We had a busy month of March and it's hard to believe it's already mid-April! The class enjoyed our 4 weeks with Miss. Snyder-Penner, and we were all sad to see her go after the March Break! See below for some of the activities and learning from late-March and early-April.
Art: Geometric Art
Combining our Art with our 2D Geometry unit, the class was challenged to create unique octagonal tiles, including as many 2D shapes and angles as possible. The class created a set of 2 tiles, one showing their 2D Geometry knowledge and the other displaying their art skills. Students took their time to make sure their shapes and colours were symmetrical.
Math: Multiplication Strategies
We have started our multiplication unit, by solving problems using different strategies. We have used repeated addition, pictures, arrays and partial products.
Practicing Arrays
Practicing Partial Products
Social Studies: Ancient Civilizations
We have started our next Social Studies unit on Ancient Civilization. We began the unit by sharing our current knowledge of ancient civilizations followed by exploring some books and asking juicy questions and and coming up with some wonderings. Next, we spent some time practicing our research skills as a whole class, such as using features of non-fiction text, summarizing, using our own words and jot form note taking. Students are currently working in small groups to research one Ancient Civilization and one topic (i.e. Family Life in Ancient Rome, Beliefs/Religious Practice in Ancient Egypt). Moving forwards, students will be creating "Mini Museums" by researching 2 Ancient Civilizations and discovering similarities and differences between them and present day Canada.
SPIRIT WEEK
Portable 1 definitely had a lot of spirit last week! From movie characters, to crazy hair and then ending the week with hockey jerseys, it was a fun filled week!
Learning Buddies: Story Writing
This week we played "Roll A Story" with our Learning Buddies. Students rolled a dice to determine different elements of their story (i.e. character, setting, problem). Grade 4 students worked well with their Learning Buddy to come up with some very filly and funny stories! We can't wait to continue story writing and storytelling activities in the upcoming weeks!
Language/Art: Spring Cinquain
With Spring here (well....sort of!), students wrote spring poems. Using the template of a cinquain they brainstormed synonyms, adjectives, and sentences with 6 and 8 syllables. They then peer edited with their classmates to make sure they had followed the correct syllable pattern and included proper spelling and punctuation. Finally, students typed up their poems and chose the font, size and layout followed by adding a spring drawing.
"No Internet Dinosaur Math Game"
When the internet goes down, instead of freaking out you play the "No Internet Dinosaur Math Game" obviously! Students took turns controlling the dinosaur (after I had a little fun myself!) and then based on the highscores, they were asked to solve different Math problems (i.e. add, multiply, subtract). Let's just say my high score was beat pretty quickly!
Blue and White Toronto Maple Leafs Day!
