We kicked off the year with a busy week in fourth grade! As students settled into their homerooms on Monday they were given supplies and got to know their teachers more. We covered some important procedural drills this week including lockdown and fire drill walkthroughs. On Wednesday the grade fours had their first assembly and were officially welcomed to Connect by our community. They were surprised and excited to see photos of them in the “welcome back” video! In humanities this week, grade fours reflected on ideas that fit with our culture of mutual respect by brainstorming what makes a great classmate, and what makes a great teacher. It was a wonderful way to see our personal values come together as a group. We also began thinking about our first inquiry question that will guide our reading study over the course of the year: “what do good readers do?” Students took a reading survey and reflected on strategies they already use when they read. Later in the week we continued our focus on reading by shifted our thinking towards the joys of literature by watching the short film: “Fantastic flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.” After the film, students working in small groups and rotated to stations with different guiding questions. The ideas was for students to begin developing collaboration skills through sharing ideas and building on one another’s thoughts. This week in science we have been working on our sketching skills. We have been practicing the five different types of drawings; Blind Contour, Modified Contour, Quick Gesture Sketches, Diagrammatic Drawing, and Finished Drawing. We will continue to practice these styles of drawing in order to improve our ability to capture detail. Leonardo Da Vinci once said that to draw something is to know it. The students have been drawing from life and using their observation skills to become scientists and discover the world around them. Today student shad the opportunity to visit the Lakeview Community Garden and choose a plant to draw. The students were encouraged to add enough detail to their drawing and written observations, so that other students would be able to guess their plant without looking at at.
This week in mathematics students in grade 4 have been exploring pattern searching and problem solving. This weeks problem required that students colour circles in the hexagon in such a manner that the same colour is not next to each other. Students recorded their problem solving strategies and shared them. We observed that there were many ways of looking at the problem and applying strategies. If a “mistake” was made, we studied it, and learned from it, to understand the pattern more deeply.
1 Comment
Melissa
9/10/2016 03:51:00 pm
Looks like a great start to the year for the grade 4's.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2017
Categories |