strategy. Below is a link, that helps you keep track of our math Learning Intentions and Success Criteria, along with games where they can practice these concepts at home:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Von0b3dqkGpqP00Y4zjj35-ZHBRuyDOx9VjNy1nAvsc/edit?usp=sharing

In Social Studies, we began examining the natural features of Alberta's regions. In particular we looked at the climate (temperature and precipitation), land surface (mountains, valleys, etc.), animal life and plant life. 

In writing we have been practicing how to make our writing more interesting by using the technique "Show Don't Tell". This is when the author shows the feelings of a character or describes a scene, rather then telling the reader what is happening. An example

Next Week's Spelling Pattern:

The Sound F

The sound /f/ can be spelled in different ways. 

Practice Words:

Photo        Graph         laugh       cough       trophy        shelf    friend        enough       stiff           giraffe       nephew     

Reminders:

Parent Teacher Conferences - Thursday November 22nd after school and Friday November 23rd morning are the parent teacher conferences. Students have no school on Friday. Please book your appointment through the online booking system. I look forward to updating you on your child's progress so far in Grade 4. 

Field Trip - On December 11th we will be going on our visit out of school field trip to Fort Calgary. Please email and let me know if you are able to volunteer to come with us on this day. It will be a whole day field trip. Field trip forms to sign will go home closer to the date.

No School December 7th - On Friday December 7th the teachers have a professional development day and students have no school.  

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well. 

Week 10

We started a full round of your Daily 5. Our Daily 5 involves working on Read with the Teacher, Passion Project, Read to Self, Word Work and Work on Writing. 

We have been working on sharing our personal strategies in math. When sharing our personal strategies, it is important to show your work and understanding, communicate and collaborate with others, show our strategies step by step, speak clearly and calmly, and use math vocabulary.

This week we learned about Goal Setting. We created goals and strategies that will help us with our descriptive writing. We need to take steps to reach our goals. We use strategies to help us reach our goal. Some of our strategies might be using the success criteria, learning intentions, the worn out word wall and the sensory word bank to help improve our descriptive writing. 

We started our cardboard challenge. We are making games for our winter indoor recess. 

Next Week's Spelling Pattern:

Consonant Digraphs

Consonant digraphs are 2 consonants together that make a completely new sound. They can be found anywhere in a word. 

Practice Words:

thunder 

farther 

reach 

chicken 

wheat 

Thursday 

foolish 

gather 

brother 

awhile 

chimney 

sharply 

leash 

bother 

shipment 

feathers 

charge 

shovel 

whiskers 

crush

who

whole

Reminders:

Class Pictures - Monday November 12th is picture re-take day and our whole class photo will be taken on this day as well.

In-line Skating - Thank you for returning the forms. The next final in-line skating session will be on Wednesday, November 14th. Please have your child bring their helmet to school on this day. 

Field Trip - On December 11th we will be going on our visit out of school field trip to Fort Calgary. Please email and let me know if you are able to volunteer to come with us on this day. It will be a whole day field trip. Field trip forms to sign will go home closer to the date.

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well. 

Week 9

In Math, we have been working on words problems. We have also been working with base ten blocks to show our work and understanding of addition and place value.

In Science, we have been looking at our data to figure out the problems we noticed in our classrooms. One of the problems we noticed was that some things weren't going in the right bin. Many items were only going into the garbage.

In Language Arts, we have been working on descriptive writing. We have been using our rubric to help us understand the criteria to guide and to self-assess our writing.

We also had our first session of in-line skating. It was fun! 

Next week we will continue with R-controlled vowels as our spelling pattern.

Reminders:

In-line Skating - Thank you for returning the forms. The next 2 in-line skating sessions will be on November 7th and November 14th. Please have your child bring their helmet to school on these dates, if they have one.

Class Pictures - If you would like to purchase your child's photo, please return the form by November 7th. November 12th is picture re-take day and our class photo will be taken as well.

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well. 

Week 8

This week we had an expert from Green Calgary give us a presentation about landfills. We learned that the garbage in our landfills are compacted and that it takes a really long time for garbage to decompose. Once the garbage is compacted there is no more room for oxygen which means that decomposers like worms, bacteria, insects, fungi and microorganisms are not able to break down the waste.

We were given the challenge to build a model of a landfill. We had to protect the ground water underneath the landfill from the leachate that might seep in. Leachate a harmful liquid that is made from the mixing of garbage and rainwater. If leachate gets into our ground water it can contaminate it. Some of our models were successful and some were not so successful, but we kept trying and showed our Growth Mindset.

In Science, we went to our assigned classrooms and collected their recycling, compost and garbage. Today we sorted through what we had gathered and wrote down our observations. We will be using the data we collected to determine the next steps in our WM inquiry.

In Social Studies, we continued learning about Alberta. We have been working on a map of Alberta to understand the boundaries of the different regions. The six regions of Alberta are Canadian Shield, Foothills, Rocky Mountains, Grassland, Boreal Forest, and Parkland.

In Math, we started addition. We showed our understanding using the base ten blocks strategy.

We have been working on writing. We have been practicing how to write a strong sentence using the 4 Strong S's. The four Strong S's are Specific, Sensory Words, Strong Verbs and Show vs. Tell. 

Next Week's Spelling Pattern:

R-Controlled Vowels - Bossy R! 

When the letter r follows a vowel, the vowel is usually forced to change its sound. That’s why we call it the “Bossy R.” In most small words with one vowel in the middle, that vowel has a short vowel sound as in the words bad, hen, sit, fox, and fun. 

The sound of the vowel changes if we replace the last letter of each of these words with the letter r: 

Fat changes to far

Cat changes to car

Hen changes to her

Sit changes to sir

Fox changes to for

Fun changes to fur. 

Reminders:

In-line Skating - Please return the signed blue form for in-line skating by Thursday November 1st. We will be starting our first session on Friday November 2nd. Please have your child bring their helmet to school if they have one. 

Halloween - This year at Panorama Hills School students will be allowed to dress up for Halloween. This will take place in the afternoon only on October 31st. If you choose to partake in this activity, please ensure your child has a costume that can be worn under, or easily put on over their clothes. Because of the high volume of children changing all at once, they won't be able to use the bathrooms to change into their costumes. Wearing a costume is optional. Your child may wear orange or black clothes, Panorama Hills School spirit wear, or their regular clothes. 

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well. 

Week 7

In Science, we visited classrooms and conducted wms surveys. We collected information about each classroom's wms. We asked each class about the number of compost, garbage and recycling bins they had; how many students put compost in the compost bin; how many students put scrap paper in the recycling bin; and how many students put drink containers in the recycling. We then compiled all of our data into a data chart. We will use this information to help us improve the school's waste management systems. 

In Math, we reviewed how to represent numbers to 10 000 in different ways. We had an assessment on Thursday to show our understanding of representing numbers and will now be moving onto addition and subtraction strategies.

**If you would like to continue helping your child with number sense at home, ask him/her to show you how to represent a 3 digit or 4 digit number using a place value chart, base ten block pictures, word form, expanded form and a number line. You may also ask them to show you how to draw and use a number line to round numbers to the nearest ten/hundred or thousand.**

In Social Studies, we started a glossary which includes words we might not understand in our Social Studies textbook. This will help us learn the words in our textbook so that we can understand what we are reading.

This week we joined Ms. Lobel's class to listen to Ms. Paull read us a book called "What is Peace?". We had a discussion about what peace means in our world and society. Then we wrote down what peace means to each of us.

Today we had an assembly and were given a cardboard challenge! It is inspired by Caine's Arcade. We will need cardboard, such as boxes, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, etc.

Next Week's Spelling Pattern:

Middle and Ending Consonant Blends

This week we focused on consonant blends that come at the beginning of words. Next week we will focus on consonant blends that come at the middle and end of words. 

A consonant blend is 2 or more consonants that come together in a word. Their sounds blend together, but each sound is heard. For example:

sk as in risk 

ld as in cold

pt as in crept

Practice words will be:

sound dusk​ refund​  cold​  skunk​  absent  blended unfold   

Reminders:

Cardboard Challenge - We are collecting Cardboard for our Cardboard Challenge. Donations of boxes, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, etc…. Donations are being collected in the Grand Hall behind the blue partition.

No School - On Friday, October 26th teachers are having a professional learning day, so there is no school for children.

Halloween - This year at Panorama Hills School students will be allowed to dress up for Halloween. This will take place in the afternoon only on October 31st. If you choose to partake in this activity, please ensure your child has a costume that can be worn under, or easily put on over their clothes. Because of the high volume of children changing all at once, they won't be able to use the bathrooms to change into their costumes. Wearing a costume is optional. Your child may wear orange or black clothes, Panorama Hills School spirit wear, or their regular clothes. 

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well. 

Week 6

In math, we have been rounding to the nearest 10. We started rounding numbers to the nearest 100 and will continue working on this next week.

This week, the Military Museum shared their artifacts with the Grade 4 classrooms. We were able to see helmets, food, footwear, a cloth poster to warn civilians about landmines, clothes for different environments, doll made from yarn, and mess tins for shaving and cooking/eating.  

 

In social studies, we started learning about Alberta's symbols. We made our own Google slides about Alberta. We created slides for Symbols of Alberta. On each, we posted a photo and wrote a caption.

In science, we received an email from Ms. Paull asking us to look at the waste management systems in the different classrooms. We generated ideas about how we could collect data and all agreed that a survey would help us collect this information. We will be visiting classrooms and conducting surveys next week.

Next Week's Spelling Pattern:

Consonant Blends

A consonant blend is 2 or more consonants that come together in a word. Their sounds blend together, but each sound is heard. For example:

gl as in glove

dr as in dream

str as in straight

scr as in screen 

Practice words will be:

protect      front        craft      scared      trace    splinter     screech     spaces     stuff      greedy

Weekly Reminders:

Scholastic Book Order - Please return any scholastic book orders on Friday, October 19th.

Picture Day - The children's individual photos will be taken on Thursday, October 18th. 

No School - On Friday, October 26th teachers are having a professional learning day, so there is no school for children.

Halloween - This year at Panorama Hills School students will be allowed to dress up for Halloween. This will take place in the afternoon only on October 31st. If you choose to partake in this activity, please ensure your child has a costume that can be worn under, or easily put on over their clothes. Because of the high volume of children changing all at once, they won't be able to use the bathrooms to change into their costumes. Wearing a costume is optional. Your child may wear orange or black clothes, Panorama Hills School spirit wear, or their regular clothes. 

Winter Weather Clothes - Please remember to have children bring snow pants and boots during the colder, wet season. The field can get very wet as snow melts. Extra socks in their backpack would be great as well.