Today was beautiful day for learning! We enjoyed our first of three bonus Physical education sessions this week riding around with the Cycling BC program!
In Math we continued working with decimals. Then we had more research and hands-on creation time for our playground design projects and time travelling board games.
In Language Arts we had a lesson to learn to identify the difference between text that is written in past tense versus the present tense.
A common tendency for young writers is to unknowingly flip back and forth between past and present tense when writing stories, which leads to confusion for the reader. We worked together to edit a piece of text to ensure consistency as a past tense story.
On Friday our students enjoyed a dynamic “Career Day” event in the gym. We had four mystery professionals take the stage and students had the opportunity to ask “Yes/No” questions about the nature of their work until they amassed enough information to make good guesses about what each presenter’s job is. Then students got up close to the presentation booths of each profession to ask more questions and see the tools of their trades.
Today we had a wonderful first session with Mr. Churchill, an amazing Chess coach who led our class though our powerful first strategy and tactics session. We will now have the privilege of spending every Monday from 9am-10am in these chess lessons, which help students to sharpen their logical-reasoning skills and learn many transferable life skills.
It was wonderful to see so many folks enjoying our classroom and celebrating our students learning yesterday in Student-Led Conferences! Thank you for sharing this time with us!
Today became extra special when FOUR EAGLES spent several minutes swooping low over our school! Everyone was thrilled!
Here are some more highlights of our recent learning…
In Math, students have continued to explore identifying, comparing, sorting, adding and subtracting decimals. We try to do this in hands-on ways where possible—students have enjoyed our “Decimal Boxing Match” game lately.
We have also started working with polygons: identifying and classifying.
In Language Arts, we continue to edit and polish the time travelling cat stories. As well, we returned to our learning of “parts of speech” by having silly fun with “Mad Libs”. Lots of laughs!
As well, our room is brimming with cardboard projects and creativity since we have students doing their playground design inquiry, board game design project, and “Time Machine” building!
We have also continued our “SEL” (Social Emotional Learning) lessons with Mrs. Ritchie to explore our emotions, self-regulation strategies, and communication skills.
HOMEWORK: Please re-watch this video with a family member. Then discuss your own ideas for a playground design and the steps you could take to research, create plans, and build a model to communicate your ideas to others.
Hello, division 4 families!
In the week of May 15-18th, our whole school will engage in a fun “Maker Challenge” where students can work together in partners or small group to design a playground, and build a model of it using cardboard, recyclable materials, paints, tape, glue etc.
This fun creative exploration will tap into grade 4/ 5 curriculum in ADST (design process), Science (Simple Machines), Math (Measurement, Money), Art (3D Sculpture), and Social Studies (Research Skills, Ethical Decision-Making), and Language Arts (Oral Language Skill used during presentations).
The students in our class have already been exploring strategies for building with cardboard in our ADST program through making pieces to contribute to our class “time machine”. As well, they are making “time travel”-themed board games in Social Studies using many of these same techniques.
Our hope with these explorations and our “Maker Challenge” is to empower students with the skills, techniques and inspiration to take on their own creative projects, and get a glimpse of where true creative inquiry can lead.
I created the video above to illustrate for students a vision for how they could continue a playground design inquiry on their own, if they so desired—perhaps as an enrichment project or something fun to focus on during the summer.
Disclaimer: The video is an example of IN DEPTH inquiry (i.e. I don’t expect students to go to this level this school year—yet I still wanted to show them the path forward for how they could take what I’ve taught them to build upon their skills on their own in a “Personal Interest Project” format.).
HOMEWORK: Please re-watch the above video as a way to provoke discussion on the following questions: What ideas do you have for your own playground design project? The boy in the video, Marcus, did a personal interest project about designing playgrounds—if you could do your own personal interest project, what topic might you like to explore?
We hope this blog has been a helpful way for you to feel informed and connected to your child’s learning this school year. Yet, here is another fun opportunity…
We are excited to open our classroom to you and your child this Wednesday, May 3rd from 2:50pm to 6:00pm for STUDENT-LED CONFERENCES. This is an “Open House”-style event with no set appointment times.
These conferences are led by students, and I will be in the room to welcome you, smile, and join you in feeling proud of your child! (For confidentiality reasons, I will not be able to use this time to discuss your child’s performance or needs since the room will be busy. However, please feel free to email to request an individual appointment if needed.)
Arrive when you can, but please note the classroom will be especially busy between 5-6pm. The event ends at 6pm sharp. (However, please feel free to visit our class another time if that works better with your schedule, and/or ask your child to bring home their work to do a “student led conference” at home if you like.)
Using the checklist below, students have practiced being a conference host by role-playing with their classmates. Below is a sneak peek at the plan for the conferences…
Today we had a blast with our ADST cardboard challenge that our librarian, Ms. Mueller, facilitated. Thank you so much for bringing in cardboard! The challenge was to use the design process to come up with an idea for a “robot” that could solve a problem. Students used cardboard and special “safety cutters”, bread clips, twist ties, elastics, and creativity to make model robots.
In Math, we are continuing to learn about fractions, while also exploring the topics of decimals and money. We have been using peer support activities, discussion, games, colourful manipulatives, and a variety of videos to help us understand the concepts.
In Science, we just wrapped up a unit on the Circulatory System.
In Language Arts, we have been continuing with our class novel study of “Time Cat”, by Lloyd Alexander. Taking inspiration from that story, students have invested lots of creativity and time into writing their own stories about time travelling cats. We are emphasizing a thorough and facilitated proofreading process that involves passing story drafts by multiple editing partners for specific feedback. We have discussed how all writers need editing support and that this is an important learning process itself—not just for the purpose of perfecting a story.
Today the grade 5s will be bringing home a information sheet and permission form about their upcoming SCIENCE WORLD FIELD TRIP!
All grade 5s in the school are invited to attend. The trip will be supervised by Ms. Tessemaker, Mr. Purnell, Ms. Williams, and a number of parent/guardian volunteers. (Ms. Poirier will stay in Victoria with the grade 4 students and take them to Willows Beach for a fun day with all the school’s grade 4 students; there will be more information on this in May.)
Please read over the paperwork coming home today and reach out if you have questions.
Today we began our new unit on fractions. Please see the videos and questions below to get a sense of our math learning today.
In Language Arts, we enjoyed a beautifully illustrated retelling of an Inuit story, “The Orphan and the Polar Bear”. We also reviewed our learning of how to correctly use quotation marks when writing dialogue in stories.
In the afternoon, the grade fives went on a field trip skating at Oak Bay Rec, while the grade fours enjoyed a gym class and then we turned our class into a “dojo” for an introduction to karate. We learned about this history of this martial art and practiced some stretching and safety principles and techniques for a correctly formed straight punch.
All martial arts practiced in our class are strictly non-contact, the emphasis of our learning is self-discipline, self-confidence, self-defence, and safety.
Students also enjoyed a bit of time today to show off their “freestyle” fitness moves! It’s so fun to be active in many different ways!
Today our class travelled to the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area for a special day of outdoor learning in Science and Social Studies.
The Greater Victoria Water Supply Area is a large forested environment that is the source of our region’s tap water and that is generally restricted access.
It’s amazing to think that those two pipes deliver all of the water in the CRD!
Students saw the water supply reservoir and dam and learned how water gets from the reservoir to their taps and the systems in place to provide safe drinking water. Students also explored and learned about the watershed ecosystem, climate, sustainability, and the importance of personal and social responsibility for drinking water.
There was so much learn and some favourite activities included the “reservoir race” water gun challenge, the scavenger hunt to find native plants, the suspension bridge, and a forest firefighter relay!
It was meaningful to see and learn about the connections between the water collection points and the important technical equipment involved in disinfecting water at the UV treatment facility…before this valuable resource arrives in our taps at home!
A huge thank you to our kind and knowledgeable tour guides, Kathy and Claire, as well as our parent volunteers, Matt and Melissa! We appreciate you supporting our learning!
Here are some more highlights from our recent learning. Yesterday morning we enjoyed some connections to the PHE and Career Ed. curriculum through a visit from police officers from the Victoria Police Department. They gave us life-saving safety tips and inspired us to think about how we can work together to keep our city safe—it was a useful insight into the law enforcement profession as well.
Yesterday afternoon we had our school’s LST teacher Mrs. Ritchie present a workshop to us on “wellness”, which explored concepts related to mental, physical, and emotional health and identifying zones of regulation.
We also continued our “biome diorama presentations” and learned so much from our hardworking, creative classmates!
In Language Arts, we have continue our novel study on the book “Time Cat”, while also learning more about narrative structure and different types of conflict in stories. Students also had a chance to put their learning into practice with more oral storytelling in small groups using cat figurines for inspiration.
In Math, we are wrapping up our “Perimeter & Area” unit, and students have been doing various quizzes and assessments. Please see previous posts for tutorial videos examples of questions.
Tiffany Poirier 