Tips of the Week March 30- April 2

This week and next will be short weeks with Friday AND Monday being holidays. Students return to school on Tuesday, April 7th (Day 3). To all families that celebrate Easter, Happy Easter to you!

*Please note the addition of the weekly spelling words in the tab to the right.

Math- 
Grade 4s have received their first multiplication quiz back (and marked). Please review your child's quiz with them and sign and return to school. This Friday's quiz will be the 2 and 3 times tables to 12.

Grade 3s- EQAO homework is due tomorrow. New homework will come home on Friday (please see full schedule inside EQAO folder for more details). Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

This week as a whole class we will be discussing 3 Dimensional shapes and their attributes, as well as terms such as congruent and symmetrical. We will be using rulers to draw lines through figure to identify whether or not the are symmetrical.
                                                       



Language- This week we are focusing on descriptive writing in our take-home poetry homework. Please help your child use adjectives and adverbs to clearly describe their April fool's 'fun' in their poetry homework.

In class, we will be working on persuasive writing. Here is a checklist for practicing persuasive writing at home (this can be done orally or in writing at home for practice):


Stay tuned for updates from the Library (Media Literacy and Social Studies)!

Have fun working and being together!

Tips of the Week March 23- 27

Welcome back everyone!

It was wonderful to hear so many stories this morning about students' travels near and far. Many interesting remnants were shared, including sand dollars, photos, ticket stubs and much more!

Pizza orders will be sent home today and are to be returned by FRIDAY.

Scholastic orders were due today. Late orders will be accepted until Wednesday (latest please).

Math- Grade 4s: As mentioned before the break, this week we will begin a WEEKLY Multiplication Quiz for Grade 4 students.

On Mondays, students will be assigned 2 times tables, and will be quizzed on their understanding of those 2 times tables on Fridays.

This week, Grade 4s are asked to study the 0 and 1 times tables up to 12 (e.g. up to: 0 x 12 = 0, and 1 x 12 = 12). Next week will be the 2 and 3 times tables, the following week the 4 and 5 times tables, and so on, up to the 12 times table.

I have provided a BLUE study sheet for students to use for their at-home studies. I will be sending home the quiz results every Monday to be signed (regardless of the grade), to acknowledge that it has been received at home. Thank you kindly for your continued support!

Grade 3s: Grade 3 students will begin their weekly EQAO homework beginning on Friday.

In addition to our in-school practice, each week grade 3 students will be receiving a take home EQAO question.  These questions are authentic as they have been taken from previous years’ tests.  Students are expected to apply the skills and strategies they are learning in class when completing this homework. Though students are to complete the work independently, parents are strongly encouraged to sit with their child and help them work through the question(s).  Details of strategies used in class and other ways to support your child at home will be outlined in the take-home EQAO folder.

EQAO folders/ homework will be taken home Fridays, and will be due at school on Tuesdays.

In class this week we will continue to work on our Geometry unit, specifically comparing and contrasting polygons and quadrilaterals. If time permits, we will be moving on  (within our unit) to classifying and comparing various 3 Dimensional shapes, based on their attributes.

Language- Though editing and checking our work carefully is always a focus, we are also focusing this week on main idea. Students will be working on identifying the main idea within stories both read and heard aloud. We will be using a variety of resources (flyers/ ads, novels, articles/ newspaper, etc.) as the sources from which we will be looking for the main ideas. 

It is important to note that students often get confused between what is the MAIN IDEA and what are the SUPPORTING DETAILS.

After some practice identifying main idea, our goal will be to use that ability to more concisely and effectively relay our own messages, whether it be sharing aloud during remnant circle, writing, or even talking casually with a friend or family member.   

After watching television, reading a book together or even simply having a conversation, ask your child some or all of these questions:

• Do the pictures provide clues?
• Are there boldfaced headings or titles? (these may contain the topic and/or main idea)
• Have you listened/ (or read) carefully to the first and last sentences in the paragraph? (these are usually helpful, e.g. in paragraph writing this is where we state the focus/ topic)
• Have you noticed any repeating words? ( these often indicate the topic)
• Are there significant details that all point to the same issue/topic?
• What is the text 'mostly about'?

Have fun working and being together!

E. Sullivan

MARCH BREAK REMINDER!

Please read the note that will be sent home today regarding upcoming additions to our weekly homework routine.

Over the break, please remember to read with your child everyday and/or encourage them to read independently EVERYDAY. I encourage you to use the Reading at Home page (to the right) to assist with and extend your child's at home reading.

Have a wonderful week together! 

Happy March break! 

Tips of the Week March 9 - 13

Here we are in our last week before the March Break! I wish everyone a wonderful week together, and just a reminder that school is back in on Monday, March 23rd.

I hope everyone found the NEW Student of the Week Guidelines on the back of our class' March calendar. They are also posted here on our blog as well for future reference.

Language- Today only 6 students had remnants to share in our remnant circle, so we went over the many possibilities of what a 'remnant' can be, and came up with these wonderful ideas:

• a leaf from a walk
• a receipt from grocery shopping with our parents
• a wrapper from a treat 
• a scrap or corner of a box (that contained something we got over the weekend)
• a jelly bean from a game played
• a picture (drawn) of a hockey game
• a printed photo of a trip taken
• a wristband from a weekend spent at a resort or water park

Please continue to read your child's homework listed in their agenda and encourage them to bring a remnant every Monday as a focus for their writing. Thank you in advance for your support with this!

Editing- Our editing task has proven to be quite time consuming and will take us several more days this week. Please encourage your child to bring home items from their portfolio (which houses completed work), including previous journal entries, math exercises and remnant writing so that you can see how their writing is coming along. Ask your child to use the editing checklist (pictured below) to indicate where their errors are, and to make the necessary edits.

Daily 5- We use this program on a weekly basis to work on a variety of literacy skills. Students are divided into small groups (4-5 students per group) based on their reading levels, and visit each of the 5 stations to work on different skills. Each station has a different focus, i.e. spelling and grammar, sentence structure and punctuation, reading strategies, word 'games' that work on various skills, and 'guided reading' with the teacher (where I focus mainly on students' comprehension and decoding skills). (See the Games tab on here on our blog for versions that can be used at home).

Math- This week we will continue our Geometry unit by learning more about angles (right, obtuse and acute) along with 3D figures. We will be classifying both 2D and 3D shapes by their geometric properties (Grade 4- including their angles).

Here are the anchor charts we have been building together in class to use as a reference during our independent work:

Here is one of the word problems we worked on last week: (This was done independently after we had reviewed what we had learned about polygons, and had practiced other word problems both as a whole group and in pairs):

Note that students must thoroughly know the characteristics of various polygons well enough to be able to compare and justify their answer. Students must also have an effective way of displaying their results, i.e. a Venn Diagram, below:

Instead of Different, Same, Different, as a group, we labeled our circles:
Parallelograms (2 sets of parallel sides), 4 sides, All sides equal.

 French- Along with verb conjugation and conversational French,  Grade 4s have been working hard to learn all about French culture in Canada. This past Thursday ALL of the Grade 4s and 5s hosted "Le Carnaval de Parklawn" which included 15 stations such as: a taffy pull, a sugar shack, sledding, snow painting, snow bingo, pin the buttons on Bonhomme, a scavenger hunt, hockey and snow soccer, a snow ball toss, and much , much more! The Carnaval's mascot, Bonhomme even made a grand appearance! Kindergarten up to Grade 6 classes came out to participate in the fun. What a success! The Grade 4s and 5s deserve a huge congratulations for their hard work! FELICITATIONS!

Here are some pictures of the event:

Taffy Pull

Sugar Shack

Bonhomme!

Sledding Course

Pin the Buttons on Bonhomme

Snow Painting

 (Sorry that some are sideways. I'm note sure what happened and can't seem to change it no matter what I try!)

~ Have fun working and being together!~

Tips of the Week- March 2 - 6

Happy March everyone! It's wonderful to know that Spring is on its way! Before we know it, there will be birds chirping, buds blooming, and GREEN GRASS GROWING! :) 

* March Calendar and Student of the Week schedule and expectations will be sent home later this week. Sorry for the delay.

Math- Our Geometry unit has started out smoothly, and we have reviewed the names of polygons, along with comparing polygons to one another.

Great at-home review questions include :

• What is a Polygon?
• What is a shape?
• What characterizes a: Triangle, Square, Rectangle, Pentagon, Hexagon, Octagon, Parallelogram, Rhombus, Trapezoid?

Great at home 'extension' questions include:

• Is a Polygon a shape?
• Can a Rectangle be a Rhombus? Why or why not?
• Can a Triangle be a Trapezoid? Why or why not?
• Can a Parallelogram an Octagon? Why or why not?

Language- Our editing work continues.... We were unable to complete our 'comparison of our own writing' editing activity last week, and therefore will continue this week. Along with editing, we are also working on summarizing our ideas in writing, so that we can relay clear ideas that are concise. Students sometimes write many pages but the idea is 'lost' or is unclear. 

Here is an example of one of the strategies we will be using to help us conceptualize (and execute) the process of summarizing:

"Incredible Shrinking Notes!"

Thank you for signing your child's agenda everyday, for reading our blog, and for your overall continued support! Have fun working and being together!