It is with a very sad heart that I write this post.
I have been called away to teach Resource and Methods at Bayside Middle School. I was very lucky to have a chance to say goodbye today at school, and I will miss this class tremendously. It has been a wonderful 3.5 months, and I know that they will be in great hands with Mrs. Hanson.
If you ever need or want to contact me, feel free to leave a comment!
Farewell!
Today we did an activity on elapsed time. Here are the answers we came up with in our chart:
The class has been begging me to add some of the videos we’ve done in French to the blog, so here is one of our favourites!
What a busy Monday today was!
We started out with preparing for a Math game. It takes a lot of work as we have to cut out 36 arrays of different sizes from grid paper. We will be playing the game over the next few days as we have a chance to finish putting it all together!
After recess, we took a look at our blog. We’ve received comments from Arizona and South Korea! We decided to reply to comments as a class, and we even took a look at some of their blogs. There’s some really cool things going on!
After lunch we read “The Tiny Kite of Eddie Wing” with partners. We practiced the reading strategy of checking for understanding as we read, and then we wrote in our journals about what the qualities of a good listener
At Music time, we started to prepare for the Christmas concert! We will be able to spend a little more time practicing for this as a class in the coming weeks, and will keep you up to date on our song (Surfin’ the Web)
Today we took some time to work on the unit review on place value, addition and subtraction. I know that sometimes parents can get really confused when their children are doing Math in a whole new way, so here is a little parent tutorial for you!
Let’s say you are given the question 3975 – 2896.
The first step is to look at the thousands place. In this case, it is 3000 – 2000.
Which of course equals 1000. From there, we move on to the hundreds place, which is 900 – 800. This equals 100, and so we add that to our previous answer to get 1100:
Next we subtract the tens column. This will be 70 – 90. Up until now, many students have been told that this is impossible, but of course it’s possible! The answer is -20 (or negative 20)! When we subtract that 20 (we subtract because the answer is negative) we get the following:
Finally, it’s time to subtract the numbers in the ones place (5 – 6). Again, this is a negative number (-1) so we subtract as follows to get the correct answer:
And that is how to subtract without worrying about crossing out numbers doing regrouping. To minds that have always been taught regrouping, it may seem complicated, however this method is built upon the basics of place value, and a strong understanding of this method helps students as they move forward with higher level mathematics, so I would encourage you to see if your child is able to teach you this new method. Please let me know if you are confused at all, and I would be happy to assist you!
Wow, what a day! We are getting ready for our Math test on Friday. We will cover addition and subtraction of numbers up to four digits, as well as dealing with place value and number sense. Homework was assigned to practice for the Math test. I encourage all students to begin working on these today, as we will have time devoted to it in class tomorrow, and I will be working with students individually who may need help understanding something.
Our book orders finally came in, after being disappointed when only Mr. Fleming’s personal order arrived (although really, we were very excited to have tons of new chapter books to read).
Also, we decorated our pumpkins for the pumpkin contest that takes place on Thursday. You can see our completed pumpkins below! We had a blast making them!
Wow! What a day today was!
It was a perfect day to spend outdoors learning about habitats at Elmhurst Outdoors. We went with Mrs. Estey’s class and hiked around with Gig Kierstead as he taught us all about habitats, consumers, and predators, and all sorts of other interesting things.
I got some wonderful pictures, and so did Mrs. Estey, so if you are interested in having some sent to you, feel free to e-mail me at david.fleming@nbed.nb.ca. I would be happy to send them your way. Unfortunately, I am unable to post them here for privacy reasons.
The province of New Brunswick has standards for each grade level in the areas of both reading and writing. The Department of Education has put together this brochure in order to help parents better understand what the reading and writing standards are all about. I highly encourage that you read it!
Wow! It’s been a long time since we’ve updated, mostly because it’s been a very busy few weeks!
Today in Social Studies we made a word cloud based on the explorations of Colin and Julie Angus (and their baby boy Leif). We visited their blog (www.angusadventures.com) and then made this word cloud of words describing their adventure.
Don’t forget that tomorrow is the Terry Fox Walk in the afternoon. All pledge sheets must be returned!
Well it was another great day in grade four!
We had Music and Phys Ed to start out the day, and then we took some time to do Social Studies. We’re looking at explorations this year, and one of the things we are getting ready to start is creating a log of something we want to explore. Some examples could be that we may want to explore for information on another culture, another country, our own ancestors, or even a new invention. We will be starting on this log in the coming weeks. Students should be starting to think about what they would like their log to be about.
In Literacy, we continued to work on building our stamina for Read to Self. We are getting there, for sure!
This afternoon, we went through our routine in French (O Canada, days of the week, calendar, seasons, weather) and then did a quick review of how to introduce yourself (Je m’appelle…) and how to say what grade you’re in (Je suis en quatrieme annee.) Then it was time for Science with Mrs. Estey!
To finish the day off, we did some math. Everyone did really well with the little white boards (plastic plates) and dry erase markers, as we had a quick quiz on adding and subtracting 10 or 100 from various numbers. We also talked about how to model a variety of numbers, and worked in groups. At the end of the day everyone presented.
Also, we were the first class to have all the student data sheets in! Yay us!!!
By the way, in case you were wondering, our agendas have not yet arrived. We will get them soon, and you can use those to communicate as well.
